Panbo

Annapolis frees the WiFi, with some ads

Great news from Annapolis (with a tip’o’the cap to Jeffrey): today there’s a“wire cutting” ceremony to comemorate the advent of free WiFi service in the downtown area, which definitely seems to include the various marinas and even the anchorage (if you have the right gear on your boat). Will cruisers visit more often and stay longer? I wouldn‘t be at all surprised, though there is one unknown. Users of Annapolis Wireless are forced through a Web portal so that advertising can be sold to finance the free service; the ad concept is fine, I think, but I’ve had trouble in the past with the “forcing” technology, as when I once signed up for a day’s service at a Miami Starbucks and spent too much of the day on the cell with tech support trying to figure out why I was getting dropped so much while trying to send photos to a magazine. I also feel a little badly for the nice folks who rent bikes and online computers right near the docks; but maybe free WiFi will mean more bike rentals?

Navman 8120, is the "C120 killer" dead?

I don’t know why I haven’t mentioned the Navman 8120 before, because I surely was impressed when I had a chance to fool with it last December. But now it’s particularly noteworthy as the company supposedly has a “For Sale” sign on the door (s). Navman has good online dope on this single station multifunction display that was reportedly dubbed the “C120 Killer” during development, and for now I’ll just note that it really does challenge Raymarine on features and value. What I want to point out today is how very neatly it interfaces with SmartCraft, i.e. Mercury and Cummins engines built by Brunswick. Check out bigger versions of the screen above, and below. Navman told me they don’t like comparing that “Troll control” to cruise control, but have you ever seen anything like that on a plotter/fishfinder/radar? Cool stuff.

Now some questions. If you were buying electronics next week, or advising someone about it (as I know many of you do), would you go for a company that is in transition, even if its product looks terrific? That’s why Brunswick’s announcement seems strange, even dumb. But, what if we learn next week or next month that Navman and Northstar will soon belong to a large and respectable marine electronics company that has never offered navigation gear before? That might seem smart indeed. Have a great weekend.

Brunswick to sell BNT, Ben Baffled

Well, I’ll be damned! The very unexpected news is that Brunswick now plans to sell much of Brunswick New Technologies, specifically the marine electronics bundle of Northstar, Navman and MX Marine plus Navman’s non-marine operations. This plan seemingly torpedos my notion that electronics, engine, and boat builders must follow the Brunswick lead and become closely intertwined as all their products become more integrated. What don’t I understand about this picture?

Later today: Of course I’ve called a few folks in the industry; in this little world, Brunswick’s announcement is a big deal, and, it turns out, anticipated by no one I know. You’d think that Raymarine and Maptech might be celebrating; I believe they’ve both been living in fear of losing substantial business if and when Brunswick boatbuilders standardised their helms on Brunswick electronics. But there are way too many uncertainties to this deal. For starters, it’s odd that Brunswick has only announced a desire to sell Navman/Northstar, not the buyer. Some players are fearful that that buyer will be Garmin, others that it will be Raymarine. Or maybe it’s a red herring, and only Navman’s non-marine business will actually get sold (which makes plenty of sense).

As for me, it’s too bad that my recent PMY electronics columns aren’t online (it’s a manpower issue, and I’m told they’ll all go up eventually), because then I could illustrate my embarrassing bafflement with a couple of links. The main one would be my March column about the Northstar 8000i, where I described how it’s taken a few years for Brunswick to digest Northstar and Navman, how these names—now really two brands used by the same global team of developer/manufacturers—have to compete for business within Brunswick as well as without, and, finally, how the 8000i looks like the system that might realize former (good point, Russ, below) Brunswick CEO George Buckley’s vision of a totally integrated boat, and thus win BNT a big chunk of Brunswick business. I’d also have to link you to the current May issue of PMY, where I take a look at Lowrance and wonder if its acquisition by Altor, along with Simrad and a boatbuilder closely associated with Volvo, might be the beginning of a Nordic version of Brunswick. Oy, I even finished with some noodling about “how Brunswick’s electronics and engine divisions are coming together in a seamless, possibly impenetrable, fashion…” May I hereby add: Or not!

Shakespeare's ART-3, check your transmitting power!

I may be naive—I don’t have much experience with testing tools—but Shakespeare’s ART-3 impressed me. In this picture, bigger here, that VSWR reading well into the red demonstrates something I’d suspected but wasn’t positive about…the old antenna attached to the Icom 504 may look OK but it must be pretty pooched inside. VSWR, by the way, stands for “voltage standing wave ratio” though Shakespeare more reasonably terms it “antenna efficiency”. Interestingly the meter showed the Icom and other of my test radios transmitting at a mere 17 watts with this same antenna, but pumping out a full 25 watts with a VSWR of only 1.25 (a mere loss of 2% according to the table on the meter face) when well wired to a decent antenna. Antennas really make a performance difference, as does a good power supply. The $90 (retail, though I don’t see a place to buy one online) ART-3 can also generate a tone on Channel 72, thus providing a simple reception test. Note that you do need to provide your own short patch cable between the meter and radio, annoying, but it is smartly designed so that it can be used portably with an internal battery or rigged permanently with wired 12v power.

AIS, this 'n' that #4

* Thanks to Panbo reader Derek for a link to AISLiverpool, the neatest AIS plotting Web site I’ve ever seen, especially since AISlive, and then Xanatos, became mostly subscription services. I’m not sure this will please the IMO, which is trying to limit AIS Web broadcasting, but it certainly is a great place to see how well the technology works. The example above, cropped from the full screen shot, illustrates how AIS is now being used to mark significant fixed objects, as well as ships. AISLiverpool is also endless fun for harbor gawkers, adding Web cams, photos, track histories and more to the AIS data. The site seems to be the work of an enthusiast, but I can’t find a link to the author (anyone?), who deserves applause I think.

* Check out Maritec, makers of just about everything AIS including test hardware and software. The news section suggests that the Class B AIS standard is finally done (maybe someone can confirm?).

* And here’s an interesting conversation about diddly but important NMEA 0183 details involved with getting an AIS receiver connected to a Raymarine C or E. Meindert Sprang, of ShipModul, provides expertise as usual.

* Finally, note how a Brookhouse Multiplexer made Jan-Enno a “happy man” by letting him hook a new SR 162 AIS receiver to both his Raymarine C80 (along with SeaTalk instruments) and his laptop. He explains how it works in the “user comments” section at the Brookhouse site.

Icom's CommandMicIII, and some (juvenile) electronics humor

So I spent a good part of my weekend wiring four different DSC radios to two plotters and a PC, and experimenting with some of the selective voice calling, position requesting, and caller plotting functions then possible. It turned out that the NMEA 0183 interfacing was relatively easy, and the DSC stuff worked pretty well, but there were some hassles. I’ll probably write several entries on this subject this week, but let me start with some comments on Icom’s new CommandMicIII.

It’s nice! Fully pictured here , you can see how hunky it is (my hand is average size). That means a big, fine sounding speaker. And, while those small screen fonts are quite small, they are sharp. This remote mic will do everything the radio can do, including all the DSC (there’s a distress button on the back). I particularly like the “jog dial”, which alternately controls channel, volume, squelch, menu settings and more. In fact you might say I’m a knob guy; for instance, I think the ‘rotary’ controls on NavNet and Raymarine E/C machines are very desirable features. But, wait, I’ve way outgrown the dirty mind of a 12 year old boy. That’s why I didn’t really notice this finger photo until the finger owner made noise about it, and I didn’t even notice the giggly conjunction of VHF channel 69 and the word “pleasure” (Icom’s fortuitous label for this ‘recreational’ or ‘non-commercial’ channel), until I saw the photo above. Honest.

The Raymarine warranty #2, bad news from powerboat.about.com

Yesterday I described a relatively small change in Raymarine’s warranty policy (arguably good for consumers), and how a vague article about it in MEJ led a few folks to think that Raymarine no longer warranties user-installed electronics, which is absolutely not true! Well, I first heard this ugly rumor from a Panbo reader cruising in Malaysia, who referred me to the astonishingly wrong online article pictured below. The author, Jim Shepard, took the overly broad first sentence of the MEJ piece, ignored all hints to the contrary, and spun a stirring fantasy about Raymarine as Corporate Evil Doer and the end of discount electronics as we know them. Somehow Shepard, who fancies himself an “an old sea dog” who speaks for “the average Joe”,  even divined just how rottenly Raymarine feels about do-it-yourself customers like me and many of you: “Raymarine says they are taking this action because apparently most of us are too stupid to install our own equipment.”

Yes, I’m damned steamed up about Shepard’s Bad News piece, probably because I’m trying myself to bring some honest information about marine electronics to the Web, and this is the opposite! It’s not just factually wrong, completely wrong, it seems intent on reinforcing a prejudice that’s baloney (I think). Plus, while it’s one thing to make a mistake, even get carried away on a rant, one beauty of this digital medium is that we can fix or notate our mistakes. Oh, Shepard did publish a follow-up piece, Good News from Raymarine, and there’s even a link to it buried in the original page, but I don’t think that’s nearly good enough. The Bad News page appears high in Google search lists and will be misleading Web surfers for months to come. 

I’ve corresponded with Shepard suggesting that the misinformation on the page be fixed or clearly marked, but he blew me off, suggesting that my e-mail sounded like it “was written by the PR Dept. of Raymarine”, and worse. He’s sticking to his self image as a heroic and independent old salt standing up to big corporations. What a load of crap! Shepard’s stated goal is “to separate powerboating ‘fact’ from ‘fiction’”, but, by leaving Bad News up on the Web as is, he’s actually doing boaters a disservice. Electronics are confusing enough without large paddies of misinformation laying around. If you too feel that Bad News ought to be clearly marked as bogus info, email Shepard or, better yet, the Public Editor at The New York Times Corp., which actually owns About.com. End rant!

PS: Hopefully the misspelling in Shepard’s headline tips off some readers to the profound lack of professionalism they are about to encounter. Maybe it will also help embarrass the Times enough to clean up his mess.

PPS, 4/22: Well, I don’t know if it was this rant, my (yours?) email to the Times, or what, but less than a day passed before someone corrected the spelling at Bad News and also added a “Note to readers” directing them to the Good News follow-up. That’s all good, though Shepard stills owes his readers and Raymarine an acknowledgement that the entire basis of his strongly worded editorial turned out to be untrue, and hence all the mean suppositions he derived from it are simply unsupported.

The Raymarine warranty #1, truth and fiction

OK, so about a year ago Raymarine made an interesting change to its warranty practices. In addition to the standard two-year “send it back to the factory and we’ll fix it” policy, Raymarine also offers one year of onboard warranty service for gear that retails for more than $2,500 and is professionally installed. The change is that now the installer must be certified, either directly by taking a Raymarine training/test, or indirectly by earning an MEI or CMET certification from NMEA. No certification, no onboard warranty. All this, clearly spelled out here, makes good sense to me…one, the existing extra warranty for boaters who spend the money to have a professional installation (which should mean fewer warranty problems for Raymarine), and, two, now trying to make that installation truly professional by mandating installer standards.

But a weird thing happened. Raymarine’s new policy has become a bit of a PR disaster thanks to some sloppy journalism and the wicked power of the Web. In March, NMEA’s Marine Electronics Journal published an article on the new policy that flatly began, “Marine products manufacturer Raymarine will no longer warranty its products unless they are installed by a certified installer…” The article is really an ‘inside’ piece for installers, and it does eventually reference the actual ‘onboard’ warranty change, but it is, shall we say, not as clear as it might have been. It led to the discussion pictured above on the Hull Truth (where there’s an excellent electronics forum), in which self installers started to get seriously upset. Thankfully that thread was brought back to reality by a well spoken installer named Jim Maier, but the misinformation one can read into MEJ’s confusing article has spread further. In fact, don’t be surprised if you hear tomorrow or a year from now that Raymarine won’t give you warranty on electronics you install yourself. It’s total bull, but the rumor is out there in much worse form than I’ve discussed today. Prepare for a RANT tomorrow.

Mind the flares, a product recall

Apparently there’s a bad batch of Paines Wessex white collision warning (Mk7) hand flares out there, specifically batch numbers 2045 through 2046, which were distributed in the U.S. and Europe. You really don’t want to set one of these off. Instead you want to return it to your dealer or contact Paines Wessex.

Zeus (4), IPS joystick, and what does it all mean?

Volvo also introduced an omni-directional no-thruster-needed joystick at the Miami Boat Show. It has a computerised control module running a pair of independently turning IPS drives, like Zeus, but doesn’t have Zeus’s nervous system. That’s me trying it above, and while it just can’t have the precision of Zeus without the feedback, it too is a big advance in easy boat handling (plus it’s available right now). So, looking forward, we see two major marine engine manufacturers with new drive systems that offer significantly easier handling (and some other features) and are very electronic.

If I was an independent electronics manufacturer I’d be nervous. The Brunswick team—Mercury, Cummins, Northstar, and Navman—are already a little ahead in terms of the relatively simple business of putting engine data onto a CANbus (SmartCraft) so it’s available at all displays. I know companies like Lowrance and Raymarine are trying to get this sort of engine relationship using NMEA 2000, and there’s been progress, but once systems get as complicated as Zeus I doubt that multiple manufacturers will be involved. In fact, a Zeus engineer pretty much told me that it would be impossible to develop something like station holding unless it was all in-house (and note, you Ethernet freaks, that it’s all done with CANbus). Thus I found it interesting that Altor, the Swedish equity fund that’s taken over both Simrad and Lowrance, also just purchased a large Swedish boatbuilder with close ties to Volvo Penta. “Is this the beginning of a Nordic-centered Brunswick,” is the question I asked in my latest PMY column (mostly about Lowrance, and hopefully online soon). Will other engine and electronics companies merge or make alliances? Will all this push the independent players to greater support of  NMEA 2000? Time will tell. 

The power of Zeus, part 3

So what do I mean that the new Zeus propulsion system has nerves as well as brains? Well, hooked into the drive controller is an ultra high precision GPS and inertial navigation sensor which feeds it fast updates on the boat’s location along with which way she’s heading, sliding, twisting, rolling etc. Thus the drive gets instant feedback about how well it’s doing what you asked it to do. In other words, if you’re coming alongside a dock and you push the joystick a little bit to starboard, Zeus will take you a little bit to starboard no matter if the current or wind are pushing you hard toward the dock, away from it, or in some other direction. Zeus can do what the very best boat driver does, i.e. observe what the yacht is actually doing in real time, figure out all the forces involved, and compensate for them to get her to go where he wants her to go. Of course the ultimate expression of a totally integrated drive/navigation system like this is its ability to hold station, which seemed rock solid during the demo. It works so well, in fact, that the Cummins guys say they have put Ingenuity next to dock and stepped ashore—no dock lines (though that will never be an advertised feature). That well!

Now it must be noted that the specific navigation sensor hardware being used on the demo is apparently a very expensive Oxford Technologies RT3000 working with private Omnistar differential GPS corrections, which adds a serious subscription expense. But it’s clear that Brunswick’s electronics division is hard at work trying to provide the needed level of precision by the time Zeus becomes a real shipping system. In fact, Zeus may explain why Brunswick picked up MX Marine, which I couldn’t figure out last Spring. The image above shows a Navman/Northstar auto pilot that’s been souped up to work with Zeus’s amazing capabilities (note how the pilot is neatly showing you what the drives are up to as you cast a line, or take a picture, or whatever). It seems obvious that many Zeus boats will be Brunswick hulls with Brunswick drives and Brunswick electronics—all one—which is worth one more Zeus entry, tomorrow. 

The power of Zeus, part 2

Above is the Zeus demo boat, which has just departed a slip at Miami’s Sealine Marina and now—instead of the normal hard right, hard left exit—is going dead sideways down the channel. Leaving those bow lines neatly on the pilings was also impressively easy—no stretching—because the driver could bump the bow where he wanted it with just a little twist and push on the joystick. Now omni-directional joystick control, typically using twin engines and a bow thruster, has been around for a while, but Zeus is more powerful and much more precise, and eliminating the thruster eliminates the weakest link. Whereas close-quarters maneuvering is about the hardest thing to learn about boating these days, this is a revolutionary development. So how the hell does it work?

Well, surprise, there is a micro processor involved! Zeus’s control module can steer, shift, and throttle each drive independently…drives which can turn 45 degrees outward and 15 inward, and can do so at a screaming 45 degrees per second.  Hence the driver’s simple command to go sideways, or any which ways, results in some complex vector analysis and propulsion commands that only a human trained like a helicopter pilot could pull off (illustrated below). So Zeus is way beyond drive-by-wire technology; it has brains. In fact, it has a nervous system too, which I’ll explain tomorrow.

All U.S. raster charts and a charting program, fifty bucks!

Maptech’s freeboatingcharts.com is now offering a DVD with all current NOAA raster charts, all Corp of Engineers river charts, and a real charting program for $50. The charts are organised on the disc into 23 ChartKit-style regions, and this deal even includes technical support. The software is Offshore Navigator Lite, the same program that now comes free with Maptech’s printed ChartKits and Waterproof Chartbooks. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. I’ll try to write more about it soon, as well as the Zeus thing I started! Have a great weekend.

Panbo and I, a first anniversary

Yesterday a product development manager at a major marine electronics company said to me, “Thank you for Panbo; you’re making it easier for me to do my job.” That felt good! I also enjoy the international group of enthusiasts who come by Panbo regularly and the fact that so many Google searches (try “Northstar 8000i” or “Si-Tex AIS”, for instance) rank Panbo near the top. That means boaters doing Web research are finding Panbo useful.

At any rate, I sort of spaced out my actual first Panbo anniversary yesterday, but indulge me while I noodle about where this blog could go. I have lots of ideas, like adding: longer form pages where I could republish some of my print work, or yours; in-depth product reviews; a marine electronics ‘wiki’, as in Wikipedia, in which we could all help create a deep and current knowledge base about this field; and perhaps user forums. I look at product niches like digital cameras, and great resources like dpreview.com, and I’m sure that Panbo, or something like it, has room to grow up and really make something of itself.

Of course there are time/money issues! Both Yme—who actually founded this blog—and I are busy with other jobs. In fact, Yme is so busy that he’s decided to drop his publishing role here and I am about to become sole owner of the site. I’m talking to possible part time publishers and also looking for a good Movable Type programmer (anyone?). My goal is to generate some real income from Panbo so I can spend more time creating content. I’m considering straight advertising, sponsorships, even a ‘donate’ PayPal button. Of course I’d love to hear your advice about how to grow Panbo and how to make it a self sufficient business.

Zeus 1, the most innovative electronics at Miami was a propulsion system!?!

Above is a 42’ Maxum that Brunswick, specifically the Cummins MerCruiser division, was using as a special demo boat at the Miami Boat Show. Obviously (bigger here ) it’s loaded with Northstar’s new 8000i multifunction displays (and, yes, that lower one seemed a bit odd as you could kick it if you were being ‘casual’ like this model). Now I’d love to test the 8000i on the water (especially once the finished system ships in June), but this demo was much more about that fat joystick, and the engines, drives, and electronics it’s attached to, all called Project Zeus. I got to experience it myself and, by golly, it’s a very big deal indeed. The drives are similar to the IPS system that Volvo introduced last year, except that the props face aft (which I, from the bays of rocks and lobster traps, strongly favor). I won’t go into Zeus’s claims of efficiency, low noise, etc., though you might want to check out the press release. What I want to tell you about is how I watched a guy joystick this boat’s bow within a few feet of a day marker and then do a 360 around the mark with the bow always within those few feet. I also saw how you could push the “hold station” button on the Navman pilot and boat would sit exactly in place despite wind and current, and without thrusters. This is really revolutionary stuff, and important, I think, to the future of boating and marine electronics. More tomorrow.

Airmar Weather Station, really here and really works

I’ve been posting on Panbo for almost exactly a year now, and one of my first entries was about the sailing version of Airmar’s WeatherStation. While I’m sorry to report that that product still does not exist, the powerboat version does and I’ve been testing one. Above, and bigger here, is a screenshot of the PC software that comes with the ultrasonic (no moving parts!) sensor. This particular screen shows the controls available (left) and also what data can be graphed over time. Clicking on any of those graphs switches it to the gauge-style real-time reading. The software is very easy to use but needs some work; for instance, the wind speeds are graphed to a 0–100 knot scale, which means that low speeds hardly show any differentiation. And wind direction history is not kept, which is something that must be fixed for the coming sailboat version (which won’t have a GPS, but will have an inclinometer supposedly able to correct the wind sensor for heel).

But I quibble. There are a lot of neat ways to use the WeatherStation, well illustrated in its latest PDF brochure. I have most of the setup below working (I just haven’t installed the “Smart” depth/speed/temp sensor yet), and it’s a powerful little network. A PC charting program like CE easily collects wind/GPS/heading/air temp coming out of the optional combiner via USB at 57,600 baud, plus the Furuno RD30 (a very handy device) provides alternate data display, and there’s room to run more NMEA 0183 devices into or out of the combiner. Nice detail: according to the WeatherStation manual (another PDF) the combiner favors alternate GPS or heading inputs over what’s built into the unit. I think that means that the built-in sensors can serve as automatic back ups. Nice!

Settling into Boston, with a few gizmos

The boat in the screenshot (bigger here) shows the location of my rented fifth floor apartment in Boston’s North End. It’s wonderfully close to the Harbor (and a lot of great Italian food), but does face in the opposite direction, which is probably why I’m not getting a lot of range from my test Si-Tex AIS receiver. The signals, also shown, have to bounce off the eight story building across the street to reach the antenna in my window. Also seen in this screen is the little-mentioned ability of Coastal Explorer 1.1 to download photo maps (and topos) from Terraserver USA and overlay them with variable transparency over charts (in this case an ENC). It’s a nicely executed “bonus feature”, but you do have to be online for it to work, though it does cache the images for later use. Of course, if you buy the Chart Navigator Pro version of CE you get all these photo maps on DVD anyway; but you can’t blend those with charts (maybe a feature in the works?). Showing just north of my apartment is the U.S.C.G.’s big Boston Station. I’m hoping to visit there and maybe get out on a CG vessel, and I’m looking for other similarly ‘productive’ ways to occupy these two months I have to be in Boston. Ideas anyone?

Garmin AIS, what I know so far

Above, me hearties, is an AIS target plotted on a test Garmin 3120 in my basement last weekend, at least minimally. For instance, the plotter should have been showing the vessel’s name by the time I took this photo (I know it was being transmitted), and the manual shows an AIS subtab in this Map menu that apparently doesn’t yet exist. So I’d say that Garmin’s AIS display is a work in progress, which is probably why the company hasn’t promoted it yet (despite all of Pascal’s prodding).  I’ll bet that the feature will get fully developed in future software revs, including CPA and TCPA controls. I hope too that the High Speed NMEA setting used for AIS reception will also be able to see GPS strings, which did not seem to be happening in my test (I was using a SeaCas combo AIS receiver and GPS).

But I had another reason to use this particular photo, bigger here. Trying the 3120 reminded me how neatly Garmin does this Map Setup menu, letting you see the effects of any setting change live in a chart window you can zoom/scroll. It works Great! 

AIS, this 'n' that #3

* Panbo reader Gary has a positive report on the Smart Radio SR161 sold by Milltech Marine. Using it with a standard VHF antenna on his 53’ mast, he’s seeing (in CE) ”marine traffic as far away as Port Townsend, which is a fairly straight shot 30 miles north. I could see traffic in Seattle’s harbor, which is only 4 or 5 miles away, but there is a large hill between it and Shilshole. A few ships showed up in Tacoma, 25 miles or so south, but not as clearly – they were blue triangles without names. There are a lot of twists, turns and hills between my location and Tacoma.”  He had some problems with a another setup at home, since resolved, but “In all, it is pretty amazing to get all this info from a $200 black box!…It will be a great addition to the GPS, radar, and charting software to use while crossing the Straits of Juan de Fuca in the fog. Now I will know the size, speed, course, and even name of those large dots coming at me.” A guy named Paul is also posting reports on the SR161 at rec.boats.electronics.

* Another Panboid, Jeff, found this low cost dual frequency receiver from a German company called EasyAIS. If you hit the ‘products’ tab at the site you’ll see that they also have an interesting splitter that will supposedly let you share AIS, VHF, and FM on one antenna. Has anyone had experience with EasyAIS gear specifically, and with antenna splitting AIS in general?

Satamatics Inmarsat D+, looking for smart VARs

To tell the truth I didn’t even know that there was an Inmarsat D+ satellite data service until I found the Satmatics booth in the far reaches of the Lauderdale Show. Satamatics, in fact, virtually owns this service, operating its own base stations and global tracking network, and making terminals like the 101 above, which it sells into many markets. Now, we’re not talking broadband here, but D+ is capable of moving small amounts of data quickly and reliably. With its low power needs and built-in GPS that means it can track a smallish boat (or vehicle) anywhere (as seen below, and bigger here). It’s also been approved for use as a SSAS (Ship Security Alert System), which would be nice to have non mandated vessels.

But all that’s just scratching the surface. Supposedly the 101 can also do SMS and text e-mail, and includes numerous inputs for monitoring, as well as relays for actually taking action on the boat by (very) remote control. While I think it would be fairly easy for a boater to use a Satamatics terminal just for tracking, like this Australian sailor did, and/or SSAS, the company has not made the other possibilities easy to use. I suspect Satamatics is just too big to develop the neat multifunction boating product that’s possible with this service and transceiver, both of which I understand to be reasonably priced at wholesale. So noodle with me; how could this product be made really useful for boaters by itself or integrated into other marine electronics?

Asylum, a funkilicious sanpan houseboat

Sharing my err…eclectic boat tastes is becoming an irregular Panbo weekend tradition. This one-of-a-kind wooden boat, bigger here, lives in Thomaston, Maine, and I understand the builder/owner is a crackerjack shipwright at Lyman Morse, one of whose shops is in the background. I’ve not been aboard, but judging from the total absence of antennas, I’d guess Asylum is way off the grid, with an ambiance distinctly different from, say, Friday’s Gunboat.