Remember the Flex Fold crab trap? We took our video camera into Fisheries Supply, one of our favorite marine stores in Seattle, and tried out the exciting, flexing, folding action. Actually, this is a really nice accessory to keep on your boat for occasional crabbing. By no means the cheapest, but probably the best folding crab trap we’ve seen. Enjoy!

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Okay. Well, I posted this, and then discovered that Mark Philbrook, inventor of the Flex Fold trap, posted a very thorough demonstration on YouTube a couple weeks back. And it’s a little embarassing… (more…)

I’ve been trying to find the ideal overboard recovery system for my little C-Dory. In other words, “What do we do if somebody falls in the water?” These days, this situation might be described any number of ways: man overboard (MOB, not to be confused with the mafia), person overboard (POB, not to be confused with Patrick O’Brien), COB (crew overboard, not corn), or PIW (person in water, which I’ll use here).

Enough hilarity and hijinx! I’ve installed the Lifesling, which should help get the PIW back alongside the boat, but I’m not sure the block-and-tackle Lifesling hoist arrangement will work on my boat. The trouble is that there is no hoisting point 10 feet above the deck, as recommended; heck, there’s no hoist point 5 feet above the deck! So maybe I should consider something like this:

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Last week, I toured the US Coast Guard’s brand spankin’ new Joint Harbor Operations Command (JHOC) in Seattle. In Part 1, I described the Vessel Traffic Center.

Nextdoor, the main JHOC Sector Command Center is truly impressive; imagine NASA Mission Control and you’ve got the right idea. My host, Operations Specialist Chief William Knudson, practically beams with pride about this facility he has helped to create. During my visit, seven or eight people were seated at consoles throughout the room. Chief Knudson explained that five duty stations are staffed 24 hours a day: (more…)

Last week, I toured the US Coast Guard’s brand spankin’ new Joint Harbor Operations Command (JHOC) in Seattle. The JHOC is now the home for Coast Guard Sector Seattle’s Sector Command Center and Vessel Traffic Center. The JHOC is the premiere Coast Guard Command Center for the Pacific Northwest, partnering with the Navy, Washington State Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, various agencies of the Department of Homeland Security, and local first responder agencies. When they say “joint operations”, they mean it!

During my visit, I toured two facilities both located in the new JHOC building at Pier 36 in downtown Seattle. First, Chief James Luty showed me the Vessel Traffic Service operations center.
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   In fourteen hundred ninety-two
   Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Well, sure he did…and what of it? I can be a bit of a contrarian from time to time. That’s why I respect and admire skeptical, independent historian Gunnar Thompson, who’s gathered some pretty compelling evidence disputing the history we all grew up with. Namely, the assertion that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America.

Never mind the fact that the continent had already been discovered by the people living there; that’s an argument for another day. Let me clarify: Thompson suggests that Columbus was not the first non-American to visit America and bring news of his voyage home. Even more surprising for those of us brought up with the conventional “New World” orthodoxy, Europeans may not have been the first to accomplish this at all! (more…)

We enjoyed playing with the Boater Information System from the University of Washington Applied Physics Library the other day. It’s a work-in-progress, though, and only covers the Pacific Northwest. If you want a full-featured, boating-focused weather forecast site that covers U.S. waters and some international areas, Sailflow is the best site I know of currently. (more…)

As regular readers know, Aaron and I have been dabbling with video. It’s fun. Sometimes, it can be an extremely effective way to learn about a product, as with our Torqeedo Video Test. We think our little videos look pretty darned good, all things considered.

But now the secret’s out, and we’re no longer the only kid on the block vlogging about boats. (more…)

Even on sailboats, sometimes you need to move fuel from one container to another. Unfortunately, manipulating jerry cans or any kind of portable fuel container can result in spillage ranging from “kinda stinky” to “an annoying mess” to “new Superfund site”!

I’ve often found myself wishing I had some sort of compact, manually operated pump/siphon arrangement aboard. Enter the Hopkins Shaker Siphon. This could be useful aboard a cruising boat of any size. Heck, it could be useful at home, too. As with my favorite binoculars and my favorite flashlight, I may need to buy extras.

I don’t own one of these shaker siphons yet, but reports indicate that it works well: you insert the end with the copper fitting into the full container and shake it up and down, which primes the line and starts the fuel flowing. According to one cruiser, “You can do it without spilling a drop and not have to taste or smell the gas.” That sounds a LOT more pleasant than the sort of experience I’m familiar with!

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Hey, so, I’m excited about this. We found Carl of the C-Dory 25, Gigi, locally, and he has a Torqeedo Travel 801 folding electric outboard, and he agreed to have us do a video feature on it. So, we met him down at the marina in Edmonds, WA, where we took the Torqeedo out of its bag, put it together, and tried it out.
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In a nice post from Captain Dan about a conversation he had with the SOSpenders people about his pre-Coast Guard approved inflatable PFD, he learned a bit about best practices for checking the safety of older vests. However, they would really feel a lot more comfortable if you got one of the newer vests, and to encourage you, they’ll offer a 25% discount, plus free shipping and handling if you’ll trade-in your old vest. Think about it.

I talked to Stearns/Sospenders today to learn more about the maintenance cycle for their pfd’s. They were aghast to learn that I had a (actually several) pfd that dated to the time before the Coast Guard approved inflatables.

They reminded me that wearing one of these models does not satisfy the CG requirement of one pfd for everyone onboard. (I knew that and carry type I’s for all hands).

Southern California Sailing Charters » More info on pfd maintenance