Boat Maintenance & Repairs,Featured
TBT: Tech Talk with SeaBits: Spring Tech Checkup
March 26, 2026
This article was originally published in the March 2022 issue of 48° North A great thing to do at least once a year, and especially prior to the start of a more active boating season, is to give your boat a tech checkup.…
Diesel Deep Dive: A Good Engine Break-In
March 10, 2026
After a lot of hard work, money, and diligence, you finally have a new or freshly rebuilt engine installed in your boat. Congratulations! Speaking from personal experience, it feels so good to have an engine that starts…
Necessary or Nice: Who’s Steering This Thing?
February 11, 2026
We were supposed to be sailing west: due west, in fact. Yet when I popped up into the cockpit for the pending watch change at the top of the hour, somehow, we were sailing… north? It didn’t make any sense. We’d been sailing…
Diesel Deep Dive: Repairs Over the Airwaves
January 21, 2026
As a marine mechanic, I find myself traveling all over to fix diesel engines, but there are also a lot of repairs that I help with from the comforts of my boat. Sometimes, travel is out of the question for various reasons,…
Tech Talk with Sea Bits: Analog in a Digital World
January 13, 2026
After a couple-year hiatus, 48° North’s technology columnist is making a return, and we’re so excited to welcome Steve back. It’s the same great SeaBits style, but he’s made a boat upgrade to a cool steel trawler, and has…
Necessary or Nice: Cruising With a Code Zero
December 16, 2025
Wonderful, Fussy, Mostly Unnecessary
Sea…
BoatUS Launches Two New Safety Microcourses
October 13, 2025
The BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water has launched two new boating safety microcourses to help boaters focus on issues important to safe navigation: Aids to Navigation Basics and Nighttime Boating Basics.…
Boating News,Seamanship & Navigation,Featured
I Want To Go To Maritime High School
September 19, 2025
Washington State Ferries and Maritime High School work together for the unique Classroom on the Water program. Any experienced mariner will tell you, each time you step aboard a boat there’s a learning opportunity—Northwest…
Dead Diesel? Figure Out Why
September 9, 2025
It’s a bright, beautiful late summer day and you’re out on the water. There isn’t a lick of wind and perhaps a decent current, which means you are depending on your faithful iron sail to take you to the next destination. It…

The summer sailing season…