Garmin Quatix7

The Garmin Quatix7 Marine GPS Smartwatch lets dad manage his day on the water with connectivity to Garmin chartplotters, easy autopilot boat control, a variety of GPS mapping features and more. This GPS Smartwatch comes in three versions: Standard Edition, Pro with a crisp AMOLED display and a Solar Edition featuring solar charging for those long summer days in the sun.

Garmin inREach Mini 2 Marine Bundle

The Garmin inREach Mini 2 Marine Bundle helps keep you in touch with pop while he’s off the grid on a boating adventure. The compact satellite communicator maintains signal on the water where cell phones won’t, includes an emergency SOS messaging system to Garmin’s coordination center and boasts a battery life of up to 14 days in 10-minute tracking mode. It also offers location sharing with loved-ones at home.

Helly Hansen Men’s HP Foil HT Sailing Shorts

If he’s got the need for speed, the Helly Hansen Men’s HP Foil HT Sailing Shorts are for him. These waterproof sailing shorts are designed for inshore racing in extremely wet conditions. They include a reinforced seat and are mesh-lined for comfort. These shorts are available in sporty navy, gray fog and black styles.

Helly Hansen Men’s Crew Hooded Midlayer Jacket 2.0

For fathers with a sailor’s soul, there’s the Helly Hansen Men’s Crew Hooded Midlayer Jacket 2.0. Originally developed as a waterproof insulation layer for sailors, this jacket is waterproof, windproof and breathable. The zipper withstands corrosion and is saltwater-resistant. The jacket is available in sleek white, gray fog, cobalt 20, red, black and navy colors.

Costa Saltbreak Sunglasses

You just can’t go wrong with a cool pair of polarized shades as a gift for dad, and these Costa Saltbreak Sunglasses are no exception. These sporty shades are available in silver, tortoise, matte black and wetlands frames, each with customizable polarized glass or polarized polycarbonate lenses.

Costa Tuna Alley Sunglasses

Named after the deep-blue Bahamian waters where the Bluefin tuna migrate north, Costa’s Tuna Alley Sunglasses combine practicality and style with plenty of customization options. These shades can be personalized to match dad’s style while he’s out on the water, from solid- white frames with blue polarized lenses to blackout frames with gray polarized lenses.

Rolex Submariner

What could be a better gift than the king of watches for a king in your life? The Rolex Submariner Date is an 18 kt. white-gold statement of deep confidence. The rotatable bezel is designed for a diver to accurately and safely monitor diving time and decompression stops.The dial’s luminescent Chromalight display allows for visibility in dark environments.

Rolex Deepsea

For gift buyers wanting to go the extra nautical mile, the Rolex Deepsea is 18 karats of bright, flashy and practical yellow gold with a Cerachrom bezel insert in blue ceramic and an oyster bracelet. This is the legendary divers’ watch, filled with luminescent material that emits a long-lasting blue glow for excellent legibility in dark conditions.

Penn Squall Lever Drag Conventional Rod & Reel Combo

The Penn Squall Lever Drag Rod & Reel is lightweight, ergonomic and corrosion-resistant. With stainless- steel gears and a high-speed gear ratio, this lever-drag is outstanding for nearshore trolling for kings and dolphins. This rod comes in medium and heavy power levels, 6- and 7-foot rod lengths as well as 15- to 30-pound and 30- to 80-pound line ratings.

YETI Tundra® 65 Marine Cooler

Help him keep his drinks cold on the water with the YETI Tundra 65 Marine Cooler. This spacious cooler can easily handle a day’s provisions for a family of four. It fits up to 77 cans or 58 pounds of ice, and the YETI Fatwall design provides 2’ of seamless insulation on the walls and bottom with 3’ of insulation on the lid.

YETI 30 oz. Rambler® Travel Mug

The YETI 30 oz Rambler Travel Mug will keep his adventure going longer. This is YETI’s biggest travel mug, providing a trip-proof grip thanks to its elevated handle. In the case of bumpy waves, its leak-resistant Stronghold lid includes dual-slider magnet technology to prevent spills.

Mustang Survival HIT Automatic Inflatable Life Jackets with Harness

The Mustang Survival HIT Automatic Inflatable Life Jacket with Harness is a boating essential and an excellent gift. This life jacket is designed for serious sailors to use in severe weather with exclusive technology that enhances safety and minimizes maintenance. Reliable automatic inflation even in severe conditions adds peace of mind to this life-saving device.

Noco Boost Pro GB150 Ultrasafe Lithium Jump Starter, 3000 Amp, 12V

The Noco Boost Pro GB150 Ultrasafe Lithium Jump Starter delivers 3,000 amps for jump starting a dead battery in seconds. It’s a powerful battery booster that doubles as a portable power source for charging USB devices or powering 12-volt devices. Perfect for dad’s car, boat, RV or truck! On top of that, the jump starter includes an ultra-bright 500 lumen LED flashlight with seven light modes, including SOS and an emergency strobe.

Fusion Marine MS-RA210 Stereo and XS Classic Speaker Kit

The Fusion Marine MS-RA210 Stereo and XS Classic Speaker Kit is a gift that will keep dad jamming while washing down the boat. Remember the Garmin Quatix7 from earlier? Advanced connectivity options give you the freedom to control this stereo from a compatible Garmin MFD, smart device or watch, making this a great gift to pair with!

Amberjack – The Loafer

It just wouldn’t be a complete father’s day gift list without mentioning some slick kicks. The Loafers by Amberjack are made with A-grade full-grain leather and sheepskin lining, and they come in a variety of colors and sizes. They are comfortable, stylish and they feature an athletic outsole with a heat-activated insole. And, after a day of cruising, they just look great when heading ashore to your favorite waterfront eatery.

The post Best Father’s Day Gifts For Boaters 2024 appeared first on Yachting.

Call it the big reveal. Mustang Survival’s new line of paddling PFDs and apparel has been a long time in the making, and provides big hints about what will come from the company next.

The brand, which is based in the Pacific Northwest, has been making gear that can handle adventurous environments since 1967. Its flotation devices and apparel have long been favorites among hardcore sailors and fishermen. Fast-forward to 2020, and paddling entered the company’s plans in a much bigger way. Mustang Survival merged with Massachusetts-based MTI, which specialized in US Coast Guard-approved life jackets.

MTI had a substantial catalog of foam-based PFDs that differed from the inflatables Mustang Survival had long produced. Since 2020, Mustang Survival has been rebranding that foam line, including PFDs for paddlers, and working on a line of paddling-specific apparel to go with it.

This past spring, the whole paddling collection was made widely available to the public for the first time. The goal with the apparel was to create a more versatile version of Mustang Survival’s drysuits—pieces to be layered and worn all day while comfortably paddling that keep the water out and the warmth in.

“The idea was inspired by kayaking,” says Gaby Hebert, who works on recreational product design. “The typical design in kayaks is that you have the hull of your boat, you put a neoprene skirt over the top of it, and if you flip your boat, the water has to go through a series of ups and downs to get into your boat. We used the same concept. It’s as close as you can get to watertight without having a drysuit.”

The apparel line is built in pairable pieces that work individually with the various PFDs for a good fit on most body shapes. Women’s PFDs, for instance, have different foam distribution than men’s.

“There’s actually a lot of different foam shaping that we’ve done, as well as a unique system called Adjust-a-Bust,” says Jonathan Liu, product manager for recreation. “It’s basically foam inserts in the chest area to support women of different chest sizes. Those are removable so women can be comfortable.”

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For decades, Mustang Survival has had teams of people in the Pacific Northwest figuring out how to design and make safety gear, clothing and more for military use in the harshest marine environments. About five years ago, the company decided to leverage that knowledge to add more products for recreational boaters. As a result, this winter, yachtsmen have new options to help them stay out on the water longer.

“This winter is really about extending the marine season and trying to keep people warm in wet or nasty conditions as winter approaches us,” says Joshua Horoshok, vice president of recreation business. “Traditionally, for us, that has always been through flotation clothing. This winter, we took a step out and worked with some really good materials to build out a more complete apparel line in terms of midlayers, drysuits and base layers.”

One example is the Torrens hooded thermal jacket ($259), which is available in men’s and women’s versions. Mustang Survival makes it with Polartec Alpha insulation.

“This was developed for military uses,” Horoshok says. “It’s really great for keeping you warm, even if it gets a little bit wet or damp. It’s really breathable as well.”

The company used body mapping to figure out how much of the insulation to use and where.

“We have a lab at our headquarters, and we looked at where you get cold on the body, where you need extra layers, so there’s extra thicknesses across different parts of the body,” he says. “Maybe you don’t need it as much under your armpits, but you need it more on the small of your back. We used temperature gauges on people and looked at data on where you would sweat and where you don’t.”

Additional features, such as an insulated hood, gaiters and an elasticized hem, help to block the wind. Different types of materials in the jacket’s underarms eliminate the feeling of winter-coat bulkiness.

Military clients have enjoyed these features for some time, Horoshok says, but “quite frankly, the designs and styling and features weren’t exactly right for recreation. So, we retooled those materials.”

The post Military-Grade Safety Gear for Recreational Boaters appeared first on Yachting.

Mustang survival’s Khimera is a hybridized personal flotation device that uses closed-cell foam and compressed gas to deliver 20 pounds of positive buoyancy in a low-profile life jacket. It’s made for water-toy adventures and lumpy tender rides alike. Mustang Survival engineered the performance by incorporating an inflatable polyether-urethane bladder into a polyethylene-foam sandwich that’s corralled by panels of stretchy Cordura fabric and nonstretchy Cordura 500D fabric; inflation is governed by a Halkey Roberts 840 manual inflator and backed up by an oral-inflation tube.

Building this sandwich wasn’t easy. “Major difficulty started at finding a robust yet stretchable shell material and designing a bladder that would work within that stretchable shell,” says Vanessa Fors, Mustang Survival’s category manager. Another crux involved launching a hybridized life jacket for which there were no existing type-approval tests. “The Khimera is the first harmonized PFD,” she says, “which means it’s approved by both the US Coast Guard and Transport Canada.”

Not surprisingly, sailors and watersports athletes seeking to increase their range of motion are gravitating to the design. “The whole premise for the project was movement on the water,” Fors says, pointing to the Khimera’s low-profile chassis and wide armhole apertures.

Take the next step: mustangsurvival.com

The post New PFD from Mustang appeared first on Yachting.

A southeasterly howled across British Columbia’s Hecate Strait as Randy Wright, president of Harbour Air, guided guests aboard a mothership to a fleet of Fat Cat fishing boats. They’d started at the resort he used to operate with his dad. When the breeze ticked past 50 knots, Wright called the anglers back. A group of Germans, however, got stuck and abandoned their vessel on Langara Island, the northernmost island of Haida Gwaii, and were soon rescued by another outfit.

The breeze abated by morning, so Wright and two hands put on survival suits and jumped into a skiff to retrieve their wayward boat. Wright dropped his mates behind a protective reef, giving them access to the stricken Fat Cat, and maneuvered to the exposed lee shore to attempt the retrieval.

“It was a mistake to be alone,” he recalled at Mustang Survival’s 50th anniversary celebration, 27 years ex post facto. “I stood with my back to the sea and tried to throw them a heaving line,” he said. No dice. Then he heard his friends’ shouts.

A glance astern confirmed his nightmare: Big waves were on the move, bearing down on him. “I gunned it to shore, surfing,” Wright said, “then my ass started to rise and the boat went end-to-end.” He dived into the frigid water and somehow surfaced, only to see a freakishly large wave barreling forth. “I survived because I was wearing a Mustang Survival suit,” Wright said, his voice cracking. “I wouldn’t have kids without that suit.”

When seas and skies grow angry, mariners such as Wright strap on life jackets, harnesses and foul-weather gear designed to make otherwise inhospitable environments conducive to survival. Building this gear properly requires years — if not decades — of hard-won experience in tough conditions. The creation process is product Darwinism: Get it right, and a business can earn survival stories such as Wright’s; get it wrong, and things go pear-shaped, fast. That’s an economic reality that takes on even greater importance when you’re in the business of keeping people alive. While less than 10 percent of all new businesses reach their 50th anniversary, Mustang Survival achieved this milestone through a companywide dedication to a six-word motto: “We save lives for a living.”

The company, with Canadian headquarters in ­British Columbia and U.S. headquarters in Washington State, had an inauspicious start. Irv Davies lost his job at an apparel company in 1967. Fueled by a drive to persevere and succeed, and the mock-Latin axiom illegitimi non carborundum (loosely translated: don’t let the bastards grind you down), Davies created ­Mustang Survival on May 29, 1967, ­initially offering down jackets to Alaskan fishermen. He eventually turned to hydrophobic, closed-cell foam for insulation and started making foul-weather gear.

Then, one day, Davies’ foam salesman mentioned that the insulation material Mustang Survival was using for its cold-weather jackets was the same stuff used in life jackets.

Click.

Mustang Survival began building insulated, high-flotation clothing, dubbed Floater Coats, which the company sold to mariners of all stripes. “We’ve been building on it for 50 years,” says Jason ­Leggatt, Mustang Survival’s vice president and general manager. The company currently earns its revenue among three categories — military and life-saving organizations, commercial fishing and recreational marine — though, regardless of where the products are sold, two of the most important words in ­Mustang’s lexicon are still “dry” and “float.”

By establishing early brand credibility with Alaskan fishermen and Pacific Northwest yachtsmen, Mustang Survival built a reputation for equipment that withstood the unforgiving marine environment. The company has long worked to establish strategic partnerships with leading suppliers (for example, it was an early testing partner for military-spec Gore-Tex laminates) and to stay on top of cutting-edge technologies such as fabric welding. Innovative and diversified products followed, including marine survival suits in the early 1990s, self-inflating personal flotation devices (PFDs) in 1993, G-suits for fighter pilots in 2001 and — following 1986’s Space Shuttle Challenger disaster — an enhanced flotation system for astronauts that NASA requested and used on every following shuttle mission through the program’s retirement in 2011.

“I survived because I was wearing a Mustang Survival Suit. I wouldn’t have kids without that suit.”

Randy Wright

Oscar Tsai, Mustang Survival’s plant manager in British Columbia, says one key to the company’s success is that “we practice lean manufacturing and inventory.” Workers also routinely put products to serious tests, some at the survival-suit station, where each suit is inflated to pressures well beyond the U.S. Coast Guard’s minimum standards, covered in soapy water and scrutinized for leaks. Not a single smoking-gun bubble can be seen. “It took us three years to get to this stage of manufacturing perfection,” Tsai says with pride.

Mustang Survival employs a modular approach to manufacturing. One week it might be building flotation clothing, while the next it is manufacturing PFDs. Many of the employees have been with the company for more than 20 years, Tsai says.

There’s no shortage of interesting things to keep their minds challenged. In the test lab, for instance, there’s equipment for military and first-responder teams, along with a bevy of sophisticated instruments such as a fairly rare “sweating hot plate” that tests fabric breathability. A 3D printer in this room likely foreshadows an increasing percentage of prototypes — and possibly even finished parts. I got to take a jump into the testing pool, where Cheryl So, Mustang Survival’s manager of product engineering, showed us a new line of inshore and offshore PFDs that combine passive (foam) and active (compressed air) flotation. Mustang ­Survival partnered with another safety-at-sea company, Hammar, to produce this line of PFDs that hydrostatically determine when they are submerged to at least 10 centimeters, the unit’s tripping point. The idea is to reduce instances of accidental inflation.

THE COMANCHE CONNECTION
When talk turns to the world’s fastest monohull, Jim Clark and Kristy Hinze’s 100-foot supermaxi, Comanche, reigns supreme. The boat set the elapsed-time record in the Newport Bermuda Race (34 hours, 52 minutes and 53 seconds) and the coveted 24-hour distance record (618.01 nautical miles). When Mustang Survival wanted to test its EP Ocean Racing Series foul-weather gear, which uses military-spec Gore-Tex fabrics, aboard an outrageous sailing platform, it reached out to Canadian Richard Clarke, a five-time Olympian, for suggestions. Clarke sails aboard Comanche, and the team has been helping to develop the garments ever since.

I zipped up a Mustang Survival Sentinel Series dry suit, adjusted its new Khimera hybrid PFD and leaped into the 12-foot pool. The PFD ensured a shallow plunge, and, after surfacing, I yanked the vest’s inflation handle. The PFD swelled, creating several additional inches of freeboard, but unlike traditional inflatable PFDs that fully expose their U-shaped bladders, the Khimera remained more form-fitting. Mustang Survival’s now-generation vests use proprietary Membrane Inflatable Technology, which buries the bladder under a sewn restraint to achieve the fit. I rotated through several more vests, all far less jolting upon inflation than the Type V Mustang Survival PFD that I’ve owned for 15-plus years.

Four hours later, I listened to Randy Wright’s voice well up with emotion as he described — in front of some of the very employees who built his survival suit — the debt of gratitude he owed to his Mustang Survival equipment.

Irv Davies’ original, deep-down drive to succeed didn’t just result in a profitable business for ­Mustang Survival. It’s yielded countless life-changing, nay, life-saving outcomes.

The post High and Dry for 50 Years appeared first on Yachting.