Ocean Navigator Magazine - November/December 2017

In this issue

In this issue's special section on Networks, we have a story on how boat networks, specifically wireless networks, have taken voyaging vessels by storm and now many boats are equipped with wireless setups. Our first piece will include an overview of how wireless networking functions and what's available from the big 4 (Furuno, Garmin, Raymarine, Navico). We'll also touch on the upsides and downsides of the technology. And take a look at the hardware and how to make the most of what it offers. Our second piece will examine recent developments in wireless networks and speculate on what might happen in the next five years as satellite-based Internet providers deploy constellations of spacecraft in low Earth orbit. In our Power Voyaging section we look safety requirements. There is some safety gear that's required by the Coast Guard for vessels the size of a power voyager. We'll look at the USCG requirements for safety gear on board and we'll also check into what some other countries require as well. For our Ocean Voyaging story we have an account of power voyaging in Norway. Marine systems expert Steve D'Antonio goes aboard a Fleming 75 power voyager for a 700-mile passage from Denmark north through the fjords of Norway, from the small Danish town of Lemvig, across the Skagerrak waterway to landfall at the Norwegian coastal town of Rekefjord and then north, culminating with a visit to the famous fjord cliff of Pulpit Rock. In a piece on weather, we look at the Intertropical Convergence Zone. A voyager looks at this global weather feature that has its sometimes exasperating features.