Given some controversy about how big ships actually use AIS and what that may mean in terms of Class B, I asked Captain John Konrad to help out. Boy, did he, first querying his gCaptain readers, then bringing in Captain Richard Rodriguez for a professional small boat point of view, and finally e-mailing me with all the interesting comments below. This is the longest Panbo entry ever (and some of the best stuff is at the end). So how about a big round of applause for John, who somehow pulls all this off while still shipping out (he’s Chief Mate aboard a 835’ ship in the Gulf of Mxico right now, editing gCaptain by satellite!)
My recent mention of Class B negativity elicited a lot of interesting comments, including a long post by Mr. Fred Pot himself. Fred, who I once profiled as “AIS man”, has now established himself as the Class B curmudgeon, not just the inspiration of Navagear’s “AIS Class B Naysayers, Unite!” but also a rather negative Class B sidebar to an otherwise enthusiastic AIS article by Steve Dashew in the current issue of PassageMaker. I count Fred as an industry friend, but I think he’s gone way overboard on this subject, as shown by a couple of points made in yesterday’s comment:
Sort of like repairing or upgrading old instruments, you could also spend some winter off water time getting your waypoints and routes in order. C-Map has put together a nice tip sheet on how you might do that using their chart cards along with the nifty PC Planner product that lets you bring home plotter data and work with it and your C-Map charts on your computer. (To get the PDF, click on the orange card reader here.) You may not be up for making “chart art”, like above, but doesn’t it make sense to sort through the waypoints, tracks, and routes you accumulated last season?
We’re collecting some valuable information and opinions in the first “old instrument” entry (thank you, commenters!). For instance, who knew that Moor/EMS was still around making and servicing their economy grade sailing and fishing gauges (see this eBay store for pricing), some of which will fit holes left by other older brand round models. Plus local installer John Gass wrote me with some tips, like the fact that Signet Marine is still going strong. Actually that company Web site is really comprehensive, even including advanced testing info like the image above, used to troubleshoot a masthead wind sensor. Gass also recommended DMI Marine as “the place to go for Datamarine repairs” and Wheelhouse Marketing as “excellent for older B&G, Leica, and other obscure brands.” In fact, he says that Autohelm ST50’s are about the only instruments he can’t get repaired anymore, which is why he’s hoarding those removed during upgrades. In that dept. he says he usually uses Raymarine or Simrad to replace Autohelms, as the new DMIs are problematical size wise. I’m a bit naive about all this, probably becauses almost none of these companies are the sort to send out press releases or even attend the big boat shows. It would seem that DMI, Moor, Signet, etc. have found a comfy niche in what we might call the instrument underground. Who have we missed?
This week I’m hoping to find out more about private versus public Search and Rescue call centers (thanks for the interesting comments so far). But I’m also on another mission, and am hoping for your help. I have a Sail assignment on upgrading instruments. Say your old boat (10 years plus) has broken or tired speed, depth, and/or wind gear, possibly manufactured by a company you don’t hear much about these days, like Signet, Kenyon, Nautico, Datamarine, or International Marine (are there more)? Can you get the old stuff fixed? Is it worth doing? Are there relatively easy upgrades, perhaps using the same instrument and transducer holes, or the same mast wiring? If replacing instruments, how far would you go…some networked variety…color…NMEA 2000? What instruments do you find nearly essential to sailing?
I may be annoyed at the FCC, but the U.S. Coast Guard never ceases to impress me. In this CG video, also viewable below, a chopper team—rescue swimmer included—is picking up a sailor some 80 miles off the northern coast of California in late October. The wind is reportedly 50 – 60 MPH, and you can hear the pilot calling some swells at 30’. I think the most compelling thing about the video is the tight team work you can hear amongst the crew. Two guys were rescued off the vessel, which was unfortunately named Passing Wind II, and may have been a Nauticat 35. According to the ACR press release, the boat got rolled onto its cabin top, dismasted, and 2/3rds filled. “The life raft and dinghy on back were sheared off. We had no radio, the Satellite phone was drenched and dead, and all electrical pumps were useless.” But their GlobalFix EPIRB worked fine, the CG knew where they were within 30 minutes, and were there in 3 hours. Close call!
Honestly, what the hell is wrong with the FCC? Today some one who knows how these things work pointed out to me that the Commission only listed Docket
04-344–the
“
Amendment of the Commission's Rules Regarding Maritime Automatic Identification Systems”—on its Items on Circulation list as of November 19. I’m further told that, though the U.S.C.G. has asked the FCC to expedite this ruling, there’s really no telling when the Commissioners will sign off on it. And you’ll notice that many items on the list date from early 2007 and there are few from 2006! As for Ghassan Khalek’s mid-October “a matter of weeks, not months” and Jose Arroyo’s December prediction, I know not. Depressing.
The neat thing about putting satellite TV on your boat is that if you already have the service at home, most companies will let you put it on the boat for just the monthly cost of another receiver. The problem, though, is that the stabilized antennas start around $3,000 and even the small 14” ones can spoil a handsome boat’s profile. Enter the VuQube, which King Controls was showing at the Fort Lauderdale and NMEA shows.
Though my first SPOT test entry garnered no comments, I remain convinced that some boaters will go for this gadget/service once they fully understand what it can do for them. Actually, out on the water is where it may perform the most reliably. I’ve been trying SPOT in some tough situations and am learning that it needs a good sky view to work well. I had it out in the streets of New York City for several hours last week, and I don’t think it ever got a GPS position, and it only twice got a message off. By contrast, a little Lowrance XOG I’m testing could regularly get a fix on these same streets (which is where I last tried the AnyTrack, not midtown Manhattan but with many tall buildings). Of course SPOT does not claim to work in urban canyons, but I wonder about wilderness canyons or places with heavy, wet leaf cover. And I don’t understand why it isn’t able to indicate if it has a GPS fix, despite having four bi-color LEDs. {Correction: when you activate a SPOT function, it will indicate after a while if it does not have GPS fix, as—ahem!—explained in the manual.)
At least theoretically, Amazon’s super hyped Kindle “wireless reading device” could be a wonderful cruising gadget. Imagine waking up in one of the many U.S. coastal anchorages covered by the EVDO cellular service included in the thing’s $399 price. Any of the several major newspapers, magazines, and blogs that you can subscribe to would have already been downloaded into your Kindle, ready to read, along with 100 plus books you might already have stored in it (but which wouldn’t be weighing your boat down). Plus colleagues and family can send documents to your Kindle email, where they’re put into Kindle format and downloaded to you for a dime a piece. And the Kindle help files suggest that there’s even a basic Web browser among the “experimental” aspects of this gizmo. For more info here’s Newsweek’s thorough cover story (hey, that Ellison byline you may see around Newsweek is my kido!), and here’s Engadget’s more skeptical approach. But please don’t buy a Kindle without coming back here first. Even though currently sold out, Amazon is so anxious to get Kindles out in the field that they are offering Associates like Panbo an extraordinary 10% commission. So if you do decide to buy a Kindle, please start your purchase with this Amazon link, or the one below. Also tell us how you like it. Thanks.
