Tis the season of wondrously weird marine electronics related holiday cards, and the indisputable winner thus far is EchoPilot’s elaborate goof on megayacht trends. The “New Super Maxtremetti 300 Baby Bling” (bigger here) is beautifully rendered on an 8x11” card with something like a 1,000 words of tongue-deep-in-cheek descriptive prose on the back. To wit:
“Baby Bling is the world’s most automated vessel. All her vital functions, hotel systems, cameras and instruments are digitally linked by satellite to the Internet. She can be monitored, manoeuvred and navigated from any password-enabled broadband-connected PC in the world, allowing her owners the combination of absolute control and zero effort to which they are accustomed. Automation and remote control also means Baby Bling only requires three crew to operate her using specially modified iPods. The remaining 127 crew look after catering, hotel and wetbar systems.”
Thanks to Mike and Susan at EchoPilot for a good giggle, and let’s hope they add it their Web site for the rest of the world to enjoy.
There’s something special about this Nobeltec Tides & Currents 3.5 screen shot, bigger here. Besides some sleek improvements to the interface, the program—targeted for release in early January—is corrected for the new Daylight Saving Time (DST) scheme coming to the U.S. in 2007. Yes, in case you hadn’t heard, we are adding a month of DST, now starting it on the second Sunday in March and extending it to the first Sunday in November (with a few exceptions). That will most definitely mess up any uncorrected software or printed tide tables you use, if they are supposedly adjusted for DST. (NOAA used to print all tables in Standard Time because, according to a functionary I once spoke to, they didn’t know how to handle predictions that fell between 1am and 2am on the last “fall back” day of DST, when that “hour” happens twice). I know way too much about tide tables from my days as ‘editor’ (data dicer actually) at Reed’s Nautical Almanacs. I still use some of the skills learned to make a couple of newspaper tide tables, like the one below (bigger here). There’s a lot of scripting and Quark XPress tag trickery behind that table, but I get the tide predictions themselves using the nifty data export facility of T&C. Note the difference between 3/11 tides above and below: I’ve marked the new “DST begins” on the table but the data is still wrong, awaiting T&C 3.5.
That’s Argonaut’s Tflex-G615, the $1,000 waterproof 15” monitor, looking pretty good in direct sunlight (though a low winter Maine sun partially filtered by trees). If I wasn’t also testing yet another compact camera (the unfamiliar UI being my excuse for erasing most of today’s shots), you’d see all four of those screens lit up, and you’d probably be pleasantly surprised that the Si-Tex ColorMax 15 looks almost as bright as the benchmark Raymarine E-120 (at least in these conditions). But both the Si-Tex and the Argonaut screens are more reflective than the Raymarine (and the Northstar 6100i), as you can see in this close-up. I’ll have more about the Tflex, ColorMax, and 6100i eventually, and also about my new super duper test bench, not yet finished.
I’m a fan of Marti Brown, author of a several how-to books about marine SSB radios. This is one of the most daunting technologies cruiser may struggle with, and Marti does a good job of clarifying just what it can do for you, and how. I’m just setting up an Icom R2500 receiver to test, and I think the book at right is going to help me listen in to some of the interesting marine nets and other resources. There’s more info at her Idi-Yacht Web site, as well as Amazon and wholesale distributor NavCom Digital. I spoke with Marti this morning and she told me about a neat project getting started in her home port of Marathon, Florida. Boot Key Harbor is full of live-aboards like her, and, despite the sunny weather, they have concerns—hurricanes, homeland security, Avian Flu breaking out in Miami and working down the Key’s single access highway, etc. So they’re setting up the “Boot Key Harbor Tropical Telegraph”, a system of phone trees and radio procedures such that all boats can be alerted of a problem. MMSI’s and DSC are a key part of the plan, and Marti says her fellow cruisers get enthused when they learn just how well DSC can work for this. The local Coast Guard apparently likes it too. The “telegraph” seems like a great idea, and another way that DSC/MMSI use might progress toward the tipping point.
Panbo reader Steve e-mailed a while back asking me to bug the VHF manufacturers to build in a replay feature. He wrote, “I cannot say how many times I have missed something on the VHF and longed for a ‘back’ 10 seconds button.” Well, I thought it was a great idea—lord knows how many times I’ve suffered through a long NOAA weather loop only to space out by the time the particular forecast or buoy stats I wanted came along. But I had nothing to do with the several VHF replay features now hitting the market. First up is a Cobra handheld that was previewed at METS (above). It has a built-in memory chip that records the last 20 seconds of whatever breaks squelch on the channel(s) you’re monitoring. You can also save recordings, make voice notes, or record a canned transmission. The U.S. version of this radio, not yet available, is also dual band, able to do GMRS with 5 watts of transmit power. I suspect that Cobra has a hot product here, and I’m hoping to test it when available. (There will also be a fixed Class D VHF with “Rewind, Say Again”.) Meanwhile, out in Everett, Washington, professional skipper Scott Sucke has developed Last Call, a VHF speaker with a memory chip inside. Straight up it will probably make your existing VHF sound better (building radios waterproof is not good for speaker performance), and it will replay/amplify the last 60 seconds of continuous transmission, save it too. Apparently the Washington State Ferry Service likes them enough to equip its whole fleet. The Last Call Web site has a demo video and contact information, but note that there’s $99 deal going on the first manufacturing batch, “while supplies last”. I hope to test Last Call too.
You really need the full screen above to see what’s going on, but that’s the “tow builder” feature in Jeppesen Marine’s new ECS product, which previewed at the WorkBoat Show. A tug captain can graphically build a computer model of the whole tow he’s pushing up a river, which is useful in two ways. One is that his plotted vessel will show realistically in the ECS, as shown at right and bigger here . The other is that the ECS can then update the tug’s own Class A AIS transponder so that at least its rough total dimensions are visible to other boats on the river. Jeppesen’s commercial marine Web site is still a bit skimpy on this product but there is a PDF describing a Precision Approach System (PAS) that will integrate with the ECS. “Hyper-accurate” GPS combined with secure wireless will let tugs and locks share all sorts of valuable data, probably including the detailed tow configurations. The overall product—ECS, PAS, and more hinted at—is called Jeppesen Marine OnBoard and is obviously adaptable, at least in part, to deep sea commercial vessels. The ECS, by the way, may or may not be based on Nobeltec code, I can’t tell, and Jeppesen’s purchase of C-Map still seems to be in its quiet period.
A Panbo reader reports that TypeKey, needed to make comments here, does not work in Firefox 2, which I haven’t tried yet. As best I can tell, it does work fine in Firefox 1.5 and Internet Explorer. If you’re having trouble making comments, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me to bitch or just to have me post your comment. Thanks.
I’m steamed this morning, having just read the New York Times detailed expose on all the problems plaguing the U.S. Coast Guard’s multi billion dollar fleet upgrade. It’s just unbelievable. Personally I’m neither anti-government nor anti-corporate, but read this and see if you don’t want to do damage to some greed heads at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and their cronies at the Dept. of Homeland Security. So I went looking in the CG image archives for pictures of the electronics screw ups—like the non-waterproof (and now shorted-out) radios installed on open patrol RIBs, or the oversize navigation systems that are apparently still being installed on the new National Security Cutters even though the Guard plans to strip them right off. What I found instead was this shot of 123 Haitians trying to make Miami on a funky 40’ sloop. Now that’s the moxie we humans are capable of, and vaguely akin to the energetic work the USCG has been getting done, often despite their own old boats. So how did all the new ones get so messed up?
Offshore Systems was showing this nifty fuel gauge at METS, and it was getting serious attention from show walkers. Developer Bruce Coward told me that last year he had to spend half his time explaining what NMEA 2000 is, but this year most folks seemed to understand it already. Progress! In fact, Offshore makes both an N2K networkable version and one that can just extend the tank info from an existing analog gauge. But going 2000 means you’d have tank info anywhere you wanted it, plus you could use Coward’s water-sensing and no-moving-parts tank sensors. I’m afraid this gear is pricey, however, and I can’t seem to find online dealers for it.
I’m a fan of Marti Brown, author of a several how-to books about marine SSB radios. This is one of the most daunting technologies cruiser may struggle with, and Marti does a good job of clarifying just what it can do for you, and how. I’m just setting up an 
will also be a fixed Class D VHF with “Rewind, Say Again”.) 
previewed at the WorkBoat Show. A tug captain can graphically build a computer model of the whole tow he’s pushing up a river, which is useful in two ways. One is that his plotted vessel will show realistically in the ECS, as shown at right and 
