Sea Tow Ethan

Anybody catching any tuna? Discuss...

I think that the "Pages" concept works much better for business promotion and business interaction on Facebook. Not to mention that using a personal profile for a business is expressly prohibited by FB's TOS. http://www.facebook.com/seatow

Who's going to the New England Boat Show? It runs from Feb 20 to 28 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. http://www.newenglandboatshow.com/

Just to add some more information, from the Coast Guard's perspective, they use the phrase "Pan Pan" when issuing an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast (UMIB). Saying "Pan Pan" is kind of like saying "Hey, listen up! This is really important and could mean someone is in trouble!" As opposed to when the CG uses the phrase "Securite, securite, securite" which indicates that they are going to make a general Safety Marine Information Broadcast (SMIB). That's kind of like saying "Hey, listen up! This is important..." From the boater's perspective, I don't feel that it's important to use "Pan Pan" on the radio. Either you are going to call Mayday because they are in imminent danger and need help, or you can call out for the Coast Guard directly if you want to pass along some kind of safety information about yourself or someone else. Example 1: "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the vessel Money Pit, at position xx - xx.xxx / xx - xx.xxx, with four people on board. We are taking on water and are in need of immediate assistance." Example 2: "Coast Guard, Coast Guard, Coast Guard. This is the vessel Money Pit. We are at the entrance of XYZ Harbor and request that an ambulance meet us at the pier for a serious laceration." (the idea being that you need help, but don't need the CG to come out and airlift the patient.

I wonder how many people, if any, have actually practiced making a radio distress call. Going through the check lists we've seen posted is a good start, but who's actually practiced? There's a possibility that I might have people do just that at an upcoming boat show. At our booth we'd set up a dummy radio of sorts, on which people can call for help, and we'll act as someone on the other end, responding and asking for amplifying information. Do you folks think that would be useful, fun, or insightful in any way?

With a topic heading "Rain and wind this weekend" you would never realize that this thread was started a month ago. Rain and wind sounds like just about every weekend lately.

I can only state what I've seen with this particular boat, which I believe is a 2004 (not sure). The relays are waaaay over to starboard near the aft bulkhead of the engine room. He couldn't get the hatch to lift and asked me to crawl over the back end of the engine and manually short the relays to open the large hatch. I'm a small guy but it was still a massive contortion act. He has worked closely with Pursuit to resolve the issue, installing a replacement keypad.

A friend recently had a similar problem on his Pursuit and after much troubleshooting determined that the problem was the keypad itself.

The iPhone uses GPS technology for finding its position, not cellphone positioning. It works fine when out of phone service range. That being said, the GPS in the iPhone is not nearly as accurate as what you find in marine electronics. The "sampling rate," or whatever it's called, is also much lower so it can't calculate speed and direction accurately. I'll use my iPhone for casual use on the road, but I'm not getting underway without good marine electronics on my boats. I've never seen a mobile phone with a radar either! :-)

Connecting your GPS to you VHF and configuring your radio for DSC (with an MMSI number) adds a huge safety margin. It's the difference between potential rescuers knowing where to start looking and not knowing where to look for you. Registering your MMSI adds several more layers of information: rescuers know what type of vessel they are looking for and they also have an onshore contact number to call and gather more information about the situation. Also, it does not send your position every time you transmit. You normally have to initiate a digital conversation with another station, or acknowledge a request for your position from another station. There's nothing "Big Brother" about it at all.

I would venture to guess that the problem is not with the brand of pump but with the particular application. Livewell pumps often have to handle particulate matter and other crud from the livewell and some types of pumps wear out quickly under that kind of abuse. Maybe switching to a different type of pump, such as a diaphragm pump, is the answer.

I had the same thing happen with a DF150 except that it kept running in the up direction. Turned out to be the switch on the cowl had failed. I replaced the switch for fairly short money.

Passing off a tow between a towboat from one Sea Tow franchise to a towboat from another franchise is standard procedure within the Sea Tow franchise system. We each work cooperatively with our franchise neighbors when a tow crosses from one franchise area to another. It frees up our towboats more quickly to be available to respond to another member.

It's great to see people finding ways to save a buck or so here and there; anything to make the boating experience better is great with me. It's also awesome to see interest in Sea Tow memberships here on RB. Hopefully, I can work with Wiley and get Sea Tow more involved with the Forum. The MBC discount code is intended for members of a yacht club in Marco Island, Florida and we'd like to keep use of that code to those people who keep their boats there. However, there are plenty of other ways to save for new and renewing Sea Tow members. When you call us be certain to ask about our current monthly specials. We always like to attract new members, but these deals are sometimes also available to renewing members. Even at the regular $149, I'd like to think that you get a lot more than your money's worth as a Sea Tow member, considering all the other things a Sea Tow membership can get you discounts on. Feel free to ask me anything else.