This entry is inspired by Edson’s Miami introduction of a Manual Radar Leveling Kit that looks neat to me. I’ve seen pole mounts like this before — either custom fabricated or made by less familiar companies like Garhauer — and they struck me as a simple and economical way to deal with the issue of decreased radar performance due to boat heel. But before discussing the merits of manual (or electric) leveling mechanisms versus the many self-leveling mounts, I probably ought to address the fact that some sailors reject the whole notion of radar leveling as hokum!…

Another area of boating that may benefit from ever smaller and cheaper wireless computing components is video cameras used for monitoring and just plain fun. It may seem crazy to put a baby product on Panbo but not when you check out the specs of the Withing Smart Baby Monitor. That’s a remotely controlled hi-res pan/tilt/zoom camera in that ipodish box seen above and it can connect to multiple iThing viewer/controllers via Bluetooth, local WiFi, or the Internet. It also has stereo microphones and a temperature/humidity sensor, and it can detect motion and noise anomolies. And if any of these multiple remote monitoring features lead you to think that your boat is unhappy, you can transmit a little sweet talk or play it a lullaby!…