Mailport & PS Advisor

There used to be a product available called CARD. I believe it was short for Collision Avoidance Radar Detector. As I understand it, it picked up the signal of a ship using its radar and had a nifty little display in the shape of a ship to show you what sector the ship was in, relative to you, and a means to interpret its distance away. I cannot find info on the unit anywhere, and since I do not have radar on our boat, I thought it would be a good addition. Do you have any knowledge of it? Have you reviewed it?

During our testing a of a harness without a crotch strap, the harness did ride up on the victim, but there was no tendency for the wearer to slip out. If the waist strap is tighter than the wearers shoulder width, its not possible for him to slip out. This answer begs the question: What about people whose tummy is wider than their shoulders? Harness waist belts should be worn as taut as is comfortable. If that practice is followed, then crotch straps should not be needed.

Regarding your search for better Wi-Fi connections: The key to wireless onboard computing is transmit power and antenna gain. The SMC 2532W-B 802.11b PCMCIA card has four times the normal power level. You can combine that with antennas of increasing gain to increase range. The SMC ANT-OM5 gives a 5-dB gain with an integrated antenna . . .

Wet-storing a boat over the winter has its pros and cons. Blistering is always more prevalent on boats that remain wet-stored year-round. If left unattended, these blisters usually increase in depth and diameter. Hauling a vessel does lessen the contact with water, but in winter climates that are below freezing, the issue of expansion-caused micro cracking becomes a factor to consider. One answer is barrier coating, which at least lessens the porosity of the surface and slows, if not stops, moisture intrusion.

Based on your recent ranking of Franmar Soy Strip as the top-rated antifouling stripper ("Stripper Showdown," November 2006), I purchased two gallons of that product to remove four coats of six-year-old Interlux Micron Extra self-polishing paint that we had applied over Interlux Interprotect 2000E on our Caliber 33. I tried several methods of using the Soy Strip from leaving it on for six hours covered with plastic wrap, to scraping it off after one hour and I found that the Soy Strip was totally inadequate in removing this paint.

What kind of glue do you use when that faux leather or woven liner starts falling off the cabin top? The best solution may be no glue at all.

I am writing in reference to the article "Dinghy Engines," which appeared in the December 2006 issue. As a longtime subscriber, I read the article with interest, anticipating your usual thorough job of analysis and critical insight. I realized, however, that nowhere in the article does your analysis address how robust the cooling systems are in the engines you tested.

Whether it is, as the iceboaters say "soft water" or "hard water," the principles are exactly the same. However, because when iceboating the apparent wind behaves so much more radically, the sailtrimming techniques are considerably different. By the way, an airplane wing is just a sail turned horizontal; thats why so many airplane pilots own sailboats or iceboats.

Your recent GPS review (Pint-sized Navigators, November 2006) hits the mark. Too often, I encounter new boaters who tend to spend mega-bucks for fancy-schmancy, latest-generation chartplotters that offer no more practical utility than the less-expensive units described in your article. Even the older handheld non-chartplotting GPS receivers (such as the Garmin 48) are fine for many of us.

Here are a few fixes for those clogged water intakes.