MLW66

Ain't nobody catchin' nothin', no how.

You didn't indicate where you are and since everything's big in Texas, I hesitate to say this is a perfect recommendation. Jim Glandt at YES Marine Center in the Kemah/Clear Lake section of Houston is a really, really good guy.

Maybe a Luhrs thread too...

Why do I think Fountain won't be having one of those at the shows...

Wiley, am definitely interested. PM please!

Welcome on board!

Bar fight? Jealous girlfriends? What the hell happened?

Loran C is dead, dead, dead - in the US. It's still alive in Europe and elsewhere. Your equipment has ZERO value in the US but you might be able to flog it on Craig's List for their European cities.

What do a twister in Texas, a hurricane in Florida and a divorce in Alabama all have in common? One way or another, someone's fixin' to lose a trailer.

February 1991, Sea of Japan on a 185' Russian fishing trawler. We were less than 24 hours from the boat's home port in Russia when we got hit by a typhoon. Average waves 15-20 meters, significant waves 30 meters. Yes - meters. On watch on the bridge you'd see nothing but sky on the way up, and nothing but green, angry water on the way down, with lots of aforementioned water coming over the bow. The nav bridge was 5 stories off the water and when we were buried in the trough, you could not see sky - we were looking out at wall waves. I slept (or tried to) on my unrolled survival suit 2 nights in a row. It took us almost 4 days to make port. I also spent that fall and fall of 1992 at anchor in typhoons in the port of Pusan, S. Korea, but the hairiest was in the SOJ.

ScupperBob McNastyBritches

Just for a goof, do yourself a favor. Go to a local gun show (plenty of them in FL and NC) and for about $200 or slightly more pick up a slightly used Winchester 1200 20 gauge. I can't knock the Remingtons the other guys are expounding here, but the Winnie action is preferable to me for skeet & trap, several tens of thousands of rounds later. I alternate between a Franchi 9-shot SAS 12 gauge and a Remington 870 for home defense. I am an equal-opportunity blaster. Let the Remington vs. Winchester flame wars begin!

Any cleaner with any kind of abrasive or solvent is going to remove anti-glare coating, depending somewhat on the construction of the display. Most AG coatings are baked or adhered to the OUTSIDE of the screen, whether the screen is glass or acrylic (most are glass). Truly bonded LCD displays have better AG characteristics and also don't fog as often. The initial result of removing the AG coating will likely be a screen that looks clean, but with no anti-glare coating, the screen will now show glare in direct sunlight. A 3M cloth and non-solvent-based eyeglass cleaner is the way to go. Say no to Windex, anything with alcohol or especially ammonia in it. Boat soap also should not be used, at minimum because it builds up gunk and usually because by the time you've got to the electronics displays, the soap bucket has grit and crap from the hull in it, and again, you're rubbing grit and crap on to your nice, pristine display. Clean water, a soft 3M cloth and eyeglass cleaner - love 'em!

Wiley, my company prohibits "professional" posting on blog sites as company policy, so this is a semi-anonymous personal post. I work for the master US distributor of a very well-known and well-established marine industry company and the oil spill has ground our business to a screeching halt in the Gulf. Our authorized dealers and two-steppers are advising that most major and even minor recreational boat projects are on hold indefinitely, which of course means that most will be canceled. The commercial boats and fishing boats that have signed on to assist the government clean-up effort will bring some short-term gain, but, this will be very short term indeed. I lived through the Exxon Valdez disaster in AK and saw similar impact in our business then. I fear this will be many times worse. If we see the oil "flumes" picked up in the Gulf current "funnel" and the oil winds up on the East coast of Florida via the Gulf Stream, then we'll really see some ecologic and economic devastation. My heart goes out to the fishermen especially, both commercial and recreational. My first ten years in the industry was on and around commercial fishing boats in Seattle and AK. As the owner now of a small NW-built Arima, my greatest joy this time of year is fishing for anything that's in season. Nature has a way of rebounding, but the studies on the species in AK after the Exxon Valdez suggest that the biology of the Gulf will be affected for a human lifetime or two - and possibly forever. As bad as it may seem on the news, my friends working the spill recovery say it's much, much worse.

Wiley and/or King, Did you see anything interesting in the eelctronics specifically?