Belowdecks & Amenities

When cruising the Bahamas, youll need three flags: a yellow quarantine flag, your home countrys flag, and a Bahamian courtesy flag. When nearing your port of entry, hoist the yellow quarantine flag and report to a Customs and Immigration facility as soon as possible after entering Bahamian waters.

There are approximately 32,000 species of fish, including 60 to 70 species of flying fish. Although our interactions with these flying wonders may be limited to deck-clearing duties on the sunrise shift or a thwack in the face during the dog watch, renowned naturalist Steve N.G. Howell dedicated several-hundred hours perched on the bows of boats in the sweltering tropics to capture the unique images featured in the informative The Amazing World of Flyingfish (Princeton University Press, 2014, $11). With 90 color photos shot mainly in the western tropical Pacific and in the Gulf Stream near Cape Hatteras (using a Canon 20D), Flyingfish differentiates two-winged and four-winged flyingfish from fish that merely jump; it outlines species, habitats, and sizes, analyzes flight methods and colors, and offers tools on identifying these butterflies on the water. Howell-author of a half-dozen books on birds, including Hummingbirds of North America and A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America-has been affiliated with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory for 20 years and is currently a senior birding tour leader for WINGS. Howells Flyingfish also addresses the environmental challenges our oceans face and encourages readers to promote environmental awareness and protection. Flyingfish is a good read for information hounds and marine biology buffs.

Our 38-foot catamaran, Josepheline, was built by Lightwave Yachts near Brisbane, Australia. Josepheline draws 3 feet, 6 inches and has a 22-foot beam. It is a fairly conventional design: mini fin keels, two forward queen berths under the bridgedeck, a double berth aft to starboard, and a decent sized shower and head located aft in the port hull. Shes stood the test of time-and distance. Weve cruised about 35,000 nautical miles aboard Josepheline.

General-purpose, relatively inexpensive hose clamps are all over most boats, but there are some applications where using a higher quality, corrosion resistant clamp is critical-such as engine hoses and through-hulls. Most quality clamps are stamped stainless steel, but there are many grades of steel, and making an alloy stainless and corrosion resistant is complicated and costly. You start with iron, which rusts easily, and through multiple processes, you add proportions of elements such as nickel, manganese, molybdenum, and chromium. Different percentages of these elements will improve the desired strength, hardness, and flexibility, as well as corrosion resistance, of the steel.

Enjoying summer nights outdoors with friends got us thinking about options for lighting up the cockpit during the seasons easy evening hours. We found two innovative products that piqued our interests-the Mr. Beams wireless LED lantern and Thermologis JOI candle lantern, which uses thermoelectric energy to produce electrical power from heat-and one do-it-yourself solution using a water bottle.

If you were the young, newly married Ben Harrison, hanging out in San Francisco in 1973 with your beautiful art graduate wife, and you suddenly found yourself heir to $32,000-well, youd be excused for being seduced by teak trailing boards, clipper bows, and bowsprits. It was the 1970s after all, when a good bit of America experienced a collective lapse of judgement.

In recent years, our chain tests (see PS September 2006, July 2007, July 2008, and October 2012 online) were limited to G30 and G43 (high-test) chain. Our conclusions were pretty straightforward: We would avoid stainless steel for several reasons, the most persuasive being its tendency to fail without warning-as our test sample did. Recognizing that corrosion is what ends the life of most chains, we were not convinced that shelling out more money for the extra strength of G43 chain made sense. It lasted no longer than G30.

The value of catenary varies with the depth of the water. In shallower waters, bottom friction replaces gravity as a force of resistance against shock loading.

Our quest for new antifouling paints recently took us into the world of long-life spray-on coatings promoted in the commercial-shipping industry. While the spray-on, thermoplastic composite powder Tefcite may work well on a ship thats moving at 13 knots for most of its working life, it failed surprisingly fast in our static panel tests.

In our previous cabin light reviews (PS, May 2010 and January 2009), the transition from incandescent lighting to fluorescent and finally to LED was favorably noted. Since then, the evolution has turned into a solid-state revolution, and LEDs bolstered by dimmers, touch switches, and watertight seals now own the show. And a clean-sweep conversion to LED cabin lighting can knock out the grotto-like ambiance that haunts many sailboat interiors. Often, its not a problem of having too few lights; its an energy shortfall revolving around too few amperes to spare. An LED makeover is also an opportunity to illuminate the lockers, engine room, and other cave-like confines that cause you to reach for a flashlight and wish for an extra hand to hold it. Not only is the timing right to tap into a new genre of energy-efficient lights, but the product range and pricing offer a gameplan for every budget.