As I type this, the sores on my hands are healing, but the memories of a recent bout of outboard motor troubleshooting are still raw. It all began innocently enough. The motor sprang to life after a winter of disuse. The usual winterization and spring revitalization chores had been taken care of: cooling system flush, oil change, cylinder misting, new plugs, fresh filters, etc. The throaty roar of the motor was accompanied by a deep groan of my own as I watched in vain for the spray of water from the proper orifice. It was time for Step 1 in the troubleshooting sequence. Time to sit down, have a soothing beverage and think through the situation — not just do the last thing I did to the motor, or the…
From Ocean Navigator #128 March/April 2003 Any navigator who has sweated across a busy shipping lane at night or in the fog has longed for one of the holy grails of navigation - an accurate chart overlaid with a combination of positioning information and detailed radar information. Until recently, this instrument integration was only a dream, but several companies have now introduced equipment and software that accomplish this difficult task and offer additional features and capabilities. Electronic-chart and marine-electronics companies now offer the capability to view a composite image that shows a chart with a radar image overlay. At left is an example from Raymarine. Image Credit: Courtesy Raymarine There are three basic approaches to achieving radar/chart-plotter/GPS overlay and integration. Furuno and Raymarine have created networked instrument systems that…
The caption for the illustration on page 58 of my article on streaming a drogue from a catamaran offshore ("Learn by doing," Issue No. 92, Sept./Oct. 1998) was incorrect. It stated that a drogue needs to be in the same part of the wave train as the boat (e.g., the drogue should be in the crest of the wave if your boat is in the crest). According to the Drag Device Database by Victor Shane, "Try to position the drogue behind a wave so it will not pull out. When the boat is moving down a crest the drogue should be behind a matching crest so that it is being pulled through the meaty part of the wave and not pulled into thin air." You really want the drogue in…
I was delighted with the story by John Kettewell about his successful deployment of a drogue during a Force 9 gale ("Learn by doing," Issue No. 92, Sept./Oct.). I read all I can about situations like this, because one day it will be my turn, too. I am especially interested in the fact that the crew originally tried to deploy the chute off the bow of the vessel. My personal summary of all I have read, tempered with my moderate experience at sea in a catamaran, is that lying a-hull is an invitation for a rollover in a monohull, or in a multihull with too much lateral resistance. A big parachute deployed from the bow, as the crew of Echo tried to do, makes sense when you are trapped and…
Early November found us in Beaufort, N.C., preparing to head south to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We hoped the offshore passage to St. Thomas would take about 10 days. We were aboard Echo, a 32-foot Marc Louis Rifflart-designed catamaran. By modern standards she was heavy and slow, but her comfortable accommodations and strength made for a good voyaging boat. Echo had already been across the Atlantic to South America and then up the east coast of North America to Canada. Since my wife and I had purchased her on Lake Champlain, we had replaced her anchoring gear, installed a Bimini over the cockpit, replaced the outboard auxiliary (after the old one died in Delaware Bay), replaced the roller-furling jib, loaded her up with several tons of voyaging gear and long-term…
Any sailor who has hunched over a single sideband radio while struggling to tune in station November Mike November (NMN) to get the voice forecast — especially with the boat bouncing as the weather builds — understands the appeal of an automatic receiver that receives a text version of forecasts and navigational warnings. In a nutshell, that's what Navigational Telex (Navtex) does. Navtex receivers with LCD screens, like the ICS Nav6 from Northern Airborne Technology, display current messages and store previous messages in memory so they can be recalled if necessary. Worldwide broadcasts on the main frequency are in English, while an alternative frequency allows for more localized, national forecasts and urgent marine safety warnings in local languages. And because the system is one of the primary components of the…
In this age of the ubiquitous autopilot, the question might be raised: Why would a voyager be interested in a wind-vane self-steering unit? The answer is as simple as the reason why many people voyage in the first place self-reliance. Many of us hand over control of our voyaging homes to mysterious black boxes driving motors and hydraulic rams inside equally mysterious black cases, while sensing the correct magnetic direction to steer via hidden compass. There is tremendous appeal to simply setting a course on a dial or keypad and then sitting back while the electrons do all the work. When everything is working right, there is nothing finer. However, anything that relies on electricity in a saltwater environment will fail at some time or another. It is usually not…
To the editor: The recent article by John Kettlewell on Iridium satphones ("Data via satphone," Issue No. 155, July/August 2006) reminded me of our experience with service providers in the South Pacific. One of the Iridium providers mentioned AST and UUPlus. We used UUPlus across the Pacific from Panama to New Zealand with excellent results. We let UUPlus lapse and we ran out of minutes on the Iridium just as we arrived in New Zealand. Eight months later we were getting ready to leave New Zealand for Australia via New Caledonia. I purchased minutes from a provider in Wellington, New Zealand, and when I got the SIMM card, we also received a disc with the AST e-mail system on it. I decided to use AST and got it working using…
I am writing because I am impressed, not only with John Kettlewell's article on drogue deployment ("Learn by doing," Issue No. 92, September/October 1998), but with the quality of articles you publish in general. My first reaction to Mr. Kettlewell's article was horror! The conditions portrayed in the article are not the type in which one should be learning to do anything safety related. Then I started asking questions of myself: Have I ever taken the time to practice setting a sea anchor or drogue? Have I ensured that such devices are readily accessible? Nobody anticipates the need for such devices, so we pack them away in the depths of our lockers. Mr. Kettlewell presumably read the instruction pamphlet ahead of time (reading instruction manuals is something too few people…
Solar panels seem like the perfect solution to producing electricity on board a boat. They have no moving parts, make no noise, and the power is free. Like most things in life, however, solar panels represent a series of trade-offs. And even though sunlight is free, the purchase price of solar panels, plus installation costs, can represent a sizable up-front expense that must be factored into any cost equation. The advantages of solar panels can be demonstrated by recounting the exploits of one voyaging boat. A few years ago my wife and I were anchored in Charlotte Amalie in the U.S. Virgin Islands, having just completed a rough offshore passage from North Carolina. A beautiful double-ended voyaging sailboat tacked into the crowded anchorage and dropped anchor nearby. At first I…
