One Man and His Tropical Sailing Dream
I’m absolutely chuffed to have just learned that USCG Certificates of Documentation can now be renewed for up to five years at a time. This is great news for vessels that go overseas, on extended voyages, or for folks like me who just prefer to spend their time doing things other than paperwork. 🙂 I…
The Balmar Smartgauge is quite simply the most accurate state of charge meter available for lead acid batteries. There’s nothing I can add that hasn’t already been said by Rod Collins in his incredibly thorough and detailed Balmar Smartgauge Battery Monitoring Unit article. There’s also a ton of interesting and useful technical information at Smartgauge’s web…
Guess who got a new set of batteries for her house bank? Three Lifeline GPL-31XTs for 375 amp-hours of juicy goodness. These beasts weight a whopping 75 pounds each, and together constitute roughly 1% of the weight of Sparklemuffin! There’s also a fourth battery for the engine. I’m positively charged with excitement!
Since reading Rescue in the Pacific by Tony Farrington, I’ve been thinking about how to cut away steel wire rope standing rigging in an emergency situation.
There are two questions that science has not yet been–and may not ever be–able to answer.
Yesterday I finally received my McMurdo Smartfind G8 AIS EPIRB, which I’ve been waiting for for a year and a half! (It took a long time to get required regulatory approvals.) This is the most advanced EPIRB on the planet right now. This EPIRB is designed to transmit its emergency distress signals for a minimum of…
Recently the outlet pipe of the lone 24 year old bilge pump aboard Sparklemuffin broke completely off. Better at the dock than halfway to Hawaii, eh? ‘Cuz “if anything is gonna happen, it’s gonna happen out there” as they say. The bilge pump system is super critical for any boat. One of a sailor’s (many) worst…
When I wanted to change my boat’s name, I could not find a simple set of instructions online. The USCG instructions weren’t 100% clear either. So here’s what I did that worked, step by step. Really it’s quite simple, you can complete the forms easily yourself in just a few minutes. Don’t pay someone else…