Safety & Seamanship

Lifesling Goes Throwable

Were safety conscious at Practical Sailor. Readers know that, from the numerous articles about our in-the-water and bench tests. We rarely fail to comment...

Gimbaled Radar Mount Concern

Calypso is equipped with a Questus model 100 backstay-mounted gimbaling radar mount for her Furuno 1831 radar. We have always liked this system, since...

Offshore Log: A West Indian Respite

Calypso arrived in Falmouth Harbor, Antigua, just before Christmas, 1997. She covered the 1,600 nautical miles from Newport, Rhode Island to Antigua in almost...

Offshore Log: Bermuda-bound Trial by Water

We never seem to do things the easy way. In late November, Calypso left New England once again, this time bound first to Bermuda,...

Offshore Log:Do You Know Where Your Emergency Tiller Is?

The great racing sailor, Paul Elvstrom, preferred the superior sensitivity of tiller steering to wheel steering even on larger offshore boats. Elvstrom, however, seems...

Handheld GPS Chart Plotters: Watch Out For That Rock!

Almost all portable GPS receivers include track plotting that may sometimes be confused with electronic charts. The units discussed here, however, have in addition...

Offshore Log:The Whitbread 60s After 20,000 Tortuous Miles At Sea

By the time the nine Whitbread 60s reached Sao Sebastiao, Brazil in late February, they had raced more than 20,000 miles, averaging well over...

ITT Night Vision 260-A Star Among Night Vision Scopes

When the only thing that keeps you from going aground at night is an unlit channel marker buoy, a night-vision device suddenly becomes less...

New Handheld GPS Plotters

No sooner had we wrapped up our review of three GPS plotters in the May 1, 1998 issue than we got a preview of...

Offshore Log:Life With The Little Wonder

The search for potable water is the bane of the long-distance cruisers existence. In the US, we take cheap, easily accessible water of decent...

What Happens When Lightning Hits a Sailboat?

Lightning striking a sailboat sounds like something out of a disaster movie—but what actually happen when it does? In this episode, we break down...

Latest Sailboat Review

Caliber 33 Used Boat Review

The Caliber is a peculiar blend of tradition and innovation, of security and performance, of practicality and pizzazz. All of the owners we heard from were "satisfied." One called the 33 his favorite boat over six decades of sailing.