Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) ships—including tankers, passenger vessels and cargo ships over 300 gross tonnage—must be equipped with Automatic Identification Systems (AIS). In the U.S., carriage requirements also includes vessels over 65-feet. AIS can allow you to “see” a distant ship, but is not a substitute for radar.
Marine Electronics
The loss in RF coaxial cable increases substantially and quickly, when there is water intrusion. Coax that uses foam dielectric, like RG8X and LMR type coax, is particularly prone to this problem because the water can quickly propagate along the foam dielectric used in these type...
Sails, Rigging & Deck Gear
We have a love-hate relationship with nylon rope. When it comes to absorbing shock, it offers the best available combination of strength, elasticity, and economy. On the downside, it is sensitive to UV, abrasion when wet, has a low working load limit, and is weakened over time by...
Boat Maintenance
Few pleasures can compare to the warm comfort of curling up with a good book while another winter front blows through. Whether you’re holing up in the Bahamas waiting for the wind to clock, or tucked beside the woodburning cabin stove in Puget Sound, here are some recent...
by Darrell Nicholson on February 13, 2019
Instead of fixing or replacing tired mechanical equipment with new gear, we can often find a less-expensive substitute on the used-gear market. In many cases, this is equipment that is just as good as new gear, if not better than new. The trick is separating the gems from the junk. A poster child for this sort of refit quandary is the old Simpson Lawrence manual windlass, a British-engineered oddity that has long been a source of cruising sailor ire. Commonly found on cruising boats made in the 1980s, these windlasses use a troublesome chain drive rather than a gear drive. This, along with the dissimilar metals used in its various components (cast-steel gypsy, aluminum case, etc.), make these windlasses a poor candidate for rebuilding.
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