What items should I always have on my sailing boat? You should always have safety items like cell phones or radios and flotation devices onboard a sail boat. Most of the people come down with the little...
Most of the people come down with the little sailing bag or a little duffel bag. They may have sailing gloves, sunscreen, and extra sunglasses. We always tell people carry some sort of communication device whether it is a VHF radio or a cellphone or an AM radio. What you want to do is stay tuned to the weather. In the deep-sea area, we have got two radio stations. That acts as a Doppler radar. It's just wonderful and how it is improved technology. Doppler radar has especially forecasted every rain or thunderstorm well ahead of time. We now have radar updates every three minutes via the Internet in our office. I remember back in our early days we would listen to the radio and they'd say "it's going to be a beautiful night, get out and enjoy it." They say it's going to be a beautiful weather but you go out sailing and the next thing you know you are hit by 85-90 an hour wind and thunderstorms. Those days are long gone. We look at a radar that we keep on all day long so we know if we are expecting rain and when a storm is two counties away from us. I will send a notice down to our dock and they go out and bring all of our boats in, so we don't get caught by the elements anymore. So if anybody has an AM radio or VHF radio that had a weather band frequency on it, you can stay tuned to the weather. Cell phones are great when you can call the marina and say "there is no wind, so come get me." We get that a lot. I think cell phones really have replaced VHF radios out there. As far as being rescued or needing assistance, the cellphones work very, very well.
