[Thinkpad] Thinkpads at sea?

Hello all
I just got back from a visit with my brother in law in Alaska.
He asked me if I could find him a laptop.
Of course I suggested a Thinkpad.

At home he wants to record and playback music.
He's found a radio receiver that plugs into a serial port, go to
<http://www.icomamerica.com/receivers/default.asp>
and look for the PCR1000 under "PC Controlled" on the left.
The receiver software runs under Windows.

At sea (on his fishing boat) he wants to plug into his GPS and run some
charting and navigation program.
I'm not sure what kind of hardware the charting program takes so I don't
yet know how much processor I need to get. I'm expecting that storing
large graphics will take a lot of disk space.

I'm wondering how to handle the marine environment, very high humidity
surrounded by salt water.
Will a thinkpad stand up to this sort of treatment?
Should I be thinking about a sealed case with external (easily replaced)
keyboard and display?
If the charting software can run on an older computer maybe it would
make more sense to buy a cheaper computer and plan on replacing it every
year or two?

Anyone got any experience with thinkpads at sea?

Thanks

-- 
Andrew in Ann Arbor
technology is the answer, what was the question?
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