Inside Practical Sailor

Over the past 10 years or so, weve highlighted the many advantages and disadvantages of the NMEA 2000 (N2K) marine electronics standard. From a consumers perspective, one of the most obvious advantages of installing N2K electronics is the ability to mix and match components from different manufacturers. While this sounds terrific on paper, we've often run into installation hurdles when trying to get sensors and displays from different manufacturers to play nicely-even those that advertise being N2K-compliant. Our foray into the world of wind systems has yielded a much more positive NMEA 2000 experience.

As satellite communication equipment becomes more reasonably priced, more reliable, and more compact, we often hear sailors raise the question, Are single-sideband radios even relevant anymore? As contributing writer Capt. Frank Lanier points out, the question is easy to answer. Here is an excerpt from his forthcoming report on single-sideband radios, which also will look at some of the latest products for simplifying SSB installation.

If youve been following the tragic story of Cheeki Rafiki, the Beneteau First 40.7 that lost its keel with fatal consequences while crossing the Atlantic last week, and youre sailing a production boat with a similar high-aspect, deep-ballast keel, you might be asking yourself, Should I be concerned?

I spent last weekend tuning the rig aboard boatbuilder Robert Helmicks Endeavour 42, Lost Boys, and got a first-hand look at the problems reader Scott Rimmer encountered with his vertical windlass back in 2009. When Helmick's son, Kameron, went to work deploying the anchor, he soon ran into trouble; the chain was jammed in the naval pipe, kinked with hockles. Helmick started plying me with questions about anchor swivels-questions we often get at the magazine.

While Im sure that some of these all natural products are exploiting a vaguely defined marketing niche, I do worry about some of the chemicals found in skin-care products. One of the reasons we're seeing more natural sunscreens is that groups like the Environmental Working Group are taking a fairly strong stand against certain sunscreen ingredients. It recently released a list of sunscreen ingredients and formulas not to bring on vacation, which includes spray sunscreens and sunscreens with oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate.

Hobie asked: Are you near Norfolk or New York?, and I said no to both. He then paused and said: I could sell you one, but if you buy three boats you can be our dealer in that area. . . . My wife was not too pleased with 140 cardboard boxes (each box holding a hull) in our backyard. She had just given birth to our first child three months earlier!

The story of the rescue of a sick 1-year-old girl, her parents, and toddler sister from aboard the boat Rebel Heart last week provoked a storm of controversy over whether ocean voyaging with young children is sensible. One of the reasons that Theresa and I chose not to have and raise children aboard our boat were our own dicey experiences with illness in the tropics. (Our threadbare, vagabond lifestyle at the time raised other salient concerns, as Theresa put it-Im not giving birth in the forepeak!) But if we had decided to cruise with young children, we would have likely avoided long passages and kept pediatric care within close reach.

Be aware that a less-experienced sailors report of a great anchorage with plenty of depth, or statements like We ran aground here! don't do you much good if they fail to include basic info such as their boat's draft, state of the tide, etc. Other sailors' facility reviews should also be taken with a grain of salt. For example: The dockmaster hates Algerian Snaggle-tooth Poodles (like our Fluffy), so were never coming back, and you shouldnt either!

As I edge toward my 200th blog post and my 10th year as the editor of Practical Sailor, Im going to detour briefly from the usual fare to say thanks, to you our readers, and to the loyal group of testers who have brought this publication to where it is today-the top of the heap in its field. This fact was recognized last month at the annual meeting of Boating Writers International, a professional organization of writers, editors, publishers, photographers, broadcasters, public relations specialists, and others in the communications profession associated with the boating industry.

Paint removal using a paint stripper is a little like dental work in that theres no one perfect tool, and getting the job done usually requires a tray full of devices. The arsenal of hand-scraping weapons used during our test of paint strippers ranged in caliber from a lightweight, extra-thin and narrow scraper sharpened to a knifes edge to what old shipwrights referred to as a slick. This heavyweight king of the chisel family was kept sharpened with a whetstone and had the mass to plow into thick paint buildup and peel the substrate evenly.