Sail Far Live Free

If the iPhone has any flaws for use aboard a sailboat, top among them must be 1) a lack of weatherproofing, and 2) inadequate battery life when power hungry GPS-enabled navigation apps are being used. Enter the Mojo Refuel Aqua case for iPhone 5/5S from ibattz - a case that provides practical solutions to both of these flaws and turns the iPhone into a made-for-the-cockpit beast. SFLF aquatic edition (for the fish!) The market is flooded with waterproof, weatherproof iPhone cases, so that feature unto itself is not enough to make the Mojo Refuel Aqua stand out. In fact, if that's all you're looking for, you might be able to find a better or at least cheaper all-weather iPhone case. But the Mojo Refuel's trump card is found in the word "refuel". This waterproof case comes with an integrated 2200mAh battery which essentially gives your iPhone a full extra charge (2 times the standard iPhone's battery life). That's right, a fully waterproof case th

"You haven't seen a tree until you've seen its shadow from the sky." - Amelia Earhart I love looking at boats. Whether they be sailboats, rowboats, toy boats, powerboats or really any other floating contraption, I'm smitten. You'll often see me walking away from the dock or taking the dinghy to shore with my neck craned back, soaking in the boaty views. But I've never seen the shadow of our sailboat from the sky so I'm using this opportunity (and the winter doldrums) to cobble together a kite camera rig in hopes of getting some really cool and lofty kite cam sailing videos like this one .  I initially thought building a rig suitable of attaching a camera to a kite would be easy, but I didn't anticipate the importance of stability. Both times I've flown my prototype rig were wintery, windy days which accentuated shifty movements and made the video footage dizzying to say the least.  Here's a sample of what I've got so far (If

Moving Sideways  (bow thruster close-up) by K. Walters

Have you ever come up to a dock that didn't have cleats in the places you wanted them? How about a piling without a convenient way to attach a fender? The Hand-ee-Cleat allows for custom temporary placement of a cleat around a piling or other locations. There are lots of other creative uses too, like using it as a gear hook, piling handhold or handle for carrying a SUP when wrapped around the board. The Hand-ee-Cleat is a fairly sizable cleat with a length of 11.25". It's made from glass-filled nylon with polypropylene webbing that uses quick-release buckles to wrap around objects up to 48" in diameter. I found it easy and quick to attach to the kid's swing set and a couple of trees around the house. While I haven't had a chance to try it out at the boat yet, the Hand-ee-Cleat is small enough that I'm sure it'll find its' way into our onboard cruising gear bin. The working load is rated at 650lbs, which is based on lab testing and is rat

The Words of SailFarLiveFree.com [Note - The above is a Word Cloud created using the most common words found on SailFarLiveFree.com. The larger the word, the more frequently it appears on my blog. It's an eye-opener to see my writing summed up in one tangled ball of words.]