Many boats will have their masts down at this time of year and this provides the opportunity to take a look at the integrity of your vhf antenna system. It’s a good idea to remove the antenna and take it home for safe keeping. Good quality antennas have a mechanical connection at the base, usually …
Salty John Boat Products has acquired a number of Loos Type A metric rig tension gauges at an extremely low price and I want to pass this opportunity on to my readers. The Type A (91M) handles wire sizes 2.5mm, 3mm and 4mm and is suitable for dinghies and small keel boats. They are available …
Walking through marinas where cruising boats reside you come across some impressive structures created from stainless steel tubing. The radar arch is de rigueur on any self respecting cruising boat these days and this is often combined with davits, solar panel arrays and wind generators. Useful stuff is stainless steel tubing.
Your VHF radio and your AIS receiver or transceiver operate in the marine VHF band which is 156 to 163Mhz. VHF transmissions are almost entirely restricted to ‘line-of-sight’ which means that from the antenna of a boat at sea the radio waves can travel as far as the horizon. In practice radio waves can see …
When there’s foredeck work to be done, such as when anchoring or picking up a mooring, reliable intra-boat communication is vital. But with skipper and crew operating at opposite ends of the boat it can be quite difficult and, particularly with husband and wife teams, fraught with consequential damages. (Yes, this post is about intra-boat …
Ships have derricks to hoist cargo aboard and our cruising boats can certainly benefit from a similar convenience. We need to hoist provisions aboard, the outboard motor, bulky sail bags and countless other heavy and awkward loads. On sailing boats you have a ready made derrick in the form of your boom. It’s a good …
During our stay in south Florida we took the opportunity to visit Lovers Key. It comprises four barrier islands and was at one time only accessible by boat, attracting lovers to its secluded beach to do what lovers do. Now it’s a state park and you can drive to it – there’s a small entrance …
One of the greatest gifts to the cruising sailor was the introduction of affordable GPS units. How many wannabe cruisers headed off into the wide blue yonder because they now had a reliable means of fixing their position is anyone’s guess but I’ll bet it’s a large number. It was President Ronald Reagan who made …
Not long after you begin a life on the ocean waves, cruising full time on a small boat, you will start to notice symptoms of mental disorder directly related to this new life style. Most commonly it relates to having been deprived of a plug-in electricity supply: Ampaphobia is an obsession with hoarding battery capacity. The …
On deck stepped masts the cables for the masthead instruments, antennae and lighting have to leave the mast at deck level and then travel through the deck to their destination below. This has to be achieved without allowing water below decks along with the cables. One way to do this is to terminate each cable …