Seeking the cutting edge of marine electronics—any technology really—can be bitter sweet. On the one hand, for instance, it’s wicked hard right now to actually get your hands on Furuno NavNet 3D equipment here in the States, so hard that Furuno USA just posted a long apology about it. Meanwhile a U.K. Panbo reader and electronics pro has just installed a full suite of NN3D gear, and is exceedingly impressed (as I was after a trip on a Furuno test boat in May):
The July issue of Power & Motoryacht is now online, including my write-up of the new Fusion Marine Stereo, which pretty much summarizes earlier Panbo entries on this innovative system. But recently I got to see the shipping version of the MS-IP500 in the flesh, thanks to a visit by Todd Crocker, above. For many years Todd exercised his marine product creativity and high energy at Standard Horizon, then at Uniden (and is still justifiably proud of its snazzy color 625c fixed VHF), but now he’s a Fusion partner and manager of the U.S. division. He delivered a persuasive demo at my kitchen table!
The Autotether wireless engine kill switch system sounded good to me on first Web site read, but, by golly, it’s even better in the flesh. I’ve been testing it for a while now, and can tell you that if that yellow FOB goes underwater or about 50 feet from the base station, the spring loaded plunger lower right will activate nearly instantly, stopping my Honda 40 dead. The white passenger FOB works the same, but just sets off a buzzer, so the driver can u-turn back to the MOB. The base station and FOBs run on AA batteries and the base attaches with sticky-back hook-and-loop tape, so installation is trivial. The manual is a little wordier than needed, but learning to turn the system on and understand the LEDs is pretty easy. The Autotether folks have developed a solid safety product which frankly may my save my dumb butt some day, as Gizmo is an easy boat to fall out of and I rarely used the wired kill switch as it’s so clumsy.
The Garmin GHP 10 autopilot system, announced back in November, looks like it will make its “third quarter” shipping date. It’s hard to tell in the photo—since the GHC 10 control head is so similar to the GMI 10 instrument—but this new Krogen 44 has been a GHP beta site since March. I happen to know the owner, an experienced and technically astute fellow, and thus know he witnessed the install and then used the pilot all the way from Florida to his Chesapeake home port. He says it works well, and particularly likes “shadow drive”, the system’s ability to go in and out of standby just by “feeling” your desire to steer, or not steer, in the hydraulic line (sensor seen below).
When Standard Horizon showed a prototype Bluetooth VHF headset last Fall, they didn’t say which radios it would work with. Now the product scheme has become clear: a new HX760S handheld that comes bundled with the wireless headset, and a BTK-2 kit that can add Bluetoth and the headset to either of its two high-end GX series fixed VHFs. And, by gosh, if you do the Google you’ll find the both the 760 and BTK-2 are actually for sale out there.
Excellent news: Shine Micro has figured out a way to ship its Class B AIS securely locked into silent mode (receive only) so that it’s legal here in the U.S.A., even though the FCC commissioners continue to drag their feet on Class B approval. The idea is that you can install a high quality, true dual-channel AIS receiver now and as soon as the FCC relents you’ll be able to unlock the unit’s transmitter via an online activation scheme. Shine Micro is even sharing some of the “risk” of this proposition, not collecting $200 of the cost until said activation, as explained here.
Last week, Offshore Systems announced a new NMEA 2000 Fuel Transfer Control that goes with its existing tank sensors and displays. For those vessels that use a day tank, this control can automatically stop a pump moving fuel from a storage tank if the day tank becomes 95% full. It looks like a well done product, but is particularly cool because Panbo frequent poster Russ Irwin was the customer behind the idea. Russ explains New Morning’swhole fuel scheme here. And I can add some color on the event that inspired Russ to inspire Offshore Systems, which was a transfer-related spill at the same yard where Russ’s sloop is being built. New Morning, incidentally, was launched three weeks ago and, though not yet complete, is looking good. Needless to say, Russ has lots of other electronics on board, not of all which are functioning up to Russ’s expectations, yet. More on that soon. Meanwhile, do note that the Offshore Fuel Transfer system controls the pump directly rather than via NMEA 2000; that makes sense now, as N2K switches and messages are still in development, but one day a control like this will do all its work via the bus (I think).
Saildocs is the baby of West Coast weather guru Jim Corenman, who with the support of SailMail provides a free e-mail server able to feed low bandwidth weather data (and more) to boaters. While not as pretty as the free, but limited Grib.us {or similar PassageWeather}, or the costly but widely used OCENS WeatherNet {or ClearPoint}, it provides a multitude of weather data in many formats right to your in-box for free. All of the Saildocs instructions can be retrieved by e-mail ([email protected]) or from their not-really-meant-for-surfing Web site. Below are my brief tips and tricks to using Saildocs:
If Mae West were alive, her famously bawdy trademark line might go like this: "Hello there, sailor. Is that a WAAS GPS AIO PND loaded with a continent's worth of nautical, street, topo, and photo cartography and several hundred thousand POIs in your pocket...or are you just happy to see me?" To which a sorry geek like me might squeak back, "Pardon, Ms. West, no time for flirting; I've got gadgets to fiddle with!" Indeed I do.
