In the last six months Blue Guard Innovations’ BG-One Smart Bilge Pump Switch with Oil and Fuel Detector racked up new product awards, winning an IBEX Innovations Award, a Sail magazine Pittman Award, and a DAME design award Special Mention. So it’s great to have one now installed on Have Another Day, and so far I’m liking both its performance and the amount of information it provides.
Mike Elsea of Mooresville, Indiana took home the $50,000 grand prize and $23,000 in additional prize money for winning the Kayak Bass Fishing (KBF) National Championship held March 28 – 30 in Shreveport, Louisiana. Torqeedo renewed its longtime commitment to the sport and returned to the 2019 tournament as Presenting Sponsor…
There are many reasons to like Victron solar panel charge controllers, but today I’ll laud the Bluetooth feature that comes with the relatively new SmartSolar models and could make sense in many electronic boat modules and sensors, I think…
Ben Stein is already in Miami working as an Innovations Award judge and I look forward to his reporting as I man the news desk here in Maine. Today, though, I’ll discuss some of the monitoring tools helping to keep Gizmo safe in winter conditions like the easterly gale that blew about ten inches of snow onto Camden last night…
When the Maine Cat MC 38 came out in 2016, the lightweight, low drag 38 design seemed perfect for ever-improving electric propulsion. So I’ve followed closely as builder/designer Dick Vermeulen pursued an electric solution, and there are now two interesting stories in progress: Maine Cat recently became the E-Tech distributor for North America and several MC 38 LS-E sailing cats will launch this spring with E-Tech outboards, hydro generation included.
For more than a decade, Torqeedo has led the way in electric mobility on the water. Creating the products for cleaner, safer, easier and more sustainable electric boating remains Torqeedo’s focus for 2019.
Blue Guard’s BG-One Oil and Fuel Detector with Smart Bilge Pump Switch won the IBEX innovation for electrical equipment. With this switch, Blue Guard seems to have thought through the problem of oil in the bilge and come up with a smart solution to ensure safety while minimizing the potential for environmental impact…
For almost a year I hardly used this little control and monitoring panel because the attached EFOY fuel cell was already flawlessly performing its duty: If engine alternator, solar panels, and/or shore power were not keeping Gizmo’s main battery bank at the voltage parameters I’d configured, the EFOY automatically and quietly charged the bank for a variable period also configured. While the amp hours are expensive, I’m convinced that an EFOY Comfort could be a very pleasing addition to many cruising sailboats and trawlers…
I did hire a diver to clean Gizmo’s bottom last September, but he said he found very little hard growth. So it seems fair to say that the water-based copper-free Pettit Hydrocoat Eco did well in that department…But I’m sorry to report that even the extra Zinc Omadine biocide did not prevent the brown slime from growing fairly thick at Gizmo’s waterline just a month or so after launch…
It seems appropiate to kick off 2018 with a discussion of heating technology, specifically the diesel-fired hydronic system I installed on Gizmo last year. It was a significant purchase and a major install, but the 66 degree pilothouse temperature seen above certainly made my early December ICW trip a lot more pleasant. I’ll explain why I chose hydronic, detail how the system went together, and profusely praise Sure Marine Service, a marine heating equipment distributor par excellence…
