The Internet: a boater's resource

©1995 Wayne Spivak
The Ensign Official Magazine of the United States Power Squadrons, August 1995

For the serious boater, the Internet provides resources spanning the sprectrum of marine studies. Her's a starter list of sites that may be of special interst to USPS members. Many fo these resources can supplement work in such diverse courses as Weathe r, Cruise Planning, Marine Electronics, as well as Supplemental Programs like Loran, Radar and Astronomy. Some sites can be used to learn more about celestial navigation or what's happening in other squadrons.

How do you get on the Internet? Major Internet providers include America On-line, CompuServe, Delphi, Netcom and Prodigy, to name a few. To find out more about these and other providers, consult personal computer magazines, local newspapers, libraries a nd computer stores. Not all providers charge the same money and offer the same services, so check around before you sign on.

For peak enjoyment, use the fastest modem you can. Grahpics contained in the World Wide Web will be very slow if ou use a slow modem. Typically , a 14,400 bps modem is around $125.

Also, when keying an address, pay close attention to upper-and lowercase letters. For example, if you ype usps instead of USPS, you will not find the USPS Web Page.

E-Mail and Mailing Lists:

The Power Squadron Mailing List -- send e-mail to waynes@netcom.com in the following format: subscribe power-squadrons

The Navigation Mailing List --send e-mail to majordomo@ronin.com in the following format: subscribe navigation

The Cursing Mailing List -- send e-mail to majordomo@ronin.com in the following format: subscribe cruising

The Multihulls Mailing List -- send e-mail to majordomo@ronin.com in the following format: subscribe Multihulls

The Yachting Mailing List -- send e-mail to listserv@hearn.bitnet in the following format: subscribe yacht-l

Earth and Sky Mailing List -- send e-mail to majordomo@lists.utexas.edu in the following format: subscribe earthandsky

The UseNet

Rec.Boats -- General Boating issues
Rec.Boats.Building -- Boat building issues
Rec.Boats.Racing -- Boat Racing
Sci.Geo.Meteorology -- Weather and Meteorology
Sci..Geo.Satellite-Nav -- GPS and Loran Discussions

FTP Sites

Unless stated otherwise, all these sites are anonymous logins (i.e., the login name is anonymous and the password is your e-mail address).

Power Squadrons - ftp.netcom.com in the /pub/Po/Power-Squadrons directory
Navigation- ftp.ronin.com in the /navigation/navex directory
Cursing & Multihulls -- are also in the ftp.ronin.com

WEB Sites

USPS Home Page -
http://www.ronin.com/USPS

Weather @ U of IL -
http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/

UK Maritime Museums -
http://nisp.ncl.ac.uk/11/lists-fj/history-sources/maritime-museums

Weather @ Purdue University -
http:// thunder.atms.purdue.edu/index.html

National Science Foundation -
http://atm.go.nsf.gov/

Coast Guard Online -
http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/oliver27/cg

Coast Guard 13th District -
http://www.webcom.com/~d13www

Internet Boating WWW Server -
http://www.recreation.com/boating/

Sailing Gear -
http://www.cybermalls.com./cywharf/cywhamall.html

NOAA -
http:// ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/

Ohio State Weather -
http://www.cis.ohio=state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/weather/top.html

The Sailing Page -
http://community.bellcore.com/mbr/sailing-page.html

Tall Ships Pictures -
http://www.cnam.fr/Images/Armada

Wind Data North Atlantic -
http://cac.psu.edu/~reh113/northeast.html

Boating Catalog (Info & Classifieds) -
http://www.cybermalls.com

Global Shopping Network -
http://www.gsn.com/bin/fishing.exe?/sports/fishnet.htm?graphics?guestl

Boatnet -
http://www.boatnet.com/boatnet/index.html

Waterskiing WWW page -
http://www.primenet.com/~jodell

Sail Source Internet Resources -
http://www.paw.com/sail/InternetResources

HoloHolo Hawii Marine News -
http://www.aloha.com/~lektrode

Ronin House -
http://www.ronin.com

Interactive Weather Page from FSU & NWS -
http://www.thunder.met.fsu.edu/~nws/buoy/