Back in April I noodled about the historical precedents to some of the neat features—like “points of interest” ashore—now coming to electronic charts. I showed a bit of a fabulous 1650 map of New England and promised to one day explain how to get your hands on high resolution scans like these. Today’s the day! The source is the Library of Congress (LOC) Map Collection. Here’s a link to the full 1767 map of lower Manhattan snipped above, and here’s to 1650 New England. You can zoom around the online images but having the full resolution files on your hard drive is, of course, more fun, and they print very nicely. (Shown above, by the way, is the intersection of Broadway and Wall St. with Trinity Church, still there, keyed to a reference list with the “2”. Part of my strong interest in this particular area is that the dock upper left on Little Queen St., now Thames St. and 6 blocks inshore from the Hudson, belonged then to Ellisons. Wish the land still did!)
But there is a problem with downloading these images, even assuming a 7.5 meg file is doable with your Internet connection. Some, like these, are in JPEG2000 (.jp2) format and others are in an even more obscure format called MrSID (.sid). Fortunately there’s a nice freeware program called Irfanview that will read both formats and convert the images into .jpg or whatever. It’s all a bit of trouble, but the maps and charts available from the LOC are fascinating. I dare say that one day some terrabyte plotter or charting program will include them as a sort of historical overlay. And, finally, if you are interested in how Manhattan and America really got started, check out Island at the Center of the World, which also has a Web site that makes use of old cartography.
Last night Nobeltec announced the new features coming to VNS and Admiral 8.0 PC navigation software; they’ve been busy! Both packages integrate camera/video displays (for DirectX enabled cameras) and SkyMate communications, plus add a place-name search capability (all illustrated in my collage above, bigger here). Both also now support NOAA ENCs and will plot DSC VHF calls. AIS target tracking has expanded from Admiral to VNS and Nobeltec will be selling the single frequency NASA/Si-Tex AIS100 receiver [corrected 10/16]. Meanwhile, Admiral will now be able to support multiple radars and the InSight Sounder over a GlassBridge Network, resulting in such sexy system possibilities as the one diagrammed below.
Northstar has just announced two new black box VHF radios—its first communications products ever, I think— and, by gosh, the things actually exist already. The single station NS100 is illustrated above, and there’s also a dual station model with foghorn/hailer/intercom. The radios aren’t even on Northstar’s site yet but I got the single station unit to test in yesterday’s mail. I just had a first look, and, while it is manufactured in China, the fit and finish seem exceptional. I’m told that the design and engineering are entirely Northstar’s, and I look forward to checking it out. I don’t see anything revolutionary in the spec sheet, but I’m hoping to find high performance and a good interface. (I’m also trying a Uniden 525 and two WHAMx4 wireless mics, which should make an interesting comparison. Plus, while I was away, Sitex sent up an eLoran and a black box AIS receiver. I’ve got some shop time ahead getting all this stuff running.)
That tall white sport fishing boat, a Luhrs 41, is how I went missing the last few days. My daughter and I took it from lower Manhattan (above) up the Hudson River to Newburgh, N.Y. WiFi, even Internet cafes, were sadly missing, but we had us a fine time exploring our revolutionary era roots. I’m not all that familiar with driving big hp, big prop twin diesels but must say the possibilities are amazing once you get a feel for what just a wee moment in gear can do. Of course it didn’t help to start with an audience of thousands in North Cove. Not to mention the heavy security in these parts, like those heavily armed CG boats above (this is a block from Ground Zero). Plus that’s Ellen MacArthur’s B&Q trimaran moored next to the Luhrs (bigger picture here). She wasn’t around but her program guy Oli was. I tried to talk my way aboard to see the electronics setup but the timing didn’t work out. Oh well, I did get the Luhrs in and out without embarrassment.
Look what I found while surfing around Raymarine’s investor Web pages. That’s all there is, so here’s some guessing:
* New radar scanners — maybe using Ethernet for fast, flexible connection to the new SeaTalkHS network, and/or able to turn at double or variable speeds for dual ranges or high speed running (like Simrad)?
* New instrument range — might it be SeaTalk2 (NMEA 2000) based like the fine ST290 range, but less expensive?
* Cameras — perhaps relabeled gear from the security industry, but now branded, distributed, and warranted by Ray?
* Weather — is this the “relationship” with The Weather Channel Marine, announced a long time back, now bearing fruit, probably only on the E Series? Via Sirius, with tunes?
* Entry-level multifunction range — hmmm?
* Further integration — AIS receivers, even transponders? Music, etc.? Systems monitoring and switching? Text communications? Web browsing? What?
I’m posting this in the wee hours because I’m off to New York City and a cruise up the Hudson. I’ll be sleeping here tonight. Posting will be spotty for sure until I return next Tuesday.
One comment that inspired my “Geeks vs ME Empire” rant a while back was: “Megalomaniacal marine elex vendors disdain such commoditization as evidenced by the disappearance of most stand alone dumb GPS sensors and proprietary integration of d/s sounders into proprietary networks.” I really, really didn’t understand where that commenter was coming from. It strikes me that the planet is awash in GPS sensors that can output in NMEA 0183 format (or 2000) via bare wire, standard serial plug, USB, Bluetooth, etc. etc. I have a cheap Deluo mouse GPS that has swappable dongles so that it can output via DB9, USB, and custom iPaq PDA serial plugs (& get power too), and it’s worked with all sorts of software. How commoditized can you get?
And while it wasn’t long ago that all depth, speed, temp, etc. sensors were proprietary, these days Airmar (which makes most of them) offers a wide variety of “Smart” versions. More than I realized, actually, as I discovered at Airmar’s much improved web site (try the Smart Sensor .pdf for starters). As illustrated, these sensors process their own signals. Add power and out comes NMEA 0183 or 2000 data to feed a plotter or multifunction display from most any of the ME manufacturers or a PC or, in the 2000 case, a network of up to 50 separate devices. So what was that guy talking about?
The music screen above is from a Lowrance iWay automobile mapping system. It has a touchscreen and a 20 gig hard drive—partitioned so that 10 gigs are for onboard maps, 10 for tunes. PC Magazine made the iWay its Editor’s Choice in a May roundup review that included units from Garmin, Magellan, and Navman. I just came across it and was reminded of how Darrell Lowrance enthused about touch screens for multifunction marine displays during a press conference at the Miami Boat Show last winter. Lowrance’s best 2005 plotter/fishfinders are already similar to the iWay series in many aspects, like the hard drive; will they get touchscreens and MP3 players next year? There’s a ferocious competition going on to be a dominant player in the car plotter market, which has got to explode at some point. What are the manufacturers learning and developing that might migrate to boats?
I hesitate to report RUMORS, but given that strong caveat, these seem worth a “head’s up”: supposedly Lowrance’s NMEA 2000 GPS sensors have trouble with radar transmissions, and supposedly its NauticPath marine charts don’t properly show obstructions that are awash between high and low tide. Mind you, these are only rumors and, even if true, may have been fixed already or are about to be.
I learned about SeaRef the hard way, when its developer Dan Podell tried to advertise it by posting messages on the PMY forums. That’s a no-no there, and here too, but I did contact Dan to tell him that I’d be happy to have a look at his CD full of nautical info. I’m doing that right now, and am impressed. SeaRef is a well organized compendium of useful calculators, tables, and publications. The example above is a page from a hyperlinked .pdf version of the BC Sailing Directions. You can learn more about the CD’s contents, or buy it, at Podell’s eBay site.
You may realize that most, maybe all, of SeaRef’s contents can be downloaded for free from various web sites, but I’d say that Podell is charging a very reasonable fee for finding it all and organizing it with .html pages. You may also realize that the SetSail.com Navigator’s Library is a similar product. I tried an earlier edition of that product and note that it now comes on 2 CD’s and contains a number of items missing from SeaRef, like the complete Bowditch, the CIA World Factbook, and numerous Sailing Directions for areas outside North America. On the other hand, it’s more expensive and at least the edition I tried had a fairly obnoxious copy protection scheme. SeaRef is unprotected and has items NL doesn’t, like a Medical Handbook (oriented to ships, like much of this material, though still useful), flags of the world, and much more.
PS If you have a marine electronics/navigation product you want me to know about or try, please just e-mail me (ben.ellison@panbo.com).
I was just looking for compass stuff in some nautical clip art I have (we used it a lot when I edited Reed’s). I came across this image and must say I don’t know for sure what this fellow is up to. I see what seem to be a telescope on what may be a pelorus, an earphone, a microphone, a booklet, and maybe a control box with cables or tubing headed off somewhere. What is this gent doing?
The compass adjustment trip that I missed the other day was aboard a nearly brand new, high quality 30’ power boat. But the steering compass, a decent Ritchie SS1000, turned out to be 45° off on some headings and “limp” if you were pointed north! Jeff Kaufmann tells me that this is just an extreme example of a common situation. Boatbuilders may install the compass but don’t pay attention to the deviation, leaving that for whoever installs all the electronics, who may not pay attention either. Jeff says his fee is sometimes paid by a yacht broker trying to complete a deal, because no one else will take responsibility.
At any rate, Jeff took this boat out into Penobscot Bay and used a GPS bearing to a fixed and charted object to get one solid bearing. With that reference he could then use his directional gyro (lower left in the Bloomquist photo above, home built from old military parts) to check the compass on multiple headings. Then he used that little magnetometer in his hand to look for the culprits. The main problem turned out to be a large steel hydraulic steering control mounted almost directly under the compass (the yacht in the picture is not the same boat, by the way).
Using well developed intuition plus trial and error, he figured out where to position an external magnet to negate the offending one. That took a big bite out the worst deviations, plus made the compass lively again on North headings. Then he used the SS1000’s small built-in correction magnets to get the deviation nearly to zero on all headings. Finally, he checked for possible transient problems and found one in the windshield wiper motor, which he couldn’t fix, of course, but did note on the deviation card. Jeff has come across a lot of odd compass problems over the years; I think at this point he can look around a boat and visualize 3D magnetic fields emanating from wiper motors, power cables, buzzers, hunks of steel, CRT tubes, etc. etc.
Ritchie, incidentally, has a good guide to compass basics that they will send you for free or let you download as a .pdf.
I’m back from Boston, where Navionics showed a bunch of boating writers what Platinum cartography looks like on the water, and also laid out its overall product plan for 2006. Panbo-wise, it’s all a little frustrating. I’ve been beta testing Platinum on a Raymarine E-120 all summer, and have tons of photos and screen shots to illustrate its features in detail. However, I agreed to Raymarine’s understandable request that I not use anything until the code is finalized. Soon, I’m told, very soon. (I got the shot above, and bigger here, during the demo; on the left screen you can see how big the oblique marina and port entrance photos are. Incidentally, when there was a chart on that screen, it was neat to see how well it could synchronize with the 3D screen at right, something I hadn’t seen in my testing).
Similarly, I can’t yet talk about what Navionics is up to in 2006 (very interesting). Instant Panbo publishing is a little too fast for these guys! I may run into this situation a lot this fall, as electronics companies reveal their new products, often timed to magazine cycles two or more months long. Plus my Panbo posting schedule is going to be choppy. In the next six weeks I’ve got a ‘research’ cruise with my daughter on the Hudson river, a press junket to the French Riviera, two trips to Florida (NMEA conference and Ft. Lauderdale boat show), and a completely non nautical but spectacular conference (Pop!Tech) where I volunteer so I can hear what some really large brains are thinking about our tech future. I think of this fall period as a regime of fattening my own brain for the winter ahead.
How freakin coincidental! I was going to write a post today following up on “Geeks versus the evil M.E. empire”, but damned if some software didn’t hijack my computer, and my attention, for a significant chunk of the day. It was Adobe Acrobat, a big time program, and one that’s been running fine since I bought this top-of-the-line Dell and installed my fav software on it last December. All of a sudden Acrobat just wouldn’t open a .pdf file, hanging up on the opening splash screen. I tried everything. I installed updates; didn’t work. I went into the Add/Remove Programs dialog and asked Acrobat to “repair” itself; not. (Along the way, I rebooted the machine many times, and quite lost track of all the tasks on my desk today). I used Window XP System Restore (twice) in an attempt to go back a few days to when Acrobat did work; nada. I completely uninstalled and reinstalled Acrobat; still it hung up! That’s when I fled to the gym to watch CNN and sweat for a while.
Finally I Goggled “adobe won't open” and—bingo—learned from some other users somewhere that a glitch in Acrobat can sometimes cause it to create, then choke on, thousands of .tmp files in an obscure directory. Sure enough, there they are above. Even this powerhouse couldn’t delete them all at once. I had to hack through them 6–10 thousand at a time. There must have been over 100,000 files created in just the last few days (and XP’s “clean up” disk utility doesn’t go near them). Finally I can open a .pdf file, though Acrobat is asking me register again (for the 4th or 5th time, I think). So even now I’m not quite back to where I was before this glitch, and I have no assurance that it won’t happen again.
Please don’t write that I should have Googled, or gone to Adobe help, first…you know that can be a wild goose chase. And please don’t tell me that I should be using a Mac or Linux or something…if you haven’t had problems with those it’s largely because can’t fool with a fraction of the software I use.
Most days I love computers, and I’ve had pretty good luck using them on boats. But today is a day I certainly understand people who despise them, and are happy to spend good money for a dedicated plotter instead of chancing navigation on one of these FUBAR machines.
I still can’t load NOAA’s extra hi res aerial images of Katrina into Google Earth, but did succeed with some hi res black and white imagery from Image America. Above is a small section of the marina, lower middle in the images below. There are also thousands of helicopter photos collected by G.E. users who create and share geopositioned links to them. My excuse for writing about Google Earth on Panbo is that it seems evident that eventually we navigators will have access to something even higher resolution and fresher right from our cockpits...hopefully for viewing more cheerful images, like which slips are free in a rebuilt New Orleans marina. Unfortunately Katrina may be a harbinger of another future. At the risk of spending an even more somber Sunday, check out this essay by the brilliant environmental writer Bill McKibben.
I was a bit taken aback when the wonderful Keyhole was rebranded as Google Earth; it sounds so pretentious. But, geez, it just keeps getting better. Now there’s a free version of G.E., plus they’ve just posted hi res sat photos of New Orleans after Katrina and made it easy to compare them with “before”. These particular images actually came from Google Maps, which is easy to access with a Web browser, but they are also available in G.E., along with super high res daily overlays from NOAA (though I haven’t been able to make the link work yet).
This a marina on Lake Pontchartrain that obviously got walloped by Katrina, despite pretty good protection. That’s a big pile of boats lower right, quite visible zoomed in (I’m hoping no one was there trying to save their ship). I think this marina is where I once began a wild ride on a power yacht aptly named “Bontemps Roulez”. That was way back in 1972, while spending a winter in N.O. working on oil field boats and falling in love with the Music City. Unfortunately I’ve never been back, and now the good times have clearly stopped rolling, at least for a while.
Nova Marine recently brought out a compass deviation and correction program called Swingship. Even the free download version could help you at least document just how out of whack, or accurate, your steering compass really is. If you care. It’s interesting how differently even very experienced boaters think on this subject. “The magnetic compass is the primary navigation instrument on any vessel,” writes the developer of Swingship, who I’ve heard is a solo trans ocean sailor. But the salty gent who took me out on his big Eastbay doesn’t much care that his beautifully mounted compass is off. Jeff Kauffman—a compass adjuster for 17 years, a serious delivery skipper even longer—told me this morning, “It’s a bitter pill for guys like me, but there is no question that the magnetic compass has become the secondary heading device on most boats.” I didn’t get to tag along with Jeff on that adjustment job last week, but today I got an interesting blow by blow description. I’ll write up the story soon. In the meantime, I’m deep into compass study. Sorry to report that while the online version of Bowditch (American Practical Navigator) still has a useful chapter on compass technology, gone is the detailed one on compass error that I see in my 1984 print edition. Also took another look at Alan Gurney’s Compass, a history I read last spring. What a fine book.
The race to get hard drives into cell phones and PDAs may result in drives that really lend themselves to tough marine environments. Hitachi just announced a 1”, 8 gigabyte drive with ESP (“Extra Sensory Protection”). It uses a 3-axis accelerometer to detect a fall in as short as four inches and switch into non-operational mode, which according to Hitachi can handle 2000 Gs of shock. It’s hard to imagine where such tiny, rugged drives will take us… or to fathom what it means about the future when tech companies name a hard drive "Mikey" and promote it as “the new bling!” Is it politically incorrect to laugh, imagining a roomful of Asian marketing execs discussing “bling”?
Update 9/7: How timely; today Apple announced a new iPod “nano” that obviously uses a drive like "Mikey". Walt Mossberg, the gadget guy at The Wall Street Journal, is in love with it.
Last week, when I enthused about plotters displaying DVDs, reader Don Parker unloaded on me about how easy this is to do with an onboard PC. He further expressed his general disgust with the “megalomaniacal” marine electronics industry and took a shot at me for failing to point out “when the value added doesn't justify the price”. And Don is not the only smart, techy reader who has a bad attitude toward the electronics companies, and thinks I’m too positive about them. A recent e-mail from Mike took me to the woodshed over the enthusiasm I’ve expressed for NMEA 2000 here and in PMY, and ended with, “You need to think hard about whether you are a reviewer, columnist, or cheerleader for the industry.” Ouch!
Don and Mike are both computer industry veterans and both have some points worth discussing, but first some generalities. Fellas, I have no dog in this fight! In fact I don’t even see a fight. There are perfectly good reasons that some boaters like dedicated electronics, others like computer centric solutions. I use both, and am enthusiastic that both are advancing (and, hey, I write for what are called “enthusiast” publications). The marine electronics industry is not a big nasty monolith out to do you you harm. It’s comprised of tiny to medium size companies, and a lot of generally decent people, competing to make products that make money. If one thought it could do that peddling a generic radar sensor, for instance, there’s nothing to stop them from trying. (I wish this would happen too, Don, but don’t see anyone to blame). And what is value? Getting a powerful system cheap, even if you have to do a lot of friggin around to make it all work? Getting a proprietary system that works pretty well and is all supported by one company, though expensive? There are many angles on this subject. Don, for instance, is using an expensive SeaView computer monitor (right) that came out a few years ago with much hoopla (so waterproof that it was exhibited in a fish tank). The brand didn’t last much longer than a year, and I’m not sure Don can even get his repaired at this point. Was that good value? Unfortunately this sort of thing has happened fairly often with marine computer gear, which has turned some boaters off on that choice. (I’m seeing boaters who used to navigate with laptops switching to plotters, because they’ve gotten so much better, and in a situation like Don’s—a 42’ sailboat—they can be mounted and used right at the helm). At any rate, I don’t get the anger, but will deal with more of Mike and Don’s feedback soon.
I’ve got a cold today, and need a break. Meanwhile, it’s Labor Day Weekend here in the States, and that’s a little depressing too. On one hand, it’s becoming abundantly clear that the folks hurt the most by hurricane Katrina were the residents of New Orleans too poor to get out, and statistics suggest that the number of such people in our country is increasing. On the other hand, the biggest change I’ve seen in 35 years of watching my little harbor in Maine is the arrival of megayachts like Northern Star above, which charters for $425,000 per week, plus expenses. Last weekend I watched the three crew above labor half a day to wash down the 210’ hull, which already shone like a mirror. I’m not sure that’s labor we should be celebrating. I’m going to take a long weekend, refresh, and will get back to marine electronics next Tuesday.
Volvo Penta won an Innovation award at MAATS for its new QL Boat Trim system. Instead of tabs and hydraulic rams, QL uses vertical blades housed in these rectangular blocks (two sizes, right), which mount on the transom. I’m not sure if the actuators are hydraulic or electric but do know they are contained right in the housing, making for a tidy install. Volvo claims they are quite fast acting, but I do wonder if they offer the same lift and stability as flaps? On the other hand, I’ve bitched in the past about how tabs can be hard to use without good indicators and am pleased to see that the QL control module (top) not only has built-in indicators but also very clear command keys. Nice.
n NMEA 0183 format (or 2000) via bare wire, standard serial plug, USB, Bluetooth, etc. etc. I have a cheap 
The marine electronics industry is not a big nasty monolith out to do you you harm. It’s comprised of tiny to medium size companies, and a lot of generally decent people, competing to make products that make money. If one thought it could do that peddling a generic radar sensor, for instance, there’s nothing to stop them from trying. (I wish this would happen too, Don, but don’t see anyone to blame). And what is value? Getting a powerful system cheap, even if you have to do a lot of friggin around to make it all work? Getting a proprietary system that works pretty well and is all supported by one company, though expensive? There are many angles on this subject. Don, for instance, is using an expensive SeaView computer monitor (right) that came out a few years ago with much hoopla (so waterproof that it was exhibited in a fish tank). The brand didn’t last much longer than a year, and I’m not sure Don can even get his repaired at this point. Was that good value? Unfortunately this sort of thing has happened fairly often with marine computer gear, which has turned some boaters off on that choice. (I’m seeing boaters who used to navigate with laptops switching to plotters, because they’ve gotten so much better, and in a situation like Don’s—a 42’ sailboat—they can be mounted and used right at the helm). At any rate, I don’t get the anger, but will deal with more of Mike and Don’s feedback soon.
Instead of tabs and hydraulic rams, QL uses vertical blades housed in these rectangular blocks (two sizes, right), which mount on the transom. I’m not sure if the actuators are hydraulic or electric but do know they are contained right in the housing, making for a tidy install. Volvo claims they are quite fast acting, but I do wonder if they offer the same lift and stability as flaps? On the other hand, I’ve