Category Archives: Smack’s Writing

SailGP Anarchy

Mercy me – I walked into yet another hornet’s nest in yet another sailing forum! And this one has been a doozy!

Last month, I stumbled across the inaugural season of SailGP, a brand-spanking-new and just stupidly exciting global grand prix sailing series. It’s an elite annual series, much like NFL or F1, that grew out of the brilliant ACWS from when BMW-Oracle (Larry Ellison and Russell Coutts) held the reigns during AC34-35 . Those guys clearly knew what they were doing – and saw the incredible value they’d created. So, they blew off the AC and built SailGP. And this thing is mind-blowing!

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Cheap Bluewater Boats!!!

…DO NOT EXIST. SO STOP WITH THE STUPID TERMINOLOGY!!!

I’m copying this post I put up on my BFSails Facebook page because I’m hoping that the next batch of sailboat-buying newbies will find this via Google and avoid getting suckered into 40-year-old “bluewater boats” that will cost you WAY MORE than you think and provide you WAY LESS than you need for long-term cruising….

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iNavX and SEAiq Comparison…

Here is a post from Sailnet with my good friend, Colemj, where we are discussing the differences between iNavX and SEAiq. I’d just said I didn’t think SEAiq was nearly as good as iNavX. Colemj then explained why he used and liked it. And since Colemj is definitely NOT an idiot – and actually HAS an open mind and TONS of first-hand experience with this stuff – I listen…


Hey Mark – thanks for your input. Yours is an opinion/viewpoint I definitely respect.

I guess I should qualify my comments a bit. My newer iPad is at the office so I downloaded the Free SEAiq app (which gives you a trial of the full USA version) on my iPhone8 and that might have been part of the issue in terms of display. (Note: I had to do this because SEAiq is only available for iOS 10 which the iPad2 doesn’t support – where iNavX supports both).

So first let me address the info I found on this (which shaped my opinion) and then what I saw (which made me draw the above conclusion).

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