It looks and acts like an EPIRB, but is, in fact, a simplified voyage data recorder (S-VDR). “Like black boxes carried on aircraft, S-VDRs enable accident investigators to review procedures and instructions in the moments before an accident to help to identify its cause. The RapidTrack S-VDR is designed to interface with bridge information systems and to record and maintain a retrievable record of the ship's nautical, technical and safety data. The RapidTrack S-VDR is designed to interface with bridge information systems and to record and maintain a retrievable record of the ship's nautical, technical and safety data. The S-VDR will automatically deploy once the vessel has sunk to a depth between 1.5 to 4 meters. The beacon then floats to the surface and automatically begins broadcasting GPS coordinates to aid in location and retrieval. There isn’t any info on ACR’s site besides the press release, and the unit isn’t FCC approved yet, but interesting technology, eh? S-VDR is now mandatory on certain commercial ships too.
(Also, head’s up, expanding ACR recently sent out another release seeking job applicants. “We need help in filling several newly created key positions in engineering, sales and technical support”.)
I’ve never much liked the practice of inserting insulators in a sailboat’s backstay to create an SSB antenna; I want my backstays in one piece, thank you. Thus the Gam/McKim Split Lead Single Side Band Antenna looks like a much more sensible idea. The new design (bigger drawing here) fits over the stay, is easy to install or remove, and promises better performance with less likelihood of corrosion. Plus it’s “priced to compete with conventional backstay insulators (including swaging costs)”. Nice.
PS, 7/18: Rumor has it that Sail SSB expert Gordon West tested this antenna and found that it worked as well as an insulated backstay, even when fitted over the grounded stay of a steel boat. I’ve also seen reports that it many cases (depends on wire fittings) it is actually less expensive than the traditional insulator set up. Very nice!
A bonus of my trip to Annapolis was getting to try Maptech’s third generation i3. I first saw this system back in 2001, when it was being developed as the Sea Ray Navigator (and it’s still going on many new Sea Rays under that name, despite parent Brunswick’s own move into electronics). Last summer I enjoyed a live demo of the second generation system, which Maptech had begun to market on its own as i3. By then the developers had added radar plus optional touch screen versions of Weather Channel Marine and SkyMate. Now Maptech owns the contractor that actually builds the i3 hardware, and the new Type 3 is a significant upgrade. The screen is more stylish, more colorful, and brighter, and the software flys. Plus there are many interface improvements (besides the 3D fishfinder option). In the screen above (bigger here), notice how the radar range rings can be shown on the 3D screen to make better sense of relative scales. Notice too how the 3D is automatically exaggerated to make the good, and bad, sections of this relatively shallow river (hey, I live in Maine) obvious. Look at how well the radar is synched to the chart, despite the fact that there is no electronic compass in this particular install and we’re doing 26 knots (which is why the depth sounder isn’t reading; the transducer needed better fairing for high speed). It’s not shown but Type 3 also lets you remove the side menus, or make critical info semi transparent, so you get more chart on the 12” screen. And, finally, there’s now a 15” screen version too. i3/SRN is not just a unique concept; it’s an evolving family of functions.
Monitoring and control systems can potentially do anything. Once you have a system of sensors, cable backbones, PCs, screens, and so forth performing the core task of collecting and distributing information and system commands, well heck, why not blend in security, entertainment, communications, inventory/maintenance management, digital documentation…whatever. A case in point is Hyperion (above), the 157’ super yacht built in 1998 by Royal Huisman for the legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jim Clark. Clark had to start a small company called Seascape Communications to create the system he envisioned, and what a humdinger the resulting “Genisys” is. 24 onboard computers monitor 50,000 data points and display on 22 touch screens throughout the vessel. Clark and his crew could mind and manage everything from windshield wipers to ballast transfer pumps to e-mail wherever they wished onboard. Clark could even “cruise” the yacht by satellite from his den in California (or his airplane), leading to the waggish comment that it was the world’s largest remote control toy. And guests had their own screens mounted into berth-side drawers so that they can amuse themselves with the system’s 1200 CD’s on hard disk, 400 DVD’s in changers, world band tuners, and masthead cameras!
Since then, Clark had Royal Huisman build him the even larger yacht Athena, launched last fall, with more Seascape software on board. Now he’s announced the formation of CommandScape, which sounds like Seascape repurposed to automate large homes as well as yachts. Clark was the subject of the wonderful biography The New, New Thing, which begins with a hysterical description of Hyperion’s trail run in rough weather—failing computers, seasick film crew, et all…a must read excerpt here).
I was out testing in bright sunshine Saturday morning, and the screen on the Garmin 192C stood up very well. In fact this is the worst image I got, and it’s still quite readable (bigger here…note the glare, reflected elbow, and gunk on screen—real world factors you’ll rarely see in ads or articles). The 192 is the new unit that comes with all U.S. coastal charts in memory and ready to use. They really are all there, along with large area charts of places like the Bahamas, a good world map, and tons of port information. It is true that you can not use these charts with Garmin’s MapSource to do planning on a PC, but the no-PC-needed simplicity will be a plus for many users; even updating the charts will be done with a card. The only other con I could detect is that the find function is slowed down somewhat by the massive amount of data it has to search through. Besides the brighter, more color saturated screen, I noticed numerous subtle improvements in Garmin’s already effective tabbed interface. I’d guess the 192 will appeal to smaller boat owners wanting ready-to-use simplicity and flexibility (trailer north or south for vacation, get a card for lakes), not to mention cruisers who do big sections of the U.S. coast and want a backup to integrated and/or PC systems. The 192 comes with internal or external GPSs, and there’s a 198 version with fishfinder. Garmin won’t say if it might bring the all-US-charts-onboard strategy to other models, but what do you think? (Especially as Lowrance is offering this feature on many units).
Big power outage here earlier this morning…coffee bean grinder no grind, DSL modem no blink…I’m definitely off my stride. I’m declaring this an OFI Friday, and will soon be off to fool with the fleet. If you’re stuck inside somewhere, you might want to picture yourself strolling down a dock with this Flintstone tablet PC in hand (for full effect, include the GSM whip antenna not screwed onto this prototype). I saw it displayed at a show once, and the developer’s site is still up, but I’ve never seen one in the field. In my fantasy, the case is carbon black and the boat I’m strolling toward is the Wally 118. Oh yeah.
There’s an interesting thread about the Chinese-built SmartRadio AIS receiver (click ENG upper left when you get there) over at rec.boats.electronics, but I would caution readers that the $200 price cited seems to be introductory wholesale. (The dual channel SR 161 needs a distributor). A well informed poster named Holger notes that it “receives and processes all AIS messages, not just some like the NASA/Si-Tex Engine”. Holger is a principal in a German company called Yacht AIS which has developed two AIS plotting programs. The professional version can display some of the more arcane AIS messages like the weather station shown above. I’m making it a habit to ask folks at major marine electronics brands if they’re working on AIS (quite a category at Panbo these days). Every one says something like “oh yeah!”, and some are quite interested in how the Class B AIS standard will turn out.
PS: Yacht AIS is associated with a Swedish company, True Heading, which has good .pdf manuals for the SR 161 and its own AIS RX Yacht listener here (but no pricing).
I missed the fact that WSI, the company behind Weather Channel Marine, inked a deal with Sirius Satellite Radio in March. "Our goal is to offer the gold standard of marine services”. This is good news, as it should heat up the competition between WSI’s service, now only available on PCs (including Maptech i3) via a single satellite, and the XM Marine Weather that can be had either on a PC or on Garmin network plotters. I’ve been watching the “live” weather category closely, and have tried at least the early PC and Garmin products, and was very impressed with how much detailed and macro weather sense I could get easily. In fact—odd timing—I was trying out a pretty good GRIB weather tool last night, but without the Nexrad radar and frontal line predictions, I missed the wet squall line that’s passing through here this morning! Above, and bigger here, is part of an old Weather Channel Marine screen that just suggests how you can see animated Nexrad combined with current and forecast fronts…very effective. A face off between giants Sirius and XM as providers of top notch U.S. coastal marine weather should lower subscription and hardware costs, open up new platforms, and really make boaters aware of this valuable service.
One of the most interesting back stories in the marine electronics world is how the planet’s largest boatbuilder, Brunswick Corporation, bought up a series of companies like Navman and Northstar and formed a division called Brunswick New Technologies (BNT). The move sent shock waves through the big brands used to selling lots of product to Brunswick units like Sea Ray and Boston Whaler, or to their dealers. The presumption was that Brunswick boats would soon all come with electronics built, branded, and supported by the mother corporation. Navman, in fact, has the first color plotters and fishfinders to support SmartCraft, Mercury Marine’s (i.e., Brunswick’s) own version of NMEA 2000 CANbus. But I’ve been told that each Brunswick boatbuilder, sometimes each big dealer, is free to make their own decision about electronics packages, and there seem to be a variety of brands on new Brunswick boats. What do you all see out there? And why did BNT just acquire MX Marine, a small company solidly focussed on commercial AIS and dGPS, often under the Leica label? What’s the plan?
This weekend’s mail included Simrad’s “Navigation Tutorial” DVD, which is pretty darn impressive. Of course there is some ‘sell’ to it, but there’s also some sharp footage of boats and extensive, well done explanations of just how Simrad’s multifunction Navigators work. (That’s the narrator’s hand in the picture, not mine, explaining dual radar ranges). This DVD is excellent for anyone who owns a Simrad, or is interested in one, and it’s absolutely free, including shipping. The order form is on the Simrad USA home page.
It was bittersweet driving Charlie down to Spruce Head Marine to launch his Golden Hind Sophie. It was yet another gray day in this record breaking spring, and, besides, Charlie now lives out of state and had to jump in his car as soon as got Sophie onto her mooring in Rockland. But I did get a chance to see all the work that he’s put into the boat. The electronics — a slick Tacktick Sailmaster depth/wind system and an old Magellan 2000 XL GPS, both on a swing out arm — may be somewhat minimal, but the boat is otherwise ready go gunkholing or ocean voyaging. She is amazingly roomy for 31 feet, in a Brit sort of way, and Charlie put a nice new, and extra tall, rig in her. Sophie is for sale and will be a happy deal for someone, I think.
The croakers and rockfish just weren’t biting, but the research trip was terrific anyway. I’ll have more to say later about trying the latest incarnation of Maptech i3 and the Airmar factory tour, both very impressive, but today’s entry is about a little company you’ve never heard of called NSI (Nautical Solutions International). Google can’t find them but principals Mark Pringle and Floyd Phillips have been doing valuable, innovative (behind the scenes) work with 3D bathymetry since 1996. You may have seen it as contour modules in Maptech or Raymarine software, or as Bass Tracker on ESPN (and there’s more to come). Their web site is informative, but doesn’t show you how their office is right next to the marina where they keep two test boats ready to run year round. The latest, the Defiance 260 above, is totally tricked out with i3 gear; besides the big scanner, those are Weather Channel Marine and SkyMate satellite antennas up there. Such a deal: Maptech sponsors a great boat for showing off i3, which the lads at NSI also use to tweak the 3D fishfinder (and take a break from coding). Nice!
I’m on the road to Annapolis where I’ll get to trial Maptech’s wild new fishfinder module for its i3 system, maybe catch a croaker too. The poor photo above is of a simulation playing at the Miami Boat Show introduction. You can see on the left a regular 2D fishfinder screen while on the right the fish targets have been placed into a 3D bathy model; among other things, you can control how long targets stay on screen so that you can learn where fish hang out over time. Then on Thursday I’m visiting Airmar, source of the transducer and processor behind this module, and much more. My posting may get a little raggedy.
I have no tolerance for boaters who rip off electronic charts; the practice hurts decent companies and has understandably led to copy protection schemes the rest of us have to cope with. But one chart manufacturer, Nautical Data International (NDI), has earned its own reputation for pirate practices. It ticked off customers for years with extra high prices, flawed encryption code, and even a “time out” mechanism that rendered charts you owned useless after a certain period. Two years ago, a nasty royalty fight erupted between NDI and the two big chart card companies C-Map and Navionics. You see, in 1993 NDI somehow wrangled not only the exclusive right to market electronic versions of Canadian Hydrographic Office (CHS) charts, but also exclusive right to negotiate royalty arrangements with other vendors. Many lawsuits followed, some still in court, but last winter CHS announced that it would terminate its relationship to NDI. Hence the strange press releases featured on NDI’s home page (right) proclaiming its ability to continue “business as usual” and its success suing the government office it’s dependent on. I bring this up because I recently helped a friend prepare for a Newfoundland cruise and can confirm that charts he bought from NDI five years ago will not run or reinstall on his PC. He will use paper charts rather than ever do business with NDI again.
A reader from Sydney, Australia, wrote to say that he’s happily using a NASA AIS Receiver with a program I hadn’t heard of called Software on Board (SOB) from DigiBoat. I gave it a brief looksee, above and bigger here, and was impressed that SOB comes with a 15 MB C-Map world map that’s detailed enough for large area voyage planning. For actual navigation you need full detail C-Maps on a CD or memory card (which you can buy from DigiBoat, ergo the business model). On the other hand, it doesn’t support other chart types, and I found the interface a little difficult—no standard drop-down menus and oddities like those scroll bars in the data windows (probably related to my particular screen resolution/font setup). It’s totally irrelevant, but I also wonder if SOB is as common a swear in Australia as it was in the house I grew up in?
PS: SOB does require registration and a key to access all features, but it really is free at the moment (it may eventually become shareware).
Friday bonus gizmo: you can lock the two part handle open to get a sturdy 5’ boat hook, or you can apply some pump action and suck the last drop out a bilge or dinghy. The fluid stays in the handle until you pump again, so the thing can also be used as a ‘manual’ power washer, or a wicked squirt gun. Or to test the CFR/NEMA rating on your electronics (there, topic maintained). It works like a champ and is so darn well made that I’m worried the inventor isn’t asking enough money for it. He sells them for $44 at Bridgenorth Bailer with free shipping (maybe only in Canada, the site isn’t clear). Have a good weekend!
It was some fun getting a little wheel time on this Alden Brenton Reef 40 on Vineyard Sound last week. Despite bright sun and huge glass, you can see that the screen of the Raymarine C120 was up to the task. The radar overlay worked nicely too, and is much appreciated by the owner, who’s seasoned in boats and planes. I was there to write about cruising, not electronics, but presume that the C120 is getting heading info from the Simrad AP25’s compass via the fast version of NMEA 0183. You can also see (bigger here) an Icom VHF, an ACR pan & tilt spotlight, and ZF (Mathers) single lever electronic controls (whose delicacy took some getting used to). The owner laments that the E Series wasn’t yet out when he chose this rig, because he’d like to try the Weather Channel Marine satellite system that he’s heard will become an E option. And it shouldn’t be too long before fully electronic Yanmars and NMEA 2000 will create the choice of a second E in place of the analog gauges. The picture is courtesy my sharp shooting neighbor Jamie Bloomquist.
An on screen personality I am not, a fact I was reminded of yesterday when circumstances led me to some videos I did for PMY almost two years ago. I did try to be informative about Navionics Gold, above, even if I was terrified that the fancy camera bungee corded onto Gizmo would go overboard. Life was better with a real camera man for the shoot about DSC calling and plotting using Standard Horizon gear (still a way underutilized technology, I think). Plus there were stripers involved, which I’m pleased to hear may be headed to Maine early this year (thanks, Eli).
I joke about my often over-the-top test boat, but check this guy out! While the topophone looks like a sensible idea for improving our natural stereo audio reception (i.e., ears) so as to get better bearings on ship horns and buoy gongs in the fog, it must have freaked the passengers a bit. The image is the logo of a small company that’s developed a topo mapping application for Smart Phones. It appears to have some interesting features, like to ability to send/plot positions via SMS, but it also has a tough competitor in Maptech’s Outdoor Navigator.
I’ve been getting requests to show more Platinum screens, so here’s one of what’s called Aerial Overlay. That means you can blend the regular vector charts with photo maps, which are straight down images that have been geopositioned so data (including your boat) can be plotted on them. Here the transparency of the photo map is set at 69% using the rotary knob on an Raymarine E120. Note how the photos improve your knowledge of what’s along the shore. Note too that the blending reveals descrepencies between the vector data and the photo map, a head’s up that one or the other is inaccurate. Platinum seems to include this resolution of photo maps for the whole U.S.; I understand the European version is lower res. Note too the camera icon, which shows you that there is also an “oblique” or “panoramic” photo available for this specific spot (wish we could all agree on nomenclature!). These are not geopositioned but do give you a useful perspective view of important inlets, marinas, etc. In Platinum they are quite high res (example coming).
Dan Fales has an interesting article on AIS use during last year’s Nordhavn Rally, and Maptech just posted a chart symbol test (actually a lead in to a new, and likely well done, reference guide).
If you go to the NMEA Web site and click on “NMEA 2000 Info”, the very first thing you’ll learn is how expensive it is to use the standard. These fees piss off small developers no end. (And isn’t it poor marketing on the part of NMEA? Why not have some good dope there about how the standard works and what it can do?) But the fees are there to finance the infrastructure needed to truly support a complex plug’n’play standard. For instance, I recently heard that updating the software certification tool that assures compatability will cost something like $200,000.
Meanwhile, I was out on Sunday checking out the benefits of that compatability again, and looking foolish. (Is there a geekier 14’ outboard afloat?) Now I have the laptop mounted, also sharing data fine, though currently the Maretron gateway translates 2000 into 0183 because no PC program reads NMEA 2000 directly. That’s going to change, and I’m told that eventually thousands of independent programmers will be using 2000 data to build boat applications we haven’t imagined yet.
I like this: GPS backed up—plus made more accurate, even able to deliver better than 1° heading accuracy at rest—with LORAN! And this is LORAN without the fiddly complexity of compensating for “Additional Secondary Factors” in coastal waters or switching ‘Chains’ on long voyages. Si-Tex’s eLoran is not quite shipping yet, but I’ll bet it will get loads of attention (Chuck Husick already has this to say). In fact, we’ve all gotten so dependent on GPS that it’s a little scary. I wrote about its vulnerability, and the possible resurgence of LORAN as a complimentary system back in 2002, and have since noted the government’s funding of LORAN base station improvements. It’s great to see belt & suspenders electronic positioning come to recreational boating, not to mention the non magnetic heading sensor capability. Actually, eLoran is one result of a military research contract executed by Si-Tex’s mother company, Koden. Note that this initial product will only work with certain Si-Tex plotters and PC software at first, but other manufacturers will be free to add compatability. I’ve also been told that eLoran will cost about $1,000, and I plan to try one out when available.
Another Friday LED wonder: this shot of Lopolight’s production line suggests the extra high quality construction of these Danish-made navigation lights. The internal electronics are next potted in epoxy and a machined aluminum top plate finishes off the package. They are expensive but may indeed “work forever” on very little power. Note that you need to use Internet Explorer, not Firefox, to get beyond the home page of Lopolight’s Web site.
I’m back in Maine, but unfortunately won’t be able to make the Homecoming ceremony for single-hander Bruce Schwab that starts in Portland today. Bruce just sailed from France to Maine aboard his Open 60 Ocean Planet, which must have seemed like a day sail after two circumnavigations in three years, the second non-stop in 110 days racing the Vendee Globe. I understand that our Governor will declare today “Bruce Schwab Day”—kind of goofy, but wonderful to have this great sport better recognized here in the U.S.A.
I particularly wish I could make Bruce’s “Truly Offshore Seminar” on Sunday, which will include a discussion of electronics and “trouble-shooting and repairs on the run”. I got aboard OP in 2003, after the Around Alone race, and know that Schwab removed the Furuno radar and fixed PC/monitors he had then in favor of a lighter laptop with a Nobeltec PC radar dome. Many people think such a setup unreliable but it apparently held up fine on the grueling Vendee course, though there was a problem with the scanner’s tilt mount mechanics. Bruce’s posts describing how he amazingly got to, and fixed, the mount while underway are here (look around 12/21/04).
I have an article about Navionics’ and C-Map’s new plotter charts in the June issues of both PMY and Sail, but unfortunately neither is online yet. C-Map Max is shipping and there are good images of it here, but Platinum—which by design, and pricing, is the more ambitious product—is still a mystery to most anyone who didn’t get a chance to see it previewed at the Miami Boat Show. Above is a screenshot of 3D mode, which really should be a video to do it justice. You can see (bigger here) that critical chart data like buoys and wrecks are overlaid on a composite of land photo maps and underwater bathymetry. The soft keys on the Raymarine E120, which will soon be the first plotter to display Platinum, indicate how you can adjust the pitch and rotation of your view. There’s much more. One indication of how much more is the fact that Platinum comes on 2 Gig Compact Flash cards!
Every year I get to pick five especially innovative and/or well executed electronics products for Sail magazine’s February “Editor Picks” section. Right now a top contender is Navman’s AP338 autopilot, not for performance (it’s darn hard to test autopilots) but because its interface is amazing. Almost any pilot can “dodge” an obstacle, usually 10 degrees per button push, but this one actually shows you what the commands are doing to your heading and what you can do next. There’s much more to this interface but I’m working with a flaky WiFi connection this morning, and busy, so for now I’m just going to link you to my writeup in June PMY.
It looks and acts like an EPIRB, but is, in fact, a simplified voyage data recorder (S-VDR). “Like black boxes carried on aircraft, S-VDRs enable accident investigators to review procedures and instructions in the moments before an accident to help to identify its cause. The RapidTrack S-VDR is designed to interface with bridge information systems and to record and maintain a retrievable record of the ship's nautical, technical and safety data. The RapidTrack S-VDR is designed to interface with bridge information systems and to record and maintain a retrievable record of the ship's nautical, technical and safety data. The S-VDR will automatically deploy once the vessel has sunk to a depth between 1.5 to 4 meters. The beacon then floats to the surface and automatically begins broadcasting GPS coordinates to aid in location and retrieval. There isn’t any info on ACR’s site besides the press release, and the unit isn’t FCC approved yet, but interesting technology, eh? S-VDR is now mandatory on certain commercial ships too.
I’ve never much liked the practice of inserting insulators in a sailboat’s backstay to create an SSB antenna; I want my backstays in one piece, thank you. Thus the 
I was out testing in bright sunshine Saturday morning, and the screen on the Garmin 192C stood up very well. In fact this is the worst image I got, and it’s still quite readable (bigger 
One of the most interesting back stories in the marine electronics world is how the planet’s largest boatbuilder, Brunswick Corporation, bought up a series of companies like Navman and Northstar and formed a division called Brunswick New Technologies (
I have no tolerance for boaters who rip off electronic charts; the practice hurts decent companies and has understandably led to copy protection schemes the rest of us have to cope with. But one chart manufacturer, Nautical Data International (NDI), has earned its own reputation for pirate practices. It ticked off customers for years with extra high prices, flawed encryption code, and even a “time out” mechanism that rendered charts you owned useless after a certain period. Two years ago, a nasty royalty 
I like this: GPS backed up—plus made more accurate, even able to deliver better than 1° heading accuracy at rest—with LORAN! And this is LORAN without the fiddly complexity of compensating for “Additional Secondary Factors” in coastal waters or switching ‘Chains’ on long voyages. Si-Tex’s 
I’m back in Maine, but unfortunately won’t be able to make the 
I particularly wish I could make Bruce’s “Truly Offshore Seminar” on Sunday, which will include a discussion of electronics and “trouble-shooting and repairs on the run”. I got aboard OP in 2003, after the Around Alone race, and know that Schwab removed the Furuno radar and fixed PC/monitors he had then in favor of a lighter laptop with a Nobeltec PC radar dome. Many people think such a setup unreliable but it apparently held up fine on the grueling Vendee course, though there was a problem with the scanner’s tilt mount mechanics. Bruce’s posts describing how he amazingly got to, and fixed, the mount while underway are 
Every year I get to pick five especially innovative and/or well executed electronics products for Sail magazine’s February “Editor Picks” section. Right now a top contender is Navman’s AP338 autopilot, not for performance (it’s darn hard to test autopilots) but because its interface is amazing. Almost any pilot can “dodge” an obstacle, usually 10 degrees per button push, but this one actually shows you what the commands are doing to your heading and what you can do next. There’s much more to this interface but I’m working with a flaky WiFi connection this morning, and busy, so for now I’m just going to