Carrying night vision on your boat offers great utility, and is great fun. It makes night travel a lot safer, providing you with the tools to see in the dark. Highly recommended equipment, more affordable than ever before.
Monday Minute - What's In Your Dinghy?
Like that credit card commercial, “What’s in Your Dinghy?”
What you carry in your dinghy may make a difference if the unexpected happens. Whether it is a handheld radio, sunscreen, or a working flashlight, it can make an unexpected situation just another cruising adventure instead of something less pleasant.
Monday Minute - A Pilgrimage Not Unlike Cruising
I now savor my first taste of the famed Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain, which last year attracted over 300,000 people from around the world. I purposely did not set any expectations for this walking trip, rather deciding to let it happen and see where it went. I was rewarded with new friends, and an experience that I could never have imagined.
While the last bit of jet lag conspires against me along with a strong allergic reaction to the pollen now covering Annapolis, I am sure this trip will linger on in my daily life as I plan my third act in life.
Know the Boarding Drill
The Bucket
Stormy Petrel
Sleeping Comfort at Sea
Cruising with Children
Pam Wall makes a case for the outstanding life choice to cruise with a young family, as she and her husband did in their 39-foot sloop. Whether the vessel is a sailboat or trawler, it can be a life-defining adventure that so totally exchanges today's social media "experience" with the real world in all its diversity and beauty.
Getting Ready for the Next Generation of FollowingSeas
Monday Minute - Cruising to Stay Close
The struggles of many of today's young parents are quite a contrast to the families who choose to take the family and go cruising. The dynamics of living and working together on a boat are more intimate and focused than the hurried routines of family life ashore.
Perhaps more people could benefit from the synergy of living together aboard a boat.
Monday Minute - Summary of the Navy's Official Incident Review
We've heard the unbelievable reports of Navy warships colliding with merchant ships, with loss of life among the Navy crew. How can this happen in our modern world, with all of the technology and control systems at our disposal!?!
Here is a comprehensive review of the four recent incidents in 2017, which reveal amazing issues and problems to be addressed at all levels. Reading these summary review findings gives insight into the complexity of today's warships.
And please take away from this that the initial fears of Russian cyberattacks did not occur, yet such a threat adds a chilling, what-if component to the reported scenarios.
This is serious business in a world that is increasingly dangerous, with threats we have yet to experience.
What's a Trawler - Continuing the Discussion
Monday Minute - Life in the Fast Lane
Goofballs on the Water
Monday Minute - Benefit Party to Help Hurricane Victims
A special hurricane relief event is scheduled for the first day of the sailboat show in Annapolis. For those who donate $75 or more to several relief organizations, the Donor Appreciation Party will be held at the close of the show, with free food and drinks. The donations will go directly to relief efforts in the BVIs.
What's Life Without A Little Adventure
Scott and Mary Flanders begin a new journey, a new path, with a new design concept for a cruising ocean motorboat. This begins a series of posts that will follow the philosophy behind the design spiral, the construction, and all that will follow....
Please subscribe to FollowingSeas.Media to come along...the adventure has begun!!!
Monday Minute - An Admiral's Secret to Running A Ship
The Recovering Warrior Sailing Regatta took place this weekend in Annapolis. It takes disabled military out for a day of sailboat racing with midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy, put on by the USNA, National Sailing Hall of Fame, and Chesapeake Region Accessible Boating (CRAB).
I got a chance to spend time with Admiral Phil Cullom, who shared his approach to commanding a Navy destroyer.
When Is Disruptive Innovation Coming to Cruising?
Every so often something upsets the apple cart and created a new market for a product or service. It is called Disruptive Innovation. The cruising community is ripe for something new and different, something that challenges the status quo of big, expensive cruising boats that don't fit a more enlightened approach to sustainable cruising.
Opinion: I Suppose It Begins At The Top
The Mindset of Non Delivery
The joys of cruising diminish when the trip becomes a monotonous routine, every day like the one before, always moving, pushing ahead to the final destination. It is a good thing to remember why you are out there, and find a way to slow down the daily grind, and enjoy the wonders that surround you each day.
It’s been a long time coming but we now see tangible progress emerging to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. If the U.S. Navy can prove that it works, isn’t it about time the concept of the modern cruising boat includes hybrid forms of propulsion?