"The crew was pretty grumpy as we headed north out of the Panama Canal. Hopes of spending a wild reggae Christmas in Kingston, Jamaica had recently been dashed (rumor was that there was a lien on Regina in Kingston), so on the morning of 24 Dec 1979, we found ourselves dropping anchor in Bahia du Mole..." Thus begins a sweet Christmas story written and mapped by my old mate Steve Nelson on The Friends and Crew of Regina Maris Facebook page. I'm sure that many far flung cruisers will enjoy Steve's true tale, but I can practically smell the scenes ashore and on board...
I think we've had some great product coverage recently, thanks largely to Kees Verruijt's excellent METS coverage, and I'm glad to report that Kees, Dan Corcoran, and others have more entries in the works. I know I've said it before but this winter Panbo truly will get more voices, and more frequent entries. Which makes me feel indulgent about posting non-electronics photos of my beloved boat! I spent some of the Thanksgiving holiday going through the images I collected during the trip south, and I couldn't help but feel very thankful for the vessel I lucked into and the coast I live along...
While I was enthusiastic about the first Penobscot Bay Rendezvous last summer, when the event actually came around I only managed to make a couple of the parties and do a little spectating (above). But I sure liked what I saw and am pleased that this year I'm helping to manage the PBR as the Powerboat Fleet Guide. I like how the event welcomes both power and sail -- and how it attracts a mix of local and visiting boaters too -- but the powerboats need things to do on the Bay besides watching sailboats race (as enjoyable as that can be). The ideas were good last year, and I think we've improved them a lot for 2012...
Do you too wonder if the Colonels dressed like that as they fished off their steam yacht in 1933? Actually I didn't even know that there once was a giant bluefin tuna fishery off Scotland until this morning when I read Airmar's new blog about an expedition that starts tomorrow. The company already had a crack tuna fisherman on staff in the person of Bertrand Picarda and now they've teamed up with a gentleman from Inverness who fishes a handsome 40-foot Rodman 1250 Fisher Pro..that now has some new holes in its bottom...
Yes, I was a grinning fool when Panbo -- for the second year in a row! -- received the BWI Award for Original Online Content (all awards listed here). Plus it seemed the perfect moment to debut the new Panbo logo hat I'd just received the day before, and purely by happenstance I was joined at the podium by two friends from the even smaller world of marine electronics. Bill Bishop got Third Place for his Marine Installers Rant blog (check his Award entry here and don't miss the cartoon he submitted as the essay) and Bruce Angus did the presenting because he's now Interim Director of the NMEA, which sponsored the category. But don't think that NMEA had anything to do with the judging, which was done anonymously by three fellow members of BWI. Well, actually I do know the name of one judge because she was quoted thusly: "Ellison obviously knows his subject matter inside and out, but never takes himself too seriously, actively soliciting input and contributions from his readers." For which I will be eternally grateful...
I do enjoy the odd array of holiday cards, digital and otherwise, that I receive from the marine electronics industry each year. An image of animated snow (you may have to click on thumbnail above) seen on a beautiful KEP Marine monitor is joyful...
I may have become 65 years old yesterday, but no barnacles are growing under this blogger's keyboard! It's still a work in progress, but have you seen the new line of useful function and social media icons that recently appeared at the end of each Panbo entry (also seen above)? The "Print" button will get you a nicely formatted version of the entry with reader comments included, but without extraneous web page stuff. And the "Email" button makes it pie simple to send someone a link plus a bit of the entry with an image and an optional comment from you. The Email button also leads to all sorts of other share possibilities, though you may have to join ShareThis to use some of them. I'm not clear on that and a few other things...
That's the helm of the Hinckley T55 with the wireless JetStick I discussed yesterday in my first entry about the Newport International Boat Show. It's undeniably gorgeous but it's also fairly terrifying to a guy like me who changes electronics frequently. I so believe in mounting as many electronics as possible in panels that are easily replaced. And I'm really not all that odd; electronics get updated a lot these days. Heck, that ST70 on center is already being replaced with the i70 which would way better compliment those twin E-Wides, but the simple hole-saw i70 cutout is quite different than the ST70 hole. Here's betting that it won't be too long before sweat and money is expended chopping into that fine joiner work. Note, too, how many different little control systems are sprinkled around this helm, which is no fault of Hinckley, but rather an indication of how much further the marine electronics industry has to go toward truly integrated helms...
It's rare that I go so long without writing an entry, and I'd like to say that I spent the time digging deep into electronics at the Newport International Boat Show. But the truth is that most of my time there went to working as one of the several Newport for New Products award judges, plus I met with my Cruising World and Yachting editors (first office visit ever ;-) and did a lot of driving. So unfortunately I didn't get much more than a glance at the new Raymarine i70 instrument display (and p70 pilot head) seen above. The i70 display is wicked bright, the buttons are big, and moving through menus is snappy, but a fuller appraisal will have to wait. Incidentally, the WiFi and Bluetooth signs in the background of course refer to Ray's new e7 MFD and are germane because those two capabilities are probably the main reasons that the e7 won the Best New Boating Product award...
So it's Sunday morning and the early signs of Irene are here in the form of 100% humidity and easterlies in the high teens. That wonderfully large Fortress 55 anchor, seen above in my tender yesterday afternoon, is now set about 150 feet to weather in 20-30 feet of water and Gizmo's regular hook, a Kingston K-45, is about the same distance to the southwest. The best part, though, is that I'm snugged into Pulpit Harbor where it's quite unlikely that I'll experience any significant wave action. In my experience it's that action and the resulting line chafe that usually causes boats to go ashore in conditions like we're expecting. You can see Gizmo's position on this Spot share map, and I'm also using this situation to try out a number of other electronics...
