Table of contents for March 2017 in PassageMaker

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Since 1991 when the Global Position System (GPS) first became operational, we have become ever more dependent on it for navigation. A quarter of a century later, boats and ships routinely set sail across oceans (or even across harbors) with no consideration given for how they would navigate home without it. We have always known—or should know— that GPS could either be degraded or taken offline entirely, but with a few rare exceptions, it has proven as dependable and steadfast as the sunrise. For decades, we have come to depend on it, but recently we have acquired a better understanding of and appreciation for the vulnerabilities of the 24 satellites that make up GPS. Military, commercial, and civilian aviators and seafarers are now scrambling to relearn the fundamental navigation skills…

> WHEELIE MAGIC By far, the worst part of owning a dinghy is getting it into and out of the water, either from ship or shore. Weaver Industries builds a host of hardware solutions to make these necessary dinghy tasks more practical, from davits to chocks, hoists, and other accessories. But if you constantly find yourself dragging your dinghy up and down a beach, scraping it over barnacled rocks or struggling through soft sand, then Weaver’s wheels may also be an option for you. Able to handle up to 600 pounds of combined tender, gear, tank, and motor weight, the brackets and wheels allow transit over suspect terrain, and certainly beat attempting the backbreaking liftand- slide routine. Putting the bulk of the weight on its wheels allows an operator to…

Car navigation has never been easier since the invention of satnav systems. Just feed in the zip code and the system knows where you are and where you want to go, and presents a suitable route. Now, some navigation apps such as Waze are even crowdsourcing data so that the nav can suggest alternate, faster routes in the event of roadway accidents or work slowdowns. Why not do the same with our chart plotters? Out at sea, there are no defined tracks except in channels and harbor entrances, making your A-to-B route more of a free-form adventure. The depth of water can be restrictive, and there can be other no-go areas on or under water that may limit the chosen route so the computer cannot work its magic. Garmin, pioneers…

It was an excellent run for TrawlerFest-Anacortes, the quaint town in northern Washington State that, for nearly a decade, hosted our regional, spring seminar series and inwater boat show. This year, we’ve decided to mix it up and move our northwest TrawlerFest 100 miles south-southwest to the city of Bremerton, Washington. Situated on the north shore of Sinclair Inlet, Bremerton is accessible either by car from the Kitsap Peninsula or via a 60-minute, picturesque ferry ride from downtown Seattle. This slice of Puget Sound also happens to hold some of the best—and least—publicized cruising in the Northwest, from Silverdale all the way to Olympia. Since 1891, Bremerton has held the distinction of operating one of the longest-running naval shipyards on the West Coast. The Puget Sound Naval Shipyard is still…

FURUNO SOLID STATE DOPPLER RADAR It’s hard to imagine a sector of recreational boating that is changing as fast as marine electronics, and few things are quite as impressive as the latest in solid state tech. Furuno’s answer to the wave of new solid state products includes the NXT Doppler Radar, available in a 24-inch dome and compatible with Furuno’s NavNet TZtouch MFDs. The NXT series offers pulse compression Doppler radar, and features, among other things, beam sharpening equivalent to a 2-degree beam, making targets sharper than ever. Along with Furuno’s trademarked Target Analyzer, targets on screen will change color automatically when they are determined to be hazardous. For example, Furuno has coded hazards that are stationary or moving away from ship in green; echoes returned and displayed in red…

On the sea, the sun cycles and we rise and work and rest to its rhythm. It’s different from life on land, flooded with light at the flip of a switch. Living on a boat, we measure our work by the passage of the sun and adjust our labor to the advantage of the light. To our small crew this makes sunset the more impactful of the day’s solar events. As afternoon ends and spears of light streak from the horizon, it is the end of something. Evening allows reflection on our day’s work, and we may plan for the new day to come, but each turn of the earth is its own chapter. Each day is a life writ small, when we rise with the sun, live furiously if…

Exterior wood on a fiberglass boat adds a touch of warmth, tradition, and style that cannot be duplicated any other way. From a purely functional point of view, exterior wood makes no sense at all, but for most of us boats are more than purely functional objects. I’ve always thought that for a boat to be the right one for you, it must pass a simple test: when you leave in the dinghy, do you find yourself looking back and admiring her? If you feel compelled to make a lap around the boat before heading ashore, all the better. After all, in addition to safely transporting you and your crew from points A to B, a boat should tug at your heartstrings along the way Wood needs attention, and boat…

Picking a paint color for your custom 60-foot trawler to match the top of a Rustoleum spray can is not normally the way it’s done. But in the case of the South Pass 60, Congrio, designed by Eric and Patty Bradley, the practice is more than fitting. NAUTICAL HERITAGE There is no limit to the number of trawler owners who have dreamed of designing and building the ideal boat, but rarely does everything fall into place. When it does, however, there is usually a compelling story that begs to be told. What led the couple down the path to a custom build, and what gave them the confidence to do it? The Bradleys have extensive boating and cruising experience upon which to draw. Eric grew up in Southern California, raised…

Starting with the grand dame of nautical reference books, Champman Piloting & Seamanship, boat handling guides are always a smart addition to your onboard library. Whether you’re an experienced captain or a first-time owner just getting your sea legs, there are few moments in boating that require as much skill, patience, precision, and understanding than docking. U.S. Coast Guard-licensed captains, Ronald and Katherine Giampietro Redmond, step in with another guide that could sit on your shelf, which should help just about anyone with that age-old boating skill required of every mariner. Sure, at times docking can be straightforward and often a deceptively easy task. But, in adverse conditions, this otherwise simple maneuver can quickly turn into an expensive and embarrassing nightmare. The list of worries is long: poor communication, inexperienced…

The owner of this Krogen Express needed a place where he could store engine-related parts. Unused space outboard of the engines provided the volume, but with difficult access. The boatyard solved the problem by installing storage lockers on tracks, allowing the boat owner to slide the bins inboard, over the engines, for easy access. The locking pin, shown hanging on the right, safely secures the storage locker in the outboard/ stowed position. Loose gear in an engine room can lead to a disaster, especially heavy components, such as tools, toolboxes, and batteries. A few years ago a boat sank because a battery came loose and damaged the stuffing box, starting a chain reaction. The boat owner and boatyard worked together to create another example of the Right Stuff.…