[What constitutes "offshore"?]

With regard weather forecasts "offshore" is generally considered beyond 60nm

[I'm curious--How Many Have an EPIRB?]

A VHF is really a secondary support device, a cell phone should not be considered at all, they don't like water and can not be tracked.

[cat hull VS deep V]

They are no more fuel efficient than a v hull of equall size and power.

It's gets interesting when one starts comparing just what is "equal" size when comparing the two. Equal size? but based on what criteria, length? weight? physical looking size? or ??

[world cat diesel boats]

Worldcat are not designed or capable of carrying diesels properly. Obviously this would have been a half baked attempt destined to fail anyway by design.

[I'm curious--How Many Have an EPIRB?]

The USA appears to be behind the times with mandatory Epirb carriage for (ALL) recreational vessels?

[Worlds Fastest Offshore Fishing Boat]

He said FISHING boat.

That's funny Still waiting for the OFFSHORE bit and the FISHING bit

[I'm curious--How Many Have an EPIRB?]

I havn't replaced my old frequency GPS with a new one. Been thinking about buying one, but also think about selling the boats and getting out of offshore fishing .....

Are you talking about an "old frequency Epirb" with GPS?

If so these are totally illegal to use in the US (besides the fact they really don't work now) and have been that way since Jan 1 2007

[FREE REELBOATING T-SHIRT]

Only if Wiley gets my address mixed up with yours.

Then I better send you a forwarding address

[FREE REELBOATING T-SHIRT]

Fedex is really very quick, so it should be here by Wednesday then

[Are marine electronics obsolete?]

Yep there is one thing for sure about standards, there are so many of them, subsets, supersets and propriety additions on top that make sure most things talk to each other just a little but only talk with full functionality with an intended few.

One only has to look at the third party charting formats and connections with specific manufacturers to understand they don't want an open infrastructure.

[Are marine electronics obsolete?]

"Away out of sight" your not wrong there, 15 years ago one could actually read the text on a phone, today you need a magnifying glass. So unless phones are going to get multiple times bigger and somehow I doubt that then no phones will not be the future of it all.

[LORAN-C]

Wait till the Chinese decide to flex their muscle by knocking out a dozen sat birds and your fancy, schmancey, GPS just sits there and looks dumb... Bet you will want a jam proof Loran then...

Yeah so the Chinese knock down one of their own weather satellites in 500 mile LEO and suddenly to some the GPS satellites at 10,500 miles are a target, come on, not everybody has come down in the lastest space junk furfy.

Always get a good laugh out of those that claim Loran is jam proof. In any case I suppose who would want to try and jam Loran anyway, only going to affect a few old cruddy old age fisherman Like as if Loran is a crictical system!

[GARMIN GP-48]

The Garmin 48 will handle TD input but frankly the conversion is going to be fairly hopeless. There is no direct PCF type offset (from memory) but you could play around with a user defined datum shift/ transformation. Probably a lot more trouble than what it's worth?

[premix through a racor filter]

Through the standard 10 micron racor no problems.

[LORAN-C]

So when do they plan on shutting them down. I run both Loran C and GPS units

The key players with regard Loran are DoD who has not approved eLoran as backup for military applications, transportaion, aviation, commercial maritime, rail and highways have all determined there a sufficient alternatives and do not see Loran required as a backup. Loran is also not required by safety-of-life users.

This is all from a pure navigational view point but Loran has been tagged as a possible backup for timing applications.

In any case some of the Loran stations are still running on valves from the 1950's. The USCG who also see not future use for Loran will hand over operation of Loran to the DHS end of this Fiscal year. The DHS have since been head hunting justifications to keep Loran but they don;t have anything to backup their plan.

About the only people still using it appear to be a few moth balled fisherman