Category: Environment & Weather
Time to Check Your Insurance for Hurricane Coverage
An updated 2011 Atlantic basin hurricane forecast from Colorado State University yesterday should serve as a reminder to all East Coast and Gulf Coast boaters to check their insurance policies for hurricane coverage. More importantly, now is the time to create your own “hurricane plan” — whether it is to move the boat, haul it, secure [...]
Rough Weather Video
Yeah, I know I really shouldn’t be doing this. Showing rough-weather videos to boating junkies is like feeding the bears at Yellowstone. It’s not good for them. They want more. They will go to YouTube and spend (waste) hours looking at rough-water videos, then bad weather videos, then tornado videos, then videos of that cool [...]
Here’s Why You Need an iPad on the Boat
by Christine Kling (Editor’s Note — Chris Kling is a sailor with with more than 30 years of experience on the oceans of the world. She’s also an English professor at Broward College, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and the published author of the Seychelle Sullivan series of mysteries, including SURFACE TENSION (2002), CROSS [...]
New Hope for Seasickness Prevention
NASA research provides hope for an effective, new preventive technique against seasickness.
Photos — Hullish Weather on the North Atlantic
Dramatic photos of a Danish-built, Scottish fishing trawler in wild North Atlantic seas. The “deadliest” profession, for sure.
Are You Prepared for a Bad Hurricane Season?
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center this week said the hurricane outlook for the Atlantic Basin this year is for an “active to extremely active” season. While it’s always important to be prepared with a plan for how to deal with severe weather — not only at sea but while moored — the prospect of a worse-than-average [...]
USCG Photo Contest Winners for 2009
Last month, the U.S. Coast Guard announced the winners of its “People’s Choice” photo contest, which we covered here. This month we have the winners of the in-house photo contest from the Coasties. These are great photos and although we’ve all seen similar photos before, we can’t seem to get enough of them. When you [...]
Video: Running a Rough Inlet
The video you see here was taken while departing the Fort Pierce, Florida, inlet, Friday, April 16. The tide was running out strongly and the wind and seas were running in just as strongly. The resulting washing-machine ride was rather sporty, although our Krogen 58′ handled it well. At one point, we realize we’ve forgotten [...]
Krogen 58′ Northbound: Part 2
It’s 2 p.m. on Friday and I’m stowing my camera gear carefully in the salon of this big yacht when I hear a sudden muted rumble from below decks. Our captain, Kadey-Krogen Project Manager Gregg Gandy, has started the John Deere diesels. We’re ready to depart our Jensen Beach, Florida, marina and head north to [...]
North From Florida on a Krogen 58′
I’m currently aboard a new Kadey-Krogen 58′ at the Four Fish Marina in Jensen Beach, Florida, making final preparations to head north to Annapolis with the boat. It’s a unique opportunity to give the current queen of the Kadey-Krogen fleet a thorough test in her natural offshore element. As soon as a new radar unit [...]
Interlux Recalls New Compass Varnish
Sometimes I guess you can just have too much of a good thing. The case in point here is Interlux’s new Compass varnish, introduced last fall, which incorporated a new, fast-drying chemistry. Unfortunately, it seems to be just a little bit too fast-drying. An OceanLines reader in North Carolina noticed cans of the varnish being [...]
Blackberry Weather App for Coastal Cruisers
Mobile Mariner LLC has announced the official launch of the Mobile Mariner™ for the Blackberry® smartphone, which will provide NOAA marine weather forecasts, tide information and life weather conditions for the coastal United States, including the Great Lakes. More upcoming releases will expand the application to other smartphone platforms and cover more international areas. Mobile [...]
U.S. Coast Guard Photo Contest Winners
The winners of this year’s U.S. Coast Guard People’s Choice Photo Contest have been announced and the photo above is the winner! This year’s contest elicited some amazing photos, which you can see here at the Coast Guard’s blog, Compass. The winning photo is of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Vigorous (WMEC 627) as she [...]
KVH Offers Rebates for Upgrades to HD7 Sat TV System
KVH Industries said today that current TracVision satellite TV customers can upgrade to the latest HD7 system and get a rebate of up to $2,000, depending on which system they are upgrading. The promotion runs through June 30, 2010. The deal requires the customer to return to KVH the old system’s circuit boards via an [...]
Vote for the Best U.S. Coast Guard Video of 2009
The following is from the official blog of the U.S. Coast Guard, The Coast Guard Compass. It describes the annual video contest the service holds and this year’s collection of videos are as dramatic as ever. I’ve picked my favorite. Now it’s your turn. Have a look at the compilation below and then visit the [...]
Selene 66 Shows Her Rough Water Stuff
Returning recently from the Cannes international boat show, Selene Europe’s Mark Seaton had arranged for a helicopter photo shoot of the brand new Selene 66 (6603) he was driving. At least a hundred other boats were all attempting to head out to sea and pass around the famous headland Cap D’Antibes when the winds picked [...]
Propane for the Dinghy Outboard Part 2
In a recent article here on OceanLines, we described a brand new development effort by a company called Marine Green to adapt smaller outboards for propane fuel. Since that article, I have been able to talk with the co-founder of Marine Green, none other than Bill Parlatore, the founder and current Founding Editor-at-Large of Passagemaker [...]
