Some might quibble with “distinctively handsome profile”, but wow what a concept: 6 knots ‘free’ using 6,000 watts of photovoltaic panels laid on the (thus squarish) cabin tops and deck, but if you want to pick her up to 15 knots cruise (and/or the big AGM battery banks need topping up), the Mercedes diesel generators, living in sound proof chambers forward, kick in. This is more out-of-the-box thinking from Reuben Trane, who also put together the more subtly innovative Island Pilot I tried in August. He spoke about this hybrid idea with much enthusiasm, but I didn’t expect to see ads and a web site so soon. Needless to say, there will be a very interesting monitoring and control system on these boats.
Above, and bigger here, is a proud Milt Baker at the helm of his Nordhavn 47 Bluewater, a just-one-year-old vessel that he and his spouse Judy have already cruised over 7,000 miles. The couple were already very experienced when they founded Bluewater Books & Charts in the mid 80’s (coincidentally their last Bluewater was a Grand Banks 42, like the one outside the window in Rockland, Maine, on the drizzly day I visited). Now, in retirement, they are really out there doing it; this vessel is meant to take them to Europe next spring. Milt gave me a good systems tour but fortunately I don’t have to repeat much of it as he’s put a complete electronics list, even PDFs of the layout (that he designed in AutoCAD), at their BluewaterNav Web site.
Now I like “belt and suspenders” as a folksy expression for redundancy, but it doesn’t do justice to Bluewater. Let’s see: Two complete autopilots, every component; two 10.4” Furuno NavNet MFDs, networked but each with its own radar scanner, plus a 7” in the master stateroom; and a laptop running Nobeltec Admiral to twin 15” monitors, with three backup Admiral-loaded laptops on board! There’s more redundancy, and more Bluewater gear to write about, but can we agree that it’s very unlikely this boat will drop its navigational pants?
The above screen shot, full size here, is actually Nobeltec’s Bathy Recorder, a “plus pack” option to Admiral and VNS 8 that Jeppesen Marine introduced last year. I’ve seen these results of a tester’s survey of heavily dredged Port Everglades, and all the ways you can display it, demonstrated at a boat show, and it was quite impressive, though not inexpensive. But I’d neglected to mention this for so long that we are now seeing the arrival of Nobeltec 9! The press release went out last night, marking the start of the Newport Boat Show today (Admiral PDF here and VNS PDF here). Some highlights:
* Both Admiral and VNS will now display regular GRIB weather files and have new “Nav Info Panels” which can show strip charts as well as numbers. (All seen below and bigger here). * Admiral also gets “AIS Filtering” (I don’t know what that means yet) and now include OCENS WeatherNet. * Admiral 9 can also support a new Plus Pack called Tender Tracker which integrates with Seetrac hardware. * Either charting package can work with the new Sailing Plus Pack, which can display existing polars, build new ones, overlay laylines and wind info, and provide “basic instrument support for B&G and Ockam instruments”. * And either can support the new XM Plus Pack, which apparently integrates the WxWorx PC version of XM Marine Weather with Nobeltec.
So…wow…goodies for megayachts, racing sailors, and all the rest of us who care about weather (more detail and screen shots coming to Panbo soon). And we already know that Jeppesen/Nobeltec has been working with Simrad, and is also in a quiet period while it finalizes a deal to acquire C-Map. Looks like a really big year for these guys.
It’s really worth clicking here to see the full screen showing Maptech’s Offshore Navigator Lite (ONL) program included on this $50 DVD I first mentioned last April. I don’t know why I didn’t write more about the package sooner—we’re a little scattered here at Panbo!—but I certainly was impressed with it, particularly the professional level Notice to Mariner updates illustrated in this screen shot. See that orange circle around Northeast Pt. light just right of the Camden Harbor label. Clicking on it brought up the NTM dialog box that fully explained the what and when of the change. I find that very useful for keeping up on the changes in my local waters, waters where I tend to think I already know what’s what! They moved NE Pt. light a little ways; good to know! On this particular chart (learned via the other dialog box), I can see every NTM change from its Base Date of 4/29/2003 through 3/25/2006, shortly before Maptech sent me the DVD. Now I’m wondering if there is an easy way to keep these charts updated, easier than going to freeboatingcharts.com (which also markets the DVD, along with Captn Jack’s), and downloading lots of whole charts. Are the update files online somewhere? Is there any software that can semi-automatically keep a specific portfolio updated?
By the way you can simply turn off the NTM feature in ONL, so you only see the latest chart, no circles. Also note the “Navigation Panel” at the bottom of the screen. Those blue bars represent different charts available at this location, the light blue meaning that I’m at the largest scale (smallest area). Mousing over the other bars would show me their titles and scales. I’ve always liked that. Altogether this DVD—which includes every NOAA raster plus the Corps of Engineers river rasters, all organized by region, plus a GPS wizard—is a hell of a deal. But if you are looking for all the charts on DVD, you might also consider a new product from Managing the Waterway, a $40 2–DVD set that also includes the ENCs and demos of various charting programs. I’ll be checking it out soon.
I’m guessing that title got your attention? You see I’m trying to compare a Furuno FCV-620 fishfinder with the Raymarine DS500X which is already installed on Gizmo (and which the idiot thieves failed to strip off). Airmar kindly made me a patch cord so that the same transducer works with both machines (and the Navman 8120 I’m also testing). I can’t run them simultaneously (the DS500X is locked up in above photo), but can switch the transducer quickly. You can see in the bigger picture how noise-free both units are, apparently thanks to Digital Signal Processing, and note that both are in full auto mode. What I’m having a hard time determining is if one or the other is actually better at finding fish. So far the Raymarine IDs more fish on screen, but I suspect that it is being ‘optimistic’. It’s hard to get trained fish for this purpose, which is why someone suggested that a few ping pong balls held underwater with panty hose and a rock could simulate fish bladders. I’m not sure I’ll find time to try that, but would appreciate other suggestions on how to compare the units.
In the meantime, the difference in interfaces is much more obvious and quantifiable. I quite like the 620’s knobs for controlling manual gain and screen mode (below, bigger here), a much more tedious process on the DS500X. Knobs, as noted yesterday, are old fashioned, but they sure can be useful.
On a day when it’s hard to avoid heavy memories of 9/11/2001, it’s a bit of relief to go back much further. I remember these bullet proof Sailor receiver/RDF sets from some of the higher end sailboats I delivered in the 80’s. This particular unit belongs to panbote Gary Wood who was kind enough to answer my call for old electronics and to haul this knobby beauty out of his garage and photograph it, bigger here, with Puget Sound in the background. He’s had it for awhile, having:
“…bought it new for installation on our Wauquiez Hood 38, delivered in France in 1981. At that time, RDF was state of the art technology. Sat Nav hadn’t arrived, and Loran-C did not yet work in the English Channel and North Sea. I used it to find Heligoland in the middle of the night, an island in the North Sea about 40 miles from Cuxhaven, Germany. Other than that, it was great for listening to the BBC and to hear, but not talk to, SSB communications. We were in the Mediterranean a year later, and bought a Si-Tex Loran C. It was the size of a large loaf of bread, and it cost $1,500. But we knew where we were all the time! GPS has certainly changed all of this.”
Gary also reminded me that the 80’s ads for this radio featured an elephant standing on it. Rugged! The Sailor brand is still around, incidentally, but now, as part of Thrane & Thrane, the gear is pretty much solely focused on commercial ships.
PS. The comments reveal that some Panbo young’uns are baffled by the gray gadget at left in the picture (top down view below). Pardon me for not explaining better! Kids, it’s a hand bearing magnetic compass—hence the dampening fluid (which it needs desperately) requirements—with the Sailor’s directional antenna and remote controls attached. The odd doodad at the top is a mirrored magnifying prism so you could read the compass card as you swung the whole device at arm’s length, seeking the maximum signal from a radio beacon (probably through earphones). Or you could just use it like a regular, if bulky, hand bearing compass without RDF turned on.
That little silver Nokia shining up through six feet of saltwater isn’t mine, but it did slip out of a friend’s holster as he helped with a project on Ralph (still for sale). I’m not sure even the Sony Ericsson SO902iWP+ would have survived. Doh!
I was somewhat chagrined to open the latest issue of PMY and find a full page ad for an interesting new electronics system I had never heard of! I guess it’s hard to manage a world-wide product introduction; heck, even searching the Simrad Yachting site for the GB60, as this system is called, yields nada, at least today. At any rate, it’s pretty clear from the pictures and European press releases I found that Simrad Yachting has teamed up with Jeppesen Marine, i.e. Nobeltec. The PR references Passport charts, photo maps, etc. but the screen above sure looks like Admiral to me. Which is not a bad thing. Why reinvent the wheel, especially when you have all the hardware that a big Admiral glass bridge system wants to live in. When I visited Simrad a few years ago, I was surprised at how many commercial grade marine computer products they made. Hence there’s a lot of experience behind that dual processor black box PC below. Ditto the keyboard and even the cool arm rest control. Simrad has also been making, or at least OEMing, monitors for a while but these, available in 12”, 15” and 19” sizes, are a new super slim design. I dare say that a full 3 monitor GB60 system, like below (and really big here), will be pricey but powerful, and some will love that it’s all under one warranty. Intriguing detail: the system can talk NMEA 2000 (aka SimNet); will regular Nobeltec charting programs acquire 2000 soon? That would be a good thing.
I’m thinking of writing my year-end Power & Motoryacht column about the state of marine electronics when the magazine first published in 1985. That also seems to be the birth year of the chart plotter. I think it will be fun to look at the generally boxy and complicated—not to mention low performance and high priced—machines we struggled with back then. I hope anyone with pictures, manuals, or just memories will share them with me, particularly the electronics companies that were in business back then and have piles of gear like the above (bigger here) gathering dust somewhere (hello Raymarine/Raytheon/AutoHelm/Apelco etc.).
I have a copy of that first February 1985 PMY, and am especially interested in the stories behind those first electronics advertisements: the Raytheon 1200 Pathfinder radar, Trimble 200 Loran, Tracor Global Navigation System (“worldwide navigation for under $7,500”!), Alden Weather Fax, ITT Jabsco night vision, Standard Horizon VHFs, Cybernet marine stereo, Cetec Benmar autopilots, Sea-Tex everything (“radars, chart recorders, Loran C receivers, autopilots, track plotters, color sounders, ADF’s, the works.”), and, finally, RDI radar watch, sat nav, and sat com…yes, they claimed “Telephone, Telex, Computer Data, and Slow Scan TV” (whatever that is). Did this stuff work and what happened to the companies involved? Were you using marine electronics in 1985?
I’ve never heard of RadioLabs before, but maybe it’s come up with an excellent aid to onboard WiFi reception. The WaveRV Marine is an 22” 8dB omnidirectional 2.4 GHz antenna with a 400 mW WiFi radio built into its base. A 15’ USB cable moves data and power between the WaveRV and a down-below Windows, Mac, or even Linux computer. The unit is waterproof, fits a standard marine antenna mount, and costs $170 plus shipping. The fifteen foot power/data cable might be too short for some boats, but otherwise this looks like a good alternative to Wayne’s Way, etc. Here’s RadioLab’s WaveRV Marine page, and here’s a highly optimistic press release PDF. (Four mile range? I don’t think so.) By the way, I’m hoping to test this product.
I’ve never heard of RadioLabs before, but maybe it’s come up with an excellent aid to onboard WiFi reception. The WaveRV Marine is an 22” 8dB omnidirectional 2.4 GHz antenna with a 400 mW WiFi radio built into its base. A 15’ USB cable moves data and power between the WaveRV and a down-below Windows, Mac, or even Linux computer. The unit is waterproof, fits a standard marine antenna mount, and costs $170 plus shipping. The fifteen foot power/data cable might be too short for some boats, but otherwise this looks like a good alternative to