Category: Friday Five

Friday Five - January 24

Friday Five – January 24

Posted on by Tollyclub

Start your weekend with our Friday Five for January 24. This is what caught our eye this week:

 

OLAS Guardian: The wireless kill cord that cuts the hassle out of boat safety

An affordable new wireless kill cord could set sportsboat owners free from the helm and improve safety. We take a closer look at the OLAS Guardian READ MORE

SWOT Analysis for PNW Boating

Now for something completely different, I offer a recreational boating SWOT for you to throw darts at or hang on your power wall. For the uninitiated, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis was invented in the 1960s by management consultant Albert Humphrey at the Stanford Research Institute. READ MORE

LPG Explosion Kills Two Sailors in Puerto Rico

A fatal New Year’s eve explosion and fire aboard a 42-foot catamaran docked in Puerto Rico offers a tragic reminder of the risks and responsibilities when storing and using liquid petroleum gas aboard a cruising boat. READ MORE

ugo Waterproof Tablet Case

Looking for a truly waterproof case for your iPad or another tablet? If you use your tablet for navigation, as we do with AquaMaps, several features are critically important. READ MORE

Not Your Father’s VHF

At the 2019 National Marine Electronics Association expo, Vesper Marine announced Cortex. It’s a modular system with a base unit, handsets and a mobile app. Cortex systems can start with just an M1 base unit, which provides AIS and monitoring capabilities. Adding an H1 or H1p handset enables VHF radio functionality. READ MORE

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Friday Five - January 17

Friday Five – January 17

Posted on by Tollyclub

Start your weekend with our Friday Five for January 17. This is what caught our eye this week:

Poynting OMNI LTE antennas

I’m always on the lookout for new LTE antennas that could help improve my signal while on the water. Poynting has a couple of interesting marine antennas that I’ve been using for a while. READ MORE

Sharrow’s Prop Forsakes Solid Blade Design in Favor of Open Spirals

A company called Sharrow Engineering of Philadelphia has brought to market what is being hailed as the first major breakthrough in propeller technology since the 1930s. The company, the brainchild of engineer Gregory Sharrow, was founded in 2012 to “reinvent the methodologies and technologies used for propulsion in the 21st century.” READ MORE

Three Sheets Northwest Merges with 48° North!

Dear Three Sheets Northwest readers,

We are excited to announce that, starting this month, Three Sheets Northwest will officially merge with 48° North, bringing together two of the best sources for local boating news, stories and resources in the Pacific Northwest. READ MORE

Women Helping Women

Over the past twenty-odd years of boating, I have had my fair share of breakdowns and malfunctions, both mechanical and emotional. Believe me, a blown fan belt doesn’t care whether my name is Missy or Mark. I have developed a good tool chest of repair know-how. My boat has tested me but has never left me stranded. Even if I can’t fix it, I can figure out a workaround until I can find someone to fix it properly. However, my skills pale in comparison to women who have sailed offshore for years. Many times they have, pretty much, rebuilt their entire boat from mast to keel. READ MORE

The little-known US-Canada border war

Located between the Haida Gwaii archipelago on the north coast of British Columbia and the southern tip of Alaska’s Panhandle, Dixon Entrance’s nutrient-rich waters, which attract orcas, albatross and five species of salmon, surge towards the rocky shores and green forests of Prince of Wales Island and the mainland. At some point as we sailed through the waves, we left Canadian waters and entered the US. But really, the only way we knew we’d travelled from one country to the next is that our electronics jumped back an hour to Alaska Standard Time after we passed a Canadian Fisheries patrol boat on the lookout for border  READ MORE

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Friday Five - January 10

Friday Five – January 10

Posted on by Tollyclub

 

Start your weekend with these five items that caught our eye this week:

Clean Marinas Benefit the Environment & Marinas

Teeming beneath the docks and ship hulls of Washington marinas are some of the most sensitive and important resources in the state. By their very nature marinas can hover over shellfish larvae, juvenile fishes like salmon, and other essential and sensitive sea life that need healthy waters to thrive. It is also necessary for marinas to carry and use materials or perform maintenance tasks that could be harmful to these resources and surrounding water quality without the use of proper best management practices (BMP’s). That’s why in 2005, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance partnered with Envirostars and other state agencies and non-profits to launch the Clean Marina Washington program. This program is a free, incentive-based certification program in which marinas assess their operations and implement improvements to better protect the environment. To date, 81 marinas have been certified, which means one third of the marina’s in the state have stepped up to create a healthier environment for our aquatic ecosystems. READ MORE

Recreational Boating Association of Washington Purchases Historic Lakebay Marina to Preserve as Marine State Park

The Recreational Boating Association of Washington (RBAW) and its 501(c)(3), the RBAW Marine Parks Conservancy, announced that it has entered into a purchase-and-sale agreement for the historic Lakebay Marina on the Key Peninsula in Pierce County, with the goal of preserving it in perpetuity as a Marine State Park. READ MORE

New Year’s Eve icon’s forgotten ties to Northwest hydroplane racing

He was a fixture every New Year’s Eve, first on radio and then on TV, from 1929 to the 1970s, but bandleader Guy Lombardo also had a strong, very loud – and sometimes very fast – connection to Seattle. READ MORE

Not Your Father’s VHF

At the 2019 National Marine Electronics Association expo, Vesper Marine announced Cortex. It’s a modular system with a base unit, handsets and a mobile app. Cortex systems can start with just an M1 base unit, which provides AIS and monitoring capabilities. Adding an H1 or H1p handset enables VHF radio functionality. READ MORE

Woodworking tools – a DIY boat owner’s guide to getting a professional finish

It’s not difficult to achieve a professional finish using woodworking machines and there are bargains to be had every day on ebay and other buying and selling forums. But do you really need them, you might ask? READ MORE