NASA Discusses New Distress Alerting System

May 24, 2010

If you’re in the dark about DASS, the advanced Distress Alerting Satellite System designed to enhance the existing COSPAS-SARSAT system, this video should help bring home its value to sailors.
With the summer boating, flying and climbing season setting in, the Goddard Space Flight Center held a press conference on DASS today. The new system requires [...]

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June 2010 issue of Practical Sailor is Now Available Online!

May 20, 2010

The June issue of Practical Sailor magazine is now available online. This month’s big test examines a class of products that is near and dear to my stomach: bosun chairs. After all, it was a suicidal wooden seat that left me with one of my most vivid memories from our cruising days. The details aren’t [...]

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Spacewalking tips for sailors

May 17, 2010

Marveling at the work of the crew aboard space shuttle Atlantis today reminded me that going to sea shares a lot in common with space exploration: the prolonged periods of isolation, the close quarters, the food and drinks sailing across the cabin.
If you accept the analogy, then climbing the mast while underway is the sailor’s [...]

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Label that Life Jacket

May 13, 2010
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As the article “What is the Best Backup for a 406 EPIRB?” in the May 2010 issue of Practical Sailor pointed out, confirming that your EPIRB is properly registered is essential to ensuring a swift rescue. Registering an EPIRB identifies the owner, reducing the odds of the U.S. Coast Guard launching an expensive, and potentially [...]

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Practical Sailor field tests Seascoopa MOB device

April 30, 2010

In response to our January 2010 report on man-overboard recovery maneuvers, some readers wrote in, asking about devices that would enable a single crew to bring an unconscious MOB back onboard. We recently tested a prototype of one such device: the Seascoopa.
This video gives a brief look at the Seascoopa and Practical Sailor’s on-the-water tests [...]

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May Practical Sailor Now Online

April 29, 2010

The May issue of Practical Sailor is now online at www.practical-sailor.com. If you’ve got a teak deck that has been neglected for years, can’t live without an adrenaline rush, or are replacing your deck hardware, this is the issue for you. We look at teak cleaners, quick little multihulls, and those convenient little grippers known [...]

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Earthquake and Tsunami Awareness and Response

April 20, 2010
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John Neal and Amanda Swan Neal of Mahina Expeditions bluewater voyaging school have weathered a few earthquakes and tsunamis in their decades of teaching others aboard their Hallberg-Rassy 46 sailboat, Mahina Tiare III. In the wake of the 2009 tsunami on Samoa, they devised an earthquake/tsunami awareness and response system that they now include in the [...]

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Tips on Choosing Antifouling Paint

April 17, 2010
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Unless you’re prepared for more prep work than a light sanding, the first step to selecting a bottom paint is finding one that’s compatible with what’s on your hull now. All of the manufacturers in Practical Sailor’s most recent antifouling paint test will provide guidance on this, either over the phone or on the company [...]

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Don't Trash that Old Garmin 48 GPS!

April 13, 2010
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The dreaded “Memory Battery Low” error in your old Garmin GPS 48 doesn’t mean the unit is doomed . . .
I was rummaging around the dead letter office at Practical Sailor and came across this bit of advice tucked away in our old Mailport files. Knowing that many Practical Sailor readers, like me, are quite [...]

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Google Sky Map for Sailors

April 5, 2010

My brother-in-law showed up for an Easter weekend reunion with his new Android phone and a cool little app that I wish I had when we were cruising the Pacific: Google Sky Map. I’m not sure whether a similar product is available for the iPhone, but I imagine it is. Practical Sailor recently profiled a [...]

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