Newsletter - Ocean Navigator

23 Apr

Have sewing machine, go sailing

Robert MacFarlaneNewsletter, Voyaging Tips

The tools The sewing machine onboard Beetle is a Sailrite LSZ1, essentially a walking-foot upholstery machine with straight and zig-zag (but not Federal 308, four-point stitch), which handles threads from Tex 30 to 135 for repairs in everything from spinnakers to the mainsail. Fortunately, I have not had to make many sail repairs underway, the exceptions being a damaged light-air staysail and the No. 2 genoa. However, the machine does get used at anchor for building and repairing all sorts of fabric components for the boat: noseeum screens on hatches and companionway, winch covers, mainsail covers, deck awnings, handheld VHF…

22 Apr

Handheld VHF for the Life Raft

Bill MorrisMarine Electronics, Newsletter, Voyaging Tips Newsletter

Probably the worst fear you can face as an offshore sailor is losing your vessel at sea. And while we definitely want to make sure we have a vessel-mounted and personal EPIRB ready to send out a distress signal immediately, we also need some means of communicating with rescue operations should this unthinkable horror ever come to pass. Packing a survival VHF radio in your ditch bag is the best guarantee you will have voice communication with nearby ships. However, the ideal choice for this radio should include the ability to summon help beyond the typical eight-mile range of a…

09 Apr

Hurricanes – Looking back and looking ahead

Ken McKinleyNewsletter, Weather

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced the entrants to the “Hall of Fame” for the 2023 season. It’s not really called the Hall of Fame, but rather it is the WMO Hurricane Committee deciding which names will be retired from the previous season and not used again moving forward. The retirements of names occurs when a system is unusually impactful. Typically this means that the system was quite strong, and that it also impacted a large population. Occasionally, though, a system’s name can be retired even if it was not an unusually strong system, but its impacts were still…

26 Mar

Sailing from Panama to San Diego

Bill MorrisNewsletter, Seamanship & Navigation

Most Pacific sailors and published cruising guides will tell you there are two ways back to Southern California from Panama: a motor bash 3,400 miles along the coast of Central America and then up along Baja, or out to Hawaii, over the Pacific High to San Francisco, and then down the coast, rounding Point Conception (a.k.a. Little Cape Horn). But there is a third way back: a sail from Panama to California via Clipperton Island with very little motoring. Jimmy Cornell’s directions in World Cruising Routes take you directly from Panama out beyond Clipperton Island, and then north until arriving…

09 Feb

Using satellite images

Ocean NavigatorNewsletter, Weather

Satellite imagery provides a great deal of information on past, present, and future weather. Each cloud swirl, streak, and puff can be associated with a particular weather system or phenomenon. And when images are viewed by a trained voyager with a good understanding of weather dynamics, routing and course decisions can be made with confidence. The most important weather element that satellite imagery provides to the voyager is cloud data. Analysis of cloud altitude, shape, and movement goes a long way toward painting what the associated air mass is doing. Clouds are categorized by both their height and shape, with…

12 Jan

Marine Electronics, December 2022

Bill MorrisMarine Electronics, Newsletter

With all the advertising and dockside chatter surrounding satellite cell phones and the cost of monthly plans, it is comforting to know there are still active marine SSB nets for cruisers all around the globe. As a matter of fact, SSB transceivers, along with ham radios, are still the norm among offshore cruisers. However, because we offshore sailing folk do not (but should) comprise the huge customer base it takes to shape economies of scale, we are relegated to limited sources for some of our specialized electronics, particularly single-sideband AM radios. Which explains why three manufacturers — ICOM, Furuno and…

12 Jan

Marine Electronics, January 2022

Bill MorrisMarine Electronics, Newsletter

With all the advertising and dockside chatter surrounding satellite cell phones and the cost of monthly plans, it is comforting to know there are still active marine SSB nets for cruisers all around the globe. As a matter of fact, SSB transceivers, along with ham radios, are still the norm among offshore cruisers. However, because we offshore sailing folk do not (but should) comprise the huge customer base it takes to shape economies of scale, we are relegated to limited sources for some of our specialized electronics, particularly single-sideband AM radios. Which explains why three manufacturers — ICOM, Furuno and…

30 Dec

Voyaging Tips, December 2021

Robert MacFarlaneNewsletter, Voyaging Tips, Voyaging Tips Newsletter

Catching dinner from a sailboat on passage is completely unlike sport fishing from a stationary boat. The goal is to get a fish on board for the grill and dinner. On passage the sails are up and you're making the best possible speed, so stopping the boat to fight a fish is not much of an option. A rod and reel is one solution, though you're working with lightweight line, a rod that can break, and if the fish is large enough you'll have difficulty boating it without a net or gaff. Alternatively, a simple, strong, inexpensive handline pays big…

30 Nov

Seamanship & Navigation, November 2021

Ocean NavigatorNewsletter, Seamanship & Navigation

Stories of repairs at sea always make for fascinating reading. Not the fairly routine substitution of a spare part but rather a failure so horrendous that great ingenuity was called for to get the ship to port. You can learn a lot from these episodes; many yachts have made it safely back to land with jury-rigged masts, usually broken offshore in heavy weather. Miles and Beryl Smeeton lost their masts twice during an attempt to round Cape Horn from the Pacific in a 46-ft ketch, Tzu Hang. They made it back to Chile both times to effect repairs. The first…

13 Oct

Weather, October 2021

Ken McKinleyNewsletter, Weather

Sometimes we just need to laugh. Dealing with the global pandemic over the past year and a half has been tough on all of us. On top of this, the past two Atlantic hurricane seasons (this one is not quite over yet) have been extremely active and have resulted in significant property damage and destruction that has seriously impacted the lives of many people. Unfortunately, there have also been many injuries and fatalities associated with sone of these storms. The forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center have done a great job providing timely and accurate forecast information for the…