Wire Sizer screen is simple to work with. Just drag a finger up or down on the iPad touch screen to change the parameters in each field.

 I found myself searching my way through the Apple iTunes store over the long Thanksgiving weekend and tripped over a really useful application for us boat wiring junkies. Simply titled Wire Sizer, this ap is a joy to use! Although only useful for DC wiring applications it does a great job. It has an initial set-up for measurement units and is basically a matter of entering the system operating voltage (up to 50 vdc), amount of amperage the circuit will be drawing, whether or not the wire run is going through an engine room space or not and what level of voltage drop you want to achieve. By simply scrolling through the on screen scales to set the specific values as shown in the video here: http://youtu.be/8QDeLeCjNwI you'll be able to get the right wire gauge to use every time. Nice.

Well she's come and gone. In general I think the damage here in RI was minimal compared to some of our neighboring states, but we certainly did not get out of this one totally unscathed. I saw one boat on the beach this morning in my hometown of Wickford, RI and the poor fellow that owns this sailboat at Brewer's Cowesett Marina, where my office is located, had to face this little mess this morning....

It is with great pride that I announce the publication of a new book that I and one of my good friends and longtime editors Tim Murphy have just  published through the ABYC. This whole project came about as part of a grant from the Kathy and Jerry Woods foundation and has been on-going for several years now. For those of you not familiar with Kathy and Jerry, they were the founders of the Annapolis Boat Shows and the Annapolis Sailing School. Their foundation centers on helping to educate the young and Tim and I are sure this book is going to go a long way toward that, at least in the marine field.

You see as a longtime educator in the areas of marine mechanics and electrics, one of my biggest frustrations has always been that there was no text book available to assist teachers in their work. To be truthful, that simple fact is one of the things that got me into writing books in the first place. My first book, Outboard Engines, was wriiten to fill a need for some sort of easy to understand guide to outboard engine maintenance and repair. At the time I was teaching a class in outboard engine repair at New England Institute of Technology. Of course I've written more books since then and one of the common themes with all of my texts has been to try and take what on the surface are pretty complex topics and make then understandable to a large audience. Tim always helped me in that in his role as the executive editor of Cruising World Magazine. Over the years he and I have worked on quite a few editorial projects together. In fact we're pretty much at the point now where I swear we can read each other's mind when it comes to how we will present information on a marine technical topic. This new book is a great example of that.

Although conceived as a text book for high school and post-secondary marine trades training programs, it has been pointed out to me that this book is going to really help anyone that may be new to boating. At 318 pages and 14 chapters covering everything from boat handling to how engines work and why they sometimes don't as well as shop safety and customer service we have covered a lot of ground. The book is heavily illustrated by another old friend from our Cruising World days, Joe Comeau, a master of making the complex understandable by all.

We've taken the book to a new level I think by employing some of the latest in technology. Each chapter has a QR code that when scanned by a smart phone or tablet with QR scanning software installed will bring you to a library at the ABYC website (we're still setting this up at ABYC as of this writing) that will contain a large assortment of demonstration videos showing how one might go about performing some of the tasks described in the text. This library is in its infancy right now but will grow over time to become quite comprehensive.

This new book is only available through the ABYC and is selling for $139 plus S & H in a nice full color hardbound edition for ABYC members and $169 plus S & H for non-members. Or, for those of you that are more digitally inclined, the full color digital edition is also available in PDF format for $89 for members and $129 for non-members. So check it out folks. Contact ABYC @ 410-990-4460 or go to their website at: www.abycinc.org and order your copy today.

OK, I'll admit it, I was sceptical about the America's Cup World series event just held in Newport, RI over the past weekend. I still have lingering memories of the last go around and all the rather annoying courtroom activity. Sailboat racing gone bad, rich dudes whining.... it all just turned me off to the whole thing. But, I have had a change of heart after watching the event from the water this past weekend. Check out one of the Oracle boats here:

These new boats are cool! Who can't get a bit excited watching a sailboat that can get going up to 45 mph and has to be run by 5 very athletic people wearing crash helmets. The on board cameras and live TV coverage were just spectacular!

This event brought just under 60,000 people to the city by the sea, and a few more on the water in this near shore event. We heard that NBC attracted 1,000,000 viewers to their Sunday broadcast of the final event. Those are really good numbers for a US crowd. I think that once the word gets out about how exciting this can be, more will follow. It is really fast action that will attract any sports fan's attention. As long as the promoters can keep the teams from bickering and the lawyers out of the game, I think this is a revitalized event. I'm thrilled to be able to say that.

So, to all who've heard my rant about how the whole America's cup thing is no longer relevant to anything, I take it all back. This has finally been turned into an exciting sport, as fun to watch as football, NASCAR or any other sport. Why, I'd go so far as to say it is far more exciting than watching a golf match, or an MLB game.

So, the boat you see above is around 45 ft. in length. The boats they will actually use in the America's Cup finals will be 75 ft. versions of what you see. Trust me folks, it is going to be awesome!

One of the never ending battles I deal with working within the marine industry is trying to explain to employers, most of whom complain to me on a regular basis about how hard it is to find good help, that they need to be proactive. With that in mind, each year I serve as a judge at the Skills USA nationals in Kansas City, MO in the marine service technology competition. I want to try and do my part to help the future service technicians out there.

The shot below is from this year's event.

This annual event attracts the best and the brightest high school and post-secondary school talent in the marine service area from all over the US. Each of the contestants is already a winner in that they have competed in their respective state championships. This year we had 31 contestants, a recent high.

I only wish we could get more support from the marine industry here. As it is right now, we had some folks from Volvo Penta (thank you very much Volvo) our competition chairperson, who takes time out of his busy schedule as the OEM installation engineer for Suzuki Motors, the owner of a local Cobalt dealership, the owner of a large engine remanufacturing company, myself (ABYC) and two teachers from marine tech programs in the mid-west.

Although this level of participation may sound pretty good, it pales in comparison to the support other service sector industries receive. Think motorcycle mechanics, as an example. Their group outdoes us by a huge factor every year.

So not to rant, but I'm sort of at the put up or shut up stage here. Any marine industry employers out there? We could sure use some more help and support for next year to keep and grow this important venue. These young people are the future of the marine service industry. We need to prove to them that they haven't made a mistake in their career choice. So, rather than telling me about how hard it is to find good help for your marine business, what I really want to hear is how you have supported your local marine tech training program or Skills USA chapter.