My colleague and journalism mentor Eric Sorensen has a great pair of articles on powerboat helm functionality and ergonomics in the August-September and October-November issues of Professional Boatbuilder.

[Eric Sorensen/Professional Boatbuilder]

Part 1 can be found here. Click the Contents button at the top and find “The View From the Helm, Part 1″.
Part 2 can be found here. Click the Contents button at the top and find “At the Helm, Part 2″.

If you build, commission, or own powerboats of any size, you owe it to yourself to spend a few minutes reading these excellent articles.

Just one year ago, we wrote about the cool Weems & Plath Lightrule, at the risk of repeating, let me quote Aaron’s description of the product:

The Lightrule is a nicely put-together reference tool for interpreting those COLREGS (International Regulations for Avoiding Collisions at Sea) required light arrangements. It’s a kind of slide rule where the sliding piece has patterns representing most any kind of light configuration you might encounter, which line up with little holes in the diagrams on the outside of the rule. A magnifier strip along the edge tells you what you are seeing, and the diagrams show the lights described.

Little known to us at the time, however, that version of the Lightrule contained a minor error, which was spotted by Captain Richard Rodriguez. Read the comments on our original post to learn what the trouble was.

Well, here’s an update: Captain Rodriguez has just reported over on his BitterEnd blog that the error has been fixed!

Honestly, though, it was a very minor error, so don’t feel you need to throw away your old one. Richard can be kind of a curmudgeon about COLREGS sometimes.

I often use a big plastic Rubbermaid bin to transport stuff to and from the boat. It holds a lot, fits in a seat of the car, fits in the dock cart, and can be moved around the boat without damaging anything.

The only trouble is that smaller stuff gets lost in the bottom of the bin. Until now!
When I saw these PacEasy Bin-Buddies at the Fremont Solstice Fair, I knew I could find a use for them.

They’re available in sizes that fit all the popular styles from the major manufacturers. With most models, you can still use the lid, too. Handy!

It’s a little bit ironic that a typical Bin Buddy actually costs more than the bin itself, but that’s just the way it’s got to be. As PacEasy points out, “It’s a simple matter of materials and labor costs. Sewn products require more materials and more labor to create the finished product than injection molded plastic storage bins.” Fair enough!

I shared a couple of ice cream bars with my younger daughter last month, when we were staying overnight at Cornet Bay.

Whidbey Island Ice Cream Company ice cream bars, in fact. We had one creamy orange, and one peanut butter. Yummm!

It’s worth tracking one down if you happen to be in the area. The Cornet Bay Marina store has ‘em. That’s all I’m saying.

I mentioned last week a boat I saw at the Boats Afloat Show. I wrote thusly: “a 23′ powerboat that could be described as the Norwegian version of my little C-Dory.”

Here it is, the little Skibsplast 730HT:

I can almost hear you saying “What?! That doesn’t look like a C-Dory!” No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t look like most American-designed boats. But it’s a compact, all-weather cabin cruiser, and it packs a lot of cruising features into a small package, much like the C-Dory, Sea Sport, and Arima boats do.

For instance, it’s got a fully-enclosed cabin, complete with…um…”Alaska bulkhead”. Sort of. It’s got a tiny enclosed head. It re-uses space at least three ways: a convertible forward-facing seat underway becomes an aft-facing dinette seat while in port; a fold-open galley surface encroaches into the helm seat area, acknowledging the fact that “cooking underway” virtually never occurs on small coastal cruisers; and the V-berth expands aft into the cabin at night.

This last feature is actually kind of unique. The forepeak, in and of itself, is really too small to accommodate a full-length V-berth. But it has a sort of “lid” enclosing it, which folds down an aft. Here’s the clever bit: Underway, in the closed position, the outside of this lid constitutes a forward companionway to the bow. The sloped windshield on the port side is a hatch, folding open and allowing one to walk right up onto the foredeck.

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It’s a drug runner, actually. Technically, it’s known as an SPSS, a Self-Propelled Semi-Submersible.

I’ve no idea how these are built, but it sure looks like the outline of a sailboat hull. Which might make sense, since a sailboat hull would already have a ballasted keel to keep the thing upright when you load it so heavily with fuel and cocaine that it’s essentially awash.

By the way, that contraption aft is not a weapon; it’s breathing tubes for the engine below, designed, one assumes, to keep water out while allowing air in and exhaust out.

With help from a US Navy maritime patrol aircraft, personnel from US Coast Guard Cutter Midgett seized this vessel, including seven tons of cocaine, in open ocean south of Mexico. That’s about $196 million dollars worth.

Anyway, this ain’t azackly what I had in mind when I wrote recently about mini-submarines!

Here’s the news release, including links to video and more images:

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Ben Ellison over at Panbo is reporting the following:

Today two reliable sources told me that all five FCC commissioners have now signed off on Class B AIS for US waters, though neither knows when the Order will become effective. The final step should be an announcement in the FCC Daily Digest.

Good news for those awaiting Class B. In case you don’t know or can’t recall what the heck Class B AIS is, here are some previous Navagear posts to bring you up to speed:

• AIS Class B Naysayers, Unite!
• More Talk About Class B AIS
• Class B AIS: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
• Class B AIS Now Available!

If you look through those posts, you’ll be able to follow the REST of the discussion within Panbo’s recent post: The “But is it all worthless?” part!

I’ve written about my fascination with small submarines before. Well, at the Boats Afloat Show here in Seattle, I got to climb around inside a real, working mini sub.

This is the U.S. Submarines S-101, a two-person diesel electric submarine. It’s for sale; just reduced to $480k. There’s a PDF info sheet you can look at. It’s 32 feet long, it weighs 4.2 tons, and can operate as deep as 300 ft for over 8 hours.

That may not seem like a long time, but keep in mind there’s no head aboard. “How long can you hold it?”, asks U.S. Subs Vice President Ellis Adams.

Also, it’s a bit cramped in there. I doubt most sane people would want to spend more than a couple hours inside without taking a break to stand up and stretch. Here are some more of my photos…I think you’ll see what I mean.

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My pal and fellow bluewater sailor Dan Richman has a great piece in the business section of today’s Seattle Post-Inteligencer entitled “Ballard shipyard gives old boats some luxury.”

I had lunch with Dan yesterday, and we shared a chuckle over the opening paragraph he’d come up with: “Forget how the other half lives. Here’s a glimpse of how the other 0.15 percent lives.”

Anyway, the article is about a local boatyard, Stabbert Maritime. They’ve got the 142′ motor yacht Devotion on display at the Lake Union Boats Afloat Show, which is underway this weekend in Seattle. Devotion is easily the largest boat ever displayed at a Seattle boat show.

Even if you’re not in the market for a new boat, you can always see something interesting and learn something new at a boat show.

I spent some time at the show yesterday, talked with some people, looked at some boats, and saw a few items I’ll be writing about here. In particular, stay tuned for items on a tiny two-person submarine, the new Laser “Sport Boat”, and a 23′ powerboat that could be described as the Norwegian version of my little C-Dory.

[GILLES MARTIN-RAGET / BMW ORACLE RACING]

And not your father’s coastal cruiser, either. It’s all about speed, ladies and gentleman, and the recently launched trimaran BMW Oracle Racing appears to be capable of achieving a great deal of it.

Anyway, Ron Judd has a feature about it in today’s Seattle Times. Good reading, and lots of great photos, too.

I’m not going to comment on the America’s Cup, or express an opinion about the last time a multihull competed, or even take a side in the current America’s Cup controversy.

I just wish Fishmeal was still actively rousing the rabble like he did with the America’s Cup Free Press back in 1995. Those were the days, eh?