Check out the full size version of this Coastal Explorer (aka Maptech Chart Navigator Pro) screen. It shows how useful the Nauticast B AIS transponder was during the Bermuda-to-Maine passage, and suggests how it might have played a critical role. You can see that we’re just coming onto the continental shelf. It was no surprise that we drove right into a classic Georges Bank blanket of fog, but reassuring that the Nauticast B’s dual receivers picked up the Sealand Atlantic at about 25 miles, more so knowing that we were going to pass ahead of it with a wide CPA. Visions of Johanna’s 4kw open array Furuno NavNet radar didn’t pick up the ship (bow on) until about when this screen was made, and it wasn’t even a large target when broadside 10 miles astern. Had we been 10 miles further back on our track, and without AIS, the crossing might have been nerve wracking.
6/28 I’m now ashore and able to upload this shot of Malcom Willard showing off a three-meal dolphin on a lake-like Atlantic ocean. It was taken on Tuesday, a few hundred miles south of the Gulf Stream. I didn’t manage to get the text below online until Wed. afternoon. Note that no electronics played a part in the fish’s demise:
Note to self: If I ever get to try this again---posting a Panbo entry from offshore with a sat phone---
As hoped for, waiting in Bermuda was an ACR Nauticast B Class B AIS and, happy day, I got it installed and working without a problem. In fact, I’m really impressed with the detailing—packaging, cabling, instructions, etc.—and also the variety of ways you can set it up. I’ll discuss all, not to mention how it works underway, when I have more time. Right now, I’m just going to use my last high speed connection for a while to put up some pictures. The hardware one above is bigger here
, and the software that comes with, below, is bigger here. I do have the Iridium/Xgate email working (nice!) but xWeb still eludes me, and so may not post again until we reach Rockland.
Actually I may be in Bermuda, and able to get online, for a few days. On the other hand, I might have some difficulties getting the gizmology through security! Then again, maybe I can figure out how to post via Iridium. Let’s just say…sporadic until about July 1.
6/22: I made it! But, damn, WiFi is tight in Bermuda. $5/hr, $50/day, or $150/wk at the Dinghy Club here in Hamilton, and most everyone has their home and business AP's locked up solid. I know because I've been wandering the streets with that Nokia N800 in the picture. Finally found a good and open connection in a little mall. Am typing this using a ThinkOutside Bluetooth keyboard. Feeling pretty geek except I just tried going native with a marsala omlett with chili peppers in it. May have been a bad decision.
That’s Skip Strong making his way down Nor’easter’s twisty pilot ladder, as seen from the bow of the Penobscot Pilot. Man, that move must get the adrenaline pumping, say, on a dark night with a big sea running. (Capt. Ryan told me that they can manage a ladder like this in up to about eight footers, sometimes getting the ship to turn toward the ladder and using the flatter turbulence created inside the turn). At any rate, Strong, who is a bit of a geek (and I mean that in a good way) has quite the electronics in that bag he’s toting.
I’m way behind on work, not to mention the gizmo preparation, that needs doing before Bermuda (wow, Bill and Gram were fifth over the line and third in class corrected), so I’m turning it over to Milt Baker. These snippets are from today’s noon report, filed from almost the midpoint of the Med Bound 2007 Bermuda-Azores leg:
Ships are few and far between out here. We nearly always pick them up on AIS before seeing them on radar. Moana Kuewa (which has the same Furuno FA-150 AIS unit we have) clearly has the best installation {not trivial} and picks up the ships first every time, sometimes as much as 20-30 minutes before they show up on the AIS units aboard Salty Dawg and Bluewater.
Not only did I get up on Mt. Battie yesterday and take that new header picture of a more June-like Camden Harbor (remember the old November one?), but I got down the Bay last Friday, catching a ride on the Penobscot Pilot. That’s Captain Jane Ryan and I above, and bigger here , just after she’d smoothly maneuvered alongside Nor’easter to pick up pilot Skip Strong (who snapped the picture). I’m wearing the float coat and harness because I’d been out on the bow shooting Skip’s descent down gangway and ladder, and because Jane runs a very safety conscious operation (with very good reason).
That’s Bill Strassberg and Gram Schweikert on board Visions of Johanna, a gorgeous Chuck-Paine-designed Morris-built custom 62’ fast cruising sloop (check the PDF on this page). The name may ID a seminal Bob Dylan song but the real Johanna in this case is Bill’s wife and Gram’s mom; they are a stepdad-stepson racing team (how sweet is that!). They just began the Marion-Bermuda race this afternoon, and though they appear to be last in Class A as seen right now on iBoatTrack, they are contenders. After all just the two of them did the start and the somewhat complicated first leg out of Buzzard’s Bay while most all their competitors are fully crewed. Besides, the duo placed second in the 2005 race. Bill was deeply involved in VoJ’s design and build, and claims to know every system intimately, and Gram, a naval architect at Pedrick Yacht Design, had much to do with the yacht’s electronics, which include dual computers running The Cap’n and Explorer as well an Furuno NavNet radar and Raymarine instruments. Why am I so interested, besides the fact that these guys are homies? Well, I’ll be on board Visions this time next week, joining Bill and Gram, and Chuck Paine, for the trip back to Maine. And I’ll be dragging a large bag of electronical goodies along. How cool is that!
1. Apparently the HF transmitters the USCG uses to send out offshore weather forecasts—voice, fax, etc.—need to be replaced and the government wants to know if it’s worth the money. If you use SSB or HAM for NOAA weather, or ever plan to, you might want to look here for ways to speak up. (I managed to find the electronic comments the other day at http://dms.dot.gov/, but can’t get there today).
2. Yesterday the FCC issued a request for comments regarding the granting of waivers so that USCG approved Class B AIS transponders can be used in the U.S. while the Agency works on a final rule making. The FCC’s online search and comment software is also clunky, but try going here to make comments, and look here to review them (nothing so far, but some interesting older stuff, like Orbcomm’s interest in providing satellite AIS tracking). In both cases use Proceeding # “04-344”.
Where is this bubbling geographic/Internet stew going to take us (like EarthNC), and, in particular, what the heck else is being created nearly under my nose (like ActiveCaptain)? The latest is a rather amazing service created by one Michael Kosowsky out in the Lincolnville hills west of Panbo HQ. It began with Michael wondering what distant bumps he was seeing from his yard and now--much programming later--he's inventor/proprietor of Hey, what's that. Check it out. Right off the bat you'll see what's what from Mt. Battie, which happens to be where I took the header photo of Camden Harbor above. You'll see it centered in Google Maps with each visible peak marked by an icon, along with a panorama view above and a list of the spots to the right, each interactively clickable. But you've just gotten started.
It may seem nuts that the Raymarine E-Series can input/output data via good old NMEA 0183, SeaTalk (Ray’s proprietary improvement on 0183), SeaTalk2 (actually NMEA 2000), and SeaTalk HS (actually Ethernet)…but it’s a darn good data architecture. For one thing, there are situations where every one one of those protocols will be used to usefully shuffle info around a boat. Plus the E’s (and C’s) do something called data bridging.
From the minutes of the 5/10/2007 GMDSS Task Force meeting, summarizing one portion of the FCC report:
Pending approval of AIS Class B Units: The Coast Guard has approved 4 AIS Class B Units and those same units are expected to receive routine FCC approval which has not yet been released, however.
We chose to focus on engine data since it’s primarily the only thing that you can get over NMEA 2000 that can’t be provided from another source (either our Marine Network system or NMEA 0183). Our engineers found a dearth of N2K devices on the market that provided data that couldn’t be obtained in another way.
That’s an odd criteria, I think. 0183 isn’t going away soon, but isn’t 2000 better defined, more reliable, and more networkable? Yes! Above is an illustration of why you might want to get as much data as possible over N2K instead of over 0183. The screen shows some of the 4212’s fine 0183 support—four inputs and two outputs, each with a high or standard speed setting. To use all of them you only have to strip those12 wimpy wires and…
Spent a long weekend in New York City—big fun—but was feeling old and sorry for myself while driving home from the airport yesterday. Having the second kid (of three) turn 30 and missing some gorgeous Maine boating weather will have that effect! Thankfully, though, my buddy Jack got the week off right, taking me for a spur-of-the-moment sail on his spanky new J/100 this morning. Today was the first time I’ve sailed one—sweeeet!—but I’d already been aboard two of the several that have been commissioned here. I know, for instance, that the first four all got Raymarine autopilots, along with lots of instruments and C120’s mounted on forward cockpit bulkhead. You can see some of that on Smitten, above and bigger here . So Jack’s boat, with only Raymarine autopilot, wind, and depth, plus a Garmin 545 (I think, not installed yet), is relatively “old school.” All pretty amazing for boats that are essentially 32’ day sailers.
The damn devil is in the damn details. Imagine my disappointment when I hooked a whole network of Maretron sensors into the Garmin 4212---no patch cable needed, much plug'n'play goodness expected---and got NOTHING! I can still scarcely believe it, but when I checked the installation manual, I learned that Garmin is hardly supporting NMEA 2000 at all. The page above says, "The GPSMAP 4000/5000 series unit...can receive data from a NMEA 2000 network...to show engine specific information...Also, the unit can receive heading data..." That seems to be it; no other standard data understood, and no data going out. Garmin even screwed up plug'n'play, for some reason needing "Device Instance" and "System Instance" specified, which I've never seen before.
In short---aside from using the right connector, and the right name---Garmin is not even close to supporting NMEA 2000 in the way we've come to expect from Simrad, Raymarine, Lowrance, and others. I am so disappointed.
I’ve got the new Garmin GXM 31 hooked up to the 545s, and am once again impressed with how deep this “product line refresh” really went. I’ve tested Garmin XM weather on several devices over the years, and saw the interface get better and better. But they threw a lot of it away in favor of an easier, if less tweakable, presentation. For instance, the only control you have over the main chart overlay above is weather on/off, Nexrad animation on/off, and legend on/off. But the data selection is good (yes it rained shortly after that photo), and for more weather you go to the main Information menu where you’ll find a selection of weather presets, each modestly tweakable from the menu key. I didn’t have the manual at first, but pretty much figured out all the possibilties on my own.
The joke going around edit circles after Purosol’s press release about its super duper Sport/Marine screen cleaner—which purportedly is “non-toxic, hypo-allergenic, contains no CFCs, no detergents and no solvents of any kind”—was “sounds like…water!” But it’s not so. In fact, I tasted it (what we do for you people). More important, I’ve tried it now on about five screens, all with possibly fragile coatings, and it not only cleans better than the standard suggestion—which is water—but it leaves a smooth non-static coating that you can feel but not see. It is not cheap at $7.95 per ounce bottle, microfiber cloth extra, but, man, it does the job. Available direct from Purosol, and soon, I would hope, from your friendly electronics outfit.
My buddy CharterWave Kim took these shots at an Italian charter boat show, and I thank her for passing them to Panbo. Najade’s dishwasher-size radar is an oldish1965 Furuno FR2010, which apparently still works fine…at least after its three minute warm up. Furuno may even still have parts (tubes!?) for it. That’s a Furuno policy that many owners appreciate almost as much as the performance. I mention it because I was bit shocked last week to see a Raymarine customer note stating that they are “sorry to say but we can no longer repair or provide parts for the ST 80 system.” Which seemed pretty harsh, as the customer says he installed his ST 80 instruments new in 2001.
Back to business and a big thanks to Roy Mevers, Electra’s professional skipper and a freelance offshore racing navigator, for showing me this little cutie. Who knew? Inside that box, which is maybe four inches long, is a dual channel Navtex receiver, a ferrite rod antenna, and a re-chargeable battery. It can run three days on its own and has enough internal memory for “762000 indications”, which I’m guessing means characters of Navtex weather reports, nav aid warnings, etc. Plug it into your computer via USB and the batteries charge while you can use any web browser to access the reports, and control the receiver, via an attractive master page living in the box. Apparently the instructions simply explain how to make a shortcut/favorite to the box, and thus the Wetter Infobox can work with Windows, Macs, even Linux, no software needed, or even power and antenna cables. How smart is that?
Woohoo, Panbo V2 is live. In fact, the switchover happened faster than anticipated, actually when I was still out on Electra (good times). I thought I had until late Sunday and thus ended up working Saturday night dealing with various issues. It turned out that my Web guru Lee was also working those weird hours and so was the HostMySite support staff (five calls so far, each answered almost immediately by a knowledgeable human…wow). Big thanks to all. I still haven’t finished the About and Feature pages (don’t look), and the “suggest” e-mail link isn’t working right now, and I’m sure there are other issues. Please e-mail me here if you spot one. The good news?
Movable Type 3.3 handles spam comments better so I’ve again made it possible for readers to speak up without authentication. (If you have Type-Key, though, please use it for instant posting; plus I can add “trusted” to your ID and you’ll never have a comment rejected even if you get rapping about Viagra or whatever).
The features page is going to be a good place to put more standard Web pages, like all the system lists/diagrams some of you contributed in March. I also hope to post some of the electronics articles that aren’t yet online elsewhere, and maybe get into in depth reviews, etc.
The possibility of direct advertising support, managed by BlogAds, means I may get more time for projects like that, not mention paid better what I already do here. Of course, your support of Panbo supporters (and Google advertisers) is what really makes the whole wheel spin. Thanks for that.
That’s the mighty 94’ Electra being shown at Lyman Morse’s grand open house last weekend. The boat is still being finished but she’s already shown high performance and is said to have “a fantastic, state-of-the-art electrical and electronics system.” I got a peek at the opening plus met the man responsible, Electra’s owner/engineer, and was just now invited to join a sea trial tomorrow. I don’t believe I could have said “yes” any faster!
But it will be a busy weekend as I’ll also be helping Lee Heidel switch Panbo over to a new server, new blogging software, and a new design. I think—sure hope—you’re going like it, but no doubt mistakes will be made. In fact, I have to go silent for a day or two, and there may be trouble carrying the last comments over. Please bear with us, and be sure to come back next week.
