Iridium, great service, but in lieu of EPIRB?
I am the proud owner of an Iridium satellite phone. Could I omit EPIRB from my safety equipment list? I believe that verbally communicating with the Coast Guard (with GPS in hand) is superior to...
Yearly Archive: 2006
Who’s driving that big rig? (#2, he’s asleep!)
OK, it’s not exactly glamorous to drive a cargo ship full of used cars out through Germany’s Keil Canal and than across the Baltic to Lithuania, but it was this unfortunate skipper’s first command. That’s why he couldn’t rest...
Two old guys, and a Garmin, part 2
So I spoke to “the boys” on Saturday; they’d had a great first sail on their own. Good Enough is slippery, as I saw myself (note the 6.3 knots on the GPS, relatively flat seas in background). And,...
Weekend weirdness: a DIY dink-sized car
Marine connection? Hey, this two seater, at under 400 pounds, could fit on the boat deck of a trawler, or even the hybrid power catamaran (though perhaps at the sacrifice of some solar panels)....
Two old guys, and a Garmin, part 1
Multihull sailing fascinates me anyway, but yesterday’s scoot around the Bay was inspirational and momentous. That grinning dude, bigger picture here, with the magnifying lens clipped to his already serious glasses is 73–year-old trimaran designer Jim Brown,...
Simrad GB60, so connected!
Since my first Simrad Glass Bridge post, the company has posted more information plus an 8 page PDF brochure. That’s where I snipped this hind-end shot of its super-connected black box computer (also here in a...
Monitor hoods, they really work
I came across this late 90’s picture of my first ECS set up on Ralph, the boat’s that’s still looking for a new owner, yee scurvy dogs (hey, yesterday was supposedly Talk Like a Pirate Day). That...
QMS, interesting WiFi solution, lousy return policy
Here’s another marine WiFi system, this one QuickerTek’s $1,000 QMS (QuckerTek Marine System). The release and web page are light on specs, but this seems to be a high powered WiFi transceiver bridged to an onboard...
Tender tracking, good for exploring too
With so many megayachts in the world—some with extra large tenders that they have to tow offshore, some with wild and crazy champagne-guzzling jet-ski-riding charter guests—tender tracking is a big deal. The Nobeltec Admiral 9...
Weekend weirdness: hybrid power cat
Some might quibble with “distinctively handsome profile”, but wow what a concept: 6 knots ‘free’ using 6,000 watts of photovoltaic panels laid on the (thus squarish) cabin tops and deck, but if you want to...
