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Sailing Gear

Safety in a Small Package

The ResQLink 406 MHz personal locator beacon (PLB) is less than 4in long and weighs a mere 4.6 oz.

A Better Winch Handle

The new Speedylock winch handle from antal may not look particularly revolutionary, but it works incredibly well under sail.

Stay in the Dark

Portshade blinds feature a dense light-trapping “blackout” fabric that stows away quickly and easily in a slim cassette roller when not in use. A number of different sizes are available for everything from the smallest vertical portlights to large horizontal hatches. Custom sizes are also available. The shades are both water-repellant and UV-resistant to ensure long life offshore. A single screw

Touch-Screen Navigation

The NSS Sport line of chartplotters can be operated via a proprietary “Touch Sensible” touch-screen or by using a keypad and rotary control knob, so that navigators can remain in complete control no matter what the conditions. The plotters are available with screens measuring 6.4, 8 or 12 inches diagonally and have backlit LED screens to maximize visibility and minimize power consumption. All NSS

Cool, Functional Footwear

Pity the designer trying to come up with something truly “new” in sailing apparel. But with its Latitude 90 footwear line, Norway’s venerable Helly Hansen has come up with what looks like a winner. The shoes’ full-grain leather uppers and excellent “Storm Grip” rubber soles make them as functional offshore as on the dock. Available in both men’s and women’s sizes, the shoes come in either

More than a Map

As sailors continue to debate the pros and cons of digital navigation apps and paper charts, map junkies just grin and think: the more, the merrier! Well, junkies, rejoice. The National Geographic Society has expanded its “Trails Illustrated Maps” series to include a number of popular sailing locations, including the Virgin Islands, Channel Islands, Apostle Islands and Boston Harbor Islands. In

Top-Down Furlers

Sailing hardware manufacturer Ronstan has expanded its continuous-line headsail furler range with a new Series 60 furler that can accommodate working loads up 1,430lb for use on sport boats and staysails on cruising boats up to 40 feet. Ronstan has also unveiled a “top down” furling attachment for its Series 100 and Series 130 furlers. Top-down furling is a new approach to headsail

Ensure Waterproof Cable Connections

Protect the power supply to your boat’s electronic equipment with this new “fit and forget” junction box from Scanstrut Ltd. Made of fiberglass, the boxes carry an IP66 rating to ensure secure watertight connections for marine electrical cables and are configured to fit on any mounting surface. A “standard” version of the box includes five screw-down terminals, while the “deluxe” model

Smooth Operator

Forespar’s new Marelube line of lubricants is formulated with long-lasting PTFE (Teflon) for use in a wide range of marine applications. Standard Marelube gel, for example, can be used to lubricate valves and seacocks at the start of the season, while Marelube Liquid can be poured directly into those valves and seacocks to keep them working smoothly between overhauls. Marelube EXTRA

Low-Profile Bilge Pump

In addition to being damp and often grimy, the bilges on many of today’s boats are surprisingly small. To help keep such bilges dry, Whale has created its new Supersub Smart 1100 high-capacity, low-profile automatic bilge pump, which features a narrow body ideal for tight spaces. The Supersub includes an integrated sensor switch and a multi-position outlet port that can be rotated either

LXTA Mounted copy

Gear: Weems & Plath OGM lights

After a full day ashore hiking, exploring, and stopping off at a beach bar, I watch the sunset on the anchorage. I’ve always loved how

WendyBoatShow

From the Editor: The Big Show

It’s fall, and in my neck of the woods (the East Coast and, specifically, the Chesapeake Bay), that brings several rites of seasonal passage. After

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Cruising: It Takes Two

It had been five years and nearly 35,000 nautical miles of hard sailing—including three years in Antarctica and Chile—when we finally turned north for the

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Blue Water Warrior, Part II

Making it to the starting line of a nonstop global circumnavigation is never a simple matter, no matter who you are and where you come

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