I test and review equipment and devices in real-world scenarios and only publish a review after having decent time to evaluate things. I do not work for a vendor, nor am I paid for any of my reviews. I pride myself on having accurate, in-depth, and straightforward reviews for others to benefit from.
I made a decision to have a single battery bank for both my house and starting needs on Grace. I use a NOCO Genius Boost jump starter to ensure I won't end up dead in the water. It gives me around 20 chances to start even if my entire battery bank is dead.
The Stainless Lobster Fridge Optimizer still remains one of my favorite additions, mainly because of the massive power savings and visibility. Recently, the folks at Stainless Lobster released new firmware that supports output of stats via the USB port and is compatible with SignalK.
Keeping your boat secure is always a challenge. Video security is hard to do because of bandwidth and cost. Arlo cameras have solved this for my sailboat, providing high quality video day or night, low bandwidth use, and easy to install and stow while underway.
Seattle and Elliott Bay is a busy marine location, and I am always looking for a better AIS system so that others can see me clearly. AMEC has released the B600 AIS Class B transponder with more than double the transmit power, and fast 5 second updates.
Raymarine continues to release updates to Lighthouse 3 on a fairly aggressive schedule. The latest is version 3.2 which includes support for three things I was very interested in – Navionics dock-to-dock autorouting, Fusion audio support, and upgrading other Raymarine devices.
T-Mobile changed the unlimited benefit while roaming - the monthly data allowance has shrunk, and the speeds have dropped from LTE to 3G once you hit that limit. Boaters will be affected who use T-Mobile, as I do, out on the water.
Raymarine released LightHouse 3.1 with a number of new improvements and fixes. I installed it a few days after it was released, and tested it out. I found a number of really nice things that were added, specifically around the auto pilot integration, and some work left to do.
Attaching things to random places on the boat seems like a common occurrence, and sometimes hard to do. I stumbled across Fix Clips and I don’t need anything else.
Raymarine Axiom and Lighthouse 3 review and first impressions. A fantastic upgrade to Raymarine's software, with excellent hardware supporting it. Still some work to do with the software.
Updates to Lighthouse 2 show that Raymarine is still innovating even while working on Lighthouse 3
I’m always on the look out for a compact, well performing, easy to use computer for the sailboat. Over the years, I’ve used some rugged tablets, laptops, and other creations, but none have been able to run the software I need while still being easy enough to use. Is the Surface Pro that computer?
The Yacht Devices Voyage Recorder is a great device to add to your NMEA 2000 network as a "black box" recorder. Almost anything from the network can be recorded and analyzed afterwards for trip records, performance analysis, or more.
