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I just finished Into the Ice. Great book if you know any sailors or have an interest in the early NW passage expeditions. It’s really two stories, one about the author’s journey and also the lost Franklin expedition. Very well written. My son wants to sail the NW passage when his cancer...

My 46 year old son just finished radiation and had a prostectomy in 2024. He’s been on hormone treatment since last August. I hope you get your treatment over and get back on the water soon.

Got it leveled out. 3 calls to “Technical Support” were fruitless. The technicians were clueless about their products other than the fit guide. Frustrated, I removed the feet from the crossbars and identified how the pitch adjustment is supposed to work. Should have done that right off.

I’m not thrilled with the way this rack fits. The landing pads need to be angled more. I’ll call Yakima (and try to speak with a human) to see if they have a better landing pad to compensate for the roof angle.

Continuity is important too. I got the same Yak on my Explorer. Yes, they’ve gone up dramatically. I find their stuff lasts, though, and why skimp when safety is the #1 issue? I may move the feet a few mm closer to see if that flattens the angle on the rear bar. It just doesn’t look right.

Good weather yesterday so I installed the roof rack on the wife’s new RAV4. The crossbars don’t point the same direction; the bars’ profiles are at different angles. Also, the factory rails on the car are not parallel. The rear feet are 3” inches closer together than the front. On my...

How many here had $1200 for a canoe in 1975? I think the question is probably meant to be about the “state of the art” differences. However, the individual cannot be dismissed from the equation because a “lifetime” is a personal metric. In retrospect, I started with horrible gear, and I was...

Lighter weight hulls - good Cost of equipment - bad

I’d love to learn to use a sextant. Probably not going to happen in this lifetime, but an intriguing skill.

Anyone have a collection of triangles and French curves? Rapidiograph pens? I actually could have used these tools recently.

How about a parachute? That level of technology screams “PARACHUTE!”

It’s accurate enough for my needs. Pretty cheap. Not KE quality, for sure. I generally measure multiple times and average the distances. It will do areas, but I’ve never attempted it.

Here’s one I still use, mostly for distances on irregular features (trails, rivers, etc). It is only obsolete if you’re into GPS, otherwise it’s handy.

I’ve read many books with my candle lantern hanging overhead. Tried the headlamp a few trips. Sleep better with the candle.

We have power outages. I use all my old Coleman stuff. About 3 gallons of white gas on hand.

Any obsolete camping equipment?

Nice one. I’ve used them many moons ago at work. CAD kinda made them obsolete, although I have a cheap one for trip planning. Set it up and let us see.

Here’s an analytical stereo plotter, connected to a CAD mapping systems. I was making my living running this on 2nd shift while attending graduate school. Totally obsolete now, but highly accurate. The methods have changed but some accuracy potential has been sacrificed. This was 1994ish...

Plotting tool.

I ran across this old engineer's scale, from my cartographic drafting days. I started hand drafting maps from pencil manuscripts to scribe coat, which could be used as a huge negative in the dark room to make copies onto photosensitive mylar, which could then be used for field blueprints. Back...