Marine Electronics

Practical Sailor Tracks Down the Best LED Tri-color Light

When it comes to navigation lights aboard sailboats, brighter is definitely better. And our latest tests of LED nav lights proved that more light...

Mailport: February 2010

I understand you are going to do an article on navigating by phone using the iPhone. I thought you may be interested in my...

Multiplexing Marine Electronics

In the last three years, Practical Sailor has looked at several ways to integrate personal computers into our navigation routine. In July 2006, we...

GPS Receivers for Smart Phone Navigators

Medicated chartplotters and charting software installed on computers without serial ports are slowly changing the architecture of marine GPS receivers. Where every marine GPS...

Mariner Resources on the Web

The Internet is an almost endless source of information, but finding what you need can be a frustrating task. We’ve tried to streamline the...

New Waterproof Handheld VHFs Enter Crowded Market

Electronics is undoubtedly the most rapidly changing category of marine products, and the steady stream of new VHF radios is a good example of...

Testing Smart Phones at Sea

With the hopes of answering readers questions about the viability of using a "smart phone" or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and the requisite charts...

In Distress? Theres No App for That

This months review of "smart phone" navigation tools and software got me thinking about my own descent into the mobile phone abyss, and more...

Mailport: 11/09

Trigger Tether To keep from being pulled under in a collision between a tanker and my sailboat, I "pulled the ripcord" to release the...

Testers Take Tacktick and Nexus Wind Instruments for a Spin

Few things are as frustrating as trying to run a new wire through a boat. Unless the builder had the foresight to include some...

Jeanneau Yachts 65 Full Tour and Review

Choosing between a monohull and catamaran was already hard, but Jeanneau just made it even harder. The new Jeanneau Yachts 65 is a monumental...

Latest Sailboat Review

Islander Bahama 30 Used Boat Review

More than a few years ago my wife Carey and I were looking to move up from our O’Day 25 to something a little...