Tips, Tricks & Thoughts Comes Of Age
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Changes to the menu and integrating two types of content. Tell us how you like it.
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Spade Anchor Failure, Update and Summary
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A follow-up, with some significant changes, to our article on a failed Spade anchor.
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Weather Analysis—Hardware and Software
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Which hardware and software should we use for weather downloading and analysis? Lots of good stuff out there. Here’s how to choose.
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Bilge Alarms And Monitoring
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Very few boats have a good automated bilge pump and flooding alarm system. Let’s fix that.
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Bent Spade Anchor Analysis
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When an anchor many of us have come to trust over two decades fails catastrophically, it’s time to think about why and what we can learn.
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John’s Tips, Tricks and Thoughts—September and October
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Seven posts including a couple that are particularly actionable.
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9 Tips to Assess Weather Forecast Accuracy
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It’s comforting to believe that weather forecasts are always right, but we all know that’s not true. Here’s how to assess the chances that a given forecast will be wrong in a bad way.
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Gone Camping
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Phyllis and I will be away on vacation (holiday) next week, RV camping with my daughter and her family.
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Easily Driven Boats Are Better
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John explains one of the most important criteria for selecting an offshore voyaging boat, and one of the most ignored.
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Sailing a New-To-Us Boat Home—What Could Go Wrong?
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Colin and Louise serve up a master class on delivering an older and long-unsailed boat through difficult waters and adverse weather, and even have fun doing it.
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Replacing Diesel-Generated Electricity With Renewables, Part 2—Case Studies
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So far in this series of chapters we have been looking at the benefits and drawbacks of the renewable options. Now let’s pull it all together.
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Replacing Diesel-Generated Electricity With Renewables, Part 1—Loads and Options
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Can we replace diesel fuel generation (main engine or separate) with wind, solar and/or hydrogenerators?
Yes, but there’s stuff to know to avoid wasted money and disappointment.
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Getting Ready For Lee
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Phyllis and I just finished getting ready for Hurricane Lee. All going well, we will only get tropical storm-force winds here, but who knows, particularly since we are in the dangerous semicircle. We could also get some pretty nasty surge out of this, but AAC World Headquarters is up a
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How Weight Affects Boat Performance and Motion Comfort
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It’s tempting to think that the more cool stuff a boat has, the better she is for cruising, but that approach can make the boat slow and uncomfortable.
Eric explains how to tell when adding gear has gone too far.
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John’s Tips Tricks and Thoughts—August
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Nine posts this month: Some tips, some tricks and some thoughts.
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New Tips, Tricks and Thoughts
Beware AI Generated Weather Maps
I have repeatedly recommended looking at forecaster generated weather maps, as well as GRIBs, to ...
WeatherBeware Lithium Battery Sales
In the last few weeks I have been getting a series of emails from Battle ...
electricalLife-Threatening Seasickness?
I was very sad to read of the recent death of a crew member on ...
seasicknessWind Generators Can Be Dangerous
A few weeks ago I wrote an article on renewables in which I opined that ...
electricalsafetyKilowatts and Horsepower
I’m as concerned about climate change as anyone, and maybe more than most, but obfuscation ...
electricalmotorboatsCool Motorboat
A few years ago I got interested in efficient motorboats and wrote several articles on ...
motorboatsAn Even Better Alternator Regulator?
There has been a lot of excitement recently about the release of a new alternator ...
electricalOriginal Iridium GO! Still a Better Deal Than Exec
There’s a headline to provoke screams and tearing of hair. After all, the new Iridium ...
electronicsWeatherDo We Need A $10,000 Plotter?
I just read a post over at Panbo on Garmin’s new top-of-the-line plotters that start ...
electronicsnavigationNo, Lithium Batteries Don’t Burn Boats
Every so often, someone sends me a link to this article, originally published in Professional ...
electricalsafetyBlocking Highs, Love ’em Or Hate ’em
As I write, the North Atlantic is a weather hot-mess with hurricanes and gales dotted ...
WeatherCool Supplemental Anchor Light
Some years ago Phyllis and I found out the hard way, when another yacht hit ...
anchoringsafetySneaky Power Users
We were on the boat for a couple of days last weekend and one evening ...
electricalSail Heel Angle
The late, great—I know it’s a cliché but he was—Buddy Melges, when asked how to ...
Sailing skillsNever Forget The Go-To-Sea Option
Have a quick read of this account of a race crew getting hit by a ...
seamanship