Equipment Outfitters

Plotting

Having marked the courses between buoys, the “legs” of your intended trip, you will want to measure them. And, having measured them and added them up for total mileage, you will want to figure out how long it will take to make the trip. Since distance divided by speed equals time, you will first have to learn how to tell boat speed. If you know your speed and distance on a leg, you can compute time in hours. Read the rest of this entry »

Coastal piloting, or piloting, is basically the art of getting from here to there without going aground or getting lost. It requires a few basic tools—a compass, a chart, parallel rules, dividers, a sharp pencil— and a few simple, easy to learn skills. This kind of basic way finding allows you to range far a field, venturing out of familiar home waters and into new cruising grounds with a sense of confidence. Read the rest of this entry »

While storms generally affect large portions of an area and are usually forecast in advance, the powerboat skipper should be aware of two conditions that can affect his well-being and safety on a more local scale: fog and squalls. Since these weather conditions can be isolated and very localized, they may be unannounced on VHF weather forecasts. The best way to cope with them is to anticipate their arrival. Read the rest of this entry »

A radio lets you communicate with others and it provides a way to broadcast in an emergency. The most common type of radio is the VHF/FM, monitored by the U.S. Coast Guard and used to communicate with other boats, marinas and bridges. In addition, the VHF radio can be linked to land-based telephones for calling friends and businesses. Its range is limited to about 15 miles between boats. Read the rest of this entry »

A program of preventive maintenance for your engine can help ensure trouble-free boating. Inboard engines and sterndrives have similar maintenance programs. Regular pre-start checklists, like those used by airline pilots, serve as useful reminders. In addition, you should plan to give your engine a thorough once-over examination every few weeks to check items that aren’t part of the pre-start list. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the engines of inboards and sterndrives are generally similar to those found in automobiles, most skippers will be familiar with basic maintenance tasks. The underwater drive units for sterndrives and outboards require a separate program of lubrication and maintenance. These are best performed while doing other routine tasks. Lubrication, however, must be done when the boat is out of the water. Read the rest of this entry »

Simply having emergency equipment on board your boat is not enough. Both you and your entire crew must know exactly where each item is located and how to use it. Even an item as seemingly simple as a life jacket can be difficult to don in a crisis, and there is never time to read the instructions in an emergency. Regular practice sessions can save lives. Read the rest of this entry »

In many cases, if a member of your crew falls overboard it is not a life-threatening situation since the boat is maneuverable and it is relatively easy to get the person back on board. But the energy-sapping effects of cold water, the difficulty of swimming with soggy clothing or the possibility of injury could turn the situation serious. The swimmer should be retrieved as quickly as possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Electricity and water, particularly salt water, can prove to be a breeding ground for irritating problems that range from a seemingly dead engine to cabin lights that flicker on and off. Preventive maintenance is the best way to keep your electrical system operating with all the lights burning. Read the rest of this entry »

The idea of experiencing a free fall only to be snatched from the jaws of death by a cord attached to the ankles is not new. Modern bungee jumpers can trace the roots of their sport back to an ancient legend told by the native tribe of Pentecost Island in the South Pacific.

Various versions of the legend exist, but the basic plot surrounds a woman who was fleeing an abusive husband. The woman climbed a tall tree and tied a vine to her ankles. Her husband followed her up and when he lunged to grab her she jumped out of the tree. Read the rest of this entry »

The ground broken by skateboarders over the past three decades has been invaded by a new group of urban athletes. Aggressive inline skaters have co- opted much of the style and culture of skateboarding into their sport. Aggressive skaters have taken what were initially just fitness and training devices and transformed them into urban assault vehicles that have been embraced by pop culture.

Inline skates can trace their roots back to the Chicago Skate Company, and perhaps further, as evidence of wheeled boots dates back to the early days of bicycling. But it wasn’t until brothers Scott and Brennan Olsen created the first Rollerblades in their Minneapolis basement that the sport took off. The brothers stumbled on a pair of Chicago Skate

Company’s inline skates in the bargain bin of a used equipmentstore while looking for a way to trainfor hockey in the off season. Theskates offered minimal support and awful wheels. The Olsens added greater support and urethane wheels, and the rest is history. Read the rest of this entry »

Mountainboarding is a newcomer to the world of extreme sports, although I can track its lineage to a few other more “established” extreme sports like snowboarding and mountain biking.

Essentially, the mountain board creators developed a hybrid skateboard/snowboard that allows aspects of each sport to be used on terrain where neither can be practiced. Which isn’t to say that skateboarders have not tried using fat tires on their skateboards so that they can ride on loose sand and gravel—they have. Read the rest of this entry »

Charging down a hill at warp speed on a bike is a rush that most of us have enjoyed at some time. As bikes developed they headed down the path of tradition, and for a while, all a bike buyer could find was a road-racing-style bike or a cruiser. Road bikes were fine for speed and offered a broad range of gears. But road bikes offered little comfort and didn’t take very well to rough surfaces. Cruisers were very comfortable, but heavy and not geared very well. All that changed in the early Eighties when a Japanese bike company by the name of Specialized purchased a unique bike made in Marin County, California, and took it home for a closer look.

The mountain bike can trace its roots back to when a small and unknown group of riders in Marin County, California first began riding stripped down and beefed up Schwinns on mountain roads just prior to WWII. One can only assume that the natural propensity of extreme oriented riders continued to pursue downhill riding until a few notable pioneers of the modern mountain bike began simultaneously experimenting and redefining the equipment they were riding. According to one of those pioneers, Gary Fischer, the early Schwinn “Ballooner” Cruiser bikes everyone was riding were so heavy that they were pushed, not ridden, uphill. Fischer is reported to have been the first to equip a Ballooner with multiple gears, an act that made it easier to pedal uphill, but also added 25 lbs (11.35 kg) to their weight. Read the rest of this entry »

Without question, skateboarding is the embodiment of the outlaw extreme image. Somehow, skateboarding’s unique style and underground culture have been difficult for older generations to understand or appreciate. Skateboarding is a sport that continues to redefine itself, pushing the limits of what can and can’t be done physically, mentally and yes, culturally.

No one is certain of the origins of skateboarding. Some have suggested the first skateboard was crafted by a bored California surfer seeking to polish his skills on a waveless afternoon. Others deny its West Coast origins, and state that the first skateboard was a simplified version of a child’s toy, the push- scooter. Push-scooters were popular toys in the Fifties, made from dismantled roller skates nailed to a board with a crate attached as a balance aid. Remove the crate, and you have a skateboard. Read the rest of this entry »

Once down at the bottom of the mountain, what do you do next? It wasn’t long before boarders realized that adding a windsurfing- style sailing rig to their board would allow them to sail back up the slopes, without needing a lift or hike. All they needed was wind direction from the side or directly up the slope of the terrain. Directly uphill is preferable, as it has the added advantage of making it easy to sail down again, but a side wind is good for speed.

Snowboarders who are boardsailors and boardsailors who are snowboarders, can easily find enough stuff to put together a wind snowboard. In fact, any long snowboard will do the trick. Snowboard sailing doesn‘t require sails as large as boardsailing, because small sails and short booms are the most controllable, particularly on hard- packed snow. Read the rest of this entry »

Swimming into the deepest reaches of the ocean is a feat that many divers have experienced to a degree. Some may go below 200 feet (60m), others deeper. All would be lost without the air they bring with them. There is a special breed of diver who can go deeper than most, without air tanks. These freedivers have pushed the limits of unassisted breathing dives to below 400 feet.

Tofreedive to depths of even 50 feet (15m) is an unsettling prospect for all but the strongest swimmers. To dive much deeper requires holding a breath for minutes. In fact, the world’s best freedivers hold their breath for periods that rival many marine mammals. Read the rest of this entry »

Sports are about competition, but also about contact. Sports which involve the thrill of speed invariably require specialized equipment to undertake them, but for the sportsman, the nearer to the elements you can get, the greater the sense of accomplishment. So for water skiiers, what could make more sense than dispensing with the skis?

Barefoot Water Skiing began in Winter Haven, Florida in 1947. Water skiing pioneer Chuck Sligh theorized that water skiing without skis might be possible if the ski boat went fast enough. A 17-year-old boy named AG Hancock proved him right, becoming the first water skier to drop a ski and continue barefoot successfully. Hancock left on a family vacation before he could show the trick to Cypress Garden’s Dick Pope Sr.. A few days later, Pope’s son Dick Jr. successfully dropped a ski and got all the glory— photographs, newspaper stories, newsreels, the works. Barefoot skiers soon adapted many of the freestyle moves of traditional waterskiers. Spins, backward maneuvers, body drags, and other tricks made barefooting an exciting new discipline. Due to the speeds required to barefoot, the tricks are especially difficult, and dangerous, since the water becomes very hard in a high-speed impact. Read the rest of this entry »

Swimming long distances for sport is a challenge that only the most fit and determined extreme athletes pursue. Its roots can be traced back to1875 when Captain Matthew Webb became the first swimmer to cross the English Channel. Since then, crossing the channel has been one of the more defining feats of long distance, or open water, swimming. Open water is the appropriate term, since races and crossings are never held in a pool that would be too easy and lacking danger.

Open Water Swimming races are held globally, and were included in many of the early Olympic Games. Course lengths are usually 5, 10, 15, or 25 kilometers (3-15.5 miles) and require several hours to complete. The courses are set between two points on any large body of water. Some races require athletes to do several laps to complete a given distance, while others may consist of one very long lap. Read the rest of this entry »

Getting technical

A decompression chamber—a large tank that can compress the air inside to several atmospheres—is commonly found on vessels used as dive-support stations. Divers experiencing the bends are placed inside the decompression chamber and then quickly “returned” to the appropriate atmospheric pressure they were under in the water before the too-rapid ascent began. This allows the diver to complete the necessary decompression time and can halt the effects of the bends.

Diving using normal air mixtures— equivalent to the air we breathe every day— limits the depth and duration of dives. The deeper the dive, the less amount of time can be spent at the maximum depth. Knowing what the maximum lengths of time are for each depth is critical for diver safety. Read the rest of this entry »