Marine Electronics

You’ve been bitten by the sailing bug and every spare minute is spent searching online for that perfect vessel. You’ve narrowed it down to...

Lightning is an anomaly: It strikes wherever and whenever it wants. In my case, it struck me and by boat 200 miles south of...

Lithium is cool. Your cell phone uses it. Cameras, laptops, flashlights … everything. But “cool” is not a reason. Fire is not a big...

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.

AIS (automatic identification system) transponders put out a signal that describes your boat and what it is doing to other ships. It also receives...

In this short article I want to chat about ideas for making the radio bombproof in an emergency. I haven’t “invented” any of these...

My dream to sail from New England to the Bahamas involved a trip down the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway (ICW), also known as “the ditch”...

Autopilot is not autodrive. The International Rules of the Road (COLREGS) makes your responsibility clear: You must keep watch. There are no exemptions for...

If you own a cruising boat, you will have to learn to be an electrician (in addition to a painter, a detailer, a mechanic,...

The practical aspects of your solar panel system will be governed by the design and size of your sailboat, your overall project budget (%...