Watertight Connector Test
Oh, for a good standardized 12- volt electrical connector. I’ve never had a boat without multiple connector failures, and most of them involved proprietary...
Preventing Electric Shock at the Dock
The human body runs on electricity and if you overload the nervous system with an external field, everything goes haywire. Every year several people...
Batteries, Cleaners & More
As a subscriber, you have free access to our back-issue archive-more than 2,000 articles. Here are a few topics you might find relevant this...
Testing VHF Coaxial
The loss in RF coaxial cable increases substantially and quickly, when there is water intrusion. Coax that uses foam dielectric, like RG8X and LMR...
Antenna Gain and VHF Transmission Range
Recreational marine VHF antennas are usually broken down into three categories: 3- and 4-foot sailboat antennas (3dB gain), 8-foot powerboat antennas (6 dB gain)...
Sailing Gifts for 2018
No one really wants just practical gifts, so we've tried to locate a few items that go beyond pure utility for this holiday season.
The...
Blue Seas New Smart Charger
Keeping batteries fully charged is a science that cruisers have to master sooner or later. If todays high-capacity AGM batteries arent managed properly, valuable...
A New Spin on Dependable Crimps and Splices
Our test focused primarily on the small-wire connections tensile strength, with and without solder, but we also looked at their durability under tough environmental...
Small Wire Connections: Part II
Connecting two standard-size wires is pretty straightforward: Grab a ratchet crimper, adjust it to fit the crimp connector, strip the two wires to fit...
Monitoring Your Marine Battery Bank
Two recent tests graphically demonstrated the importance of monitoring state of charge in a boats batteries: Tracking Batteries, in the May 2015 issue and...
A Rival for Island Packet, Made in China – Outbound 46...
Like Kraken Yachts and some Passport sailboats, Outbound Yachts are made in China. It's heavy like an Island Packet, but fast like a Beneteau....
Latest Sailboat Review
Pearson 303 Used Boat Review
The Pearson 303, introduced in 1983, is a fairly typical example of the kind of work Pearson was doing in the mid-1980s, continuing until...