Panbo

Panbo birthday, three years in the blog mine!

I didn’t plan to go off line on the occasion of Panbo’s third birthday, but, man, am I!  I’m posting this entry using the free WiFi at the Great Machipongo Clam Shack (excellent), and a couple of my fingers aren’t typing at 100% due to a header I took off a bicycle yesterday. Where I’m staying there’s no Internet or cell coverage, and besides I’m tempted just to settle into a deck chair and watch the egrets, plovers, geese, etc. all day. In short, though I brought lots of entry material along, Panbo may be very sporadic this week.

Continue Reading

MIBS, the madness

Dear readers, sorry for the dead air! I intended to post at least a few times during MIBS (Miami International Boat Show), but your boy way over booked himself, and sometimes had a little too much fun. For starters, I got pretty consumed with the two-day NMMA Innovation Awards judging process, which turned out to be impressively serious and well organized. There were lots of worthy entries into the Consumer Electronics category, which was won by Furuno’s NavNet 3D with Honorable Mentions for Standard Horizon’s HX850S combo VHF/GPS and Globalstar’s SPOT. The full Awards press release is here. Then there were the rounds of press conferences and booth visits, and this year no less than six on-the-water electronics demos. That “Miami madness” shot above was taken during the FLIR thermal imaging cruise, which was blogged by MadMariner’s Tom Tripp. Embarrassingly, Tom also managed to cover lots of other MIBS highlights, electronic and otherwise, and my mates from PMY produced a really neat set of show videos.

Continue Reading

Most innovative M.E. awards 2007, and you?

General tech innovation awards are interesting, but what about our little world?  In fact, I was quite slack about reporting the various boating innovation awards all last year, and so I’ve compiled a list of all the electronics-related awards in the four competitions I know of:

Continue Reading

Damn condensation, good gig

Testing that Standard Horizon CPV550 wasn’t the only reason I was on the water yesterday. I was exploring some unfamiliar waters around Cundys Harbor, and it was damn inconvenient to have the big plotter and the Raymarine sounder both suddenly fog up. I’ve had this issue with the DS500X before; Raymarine’s solution was to have me stuff some desiccant bags into the back of the unit, which seemed a little half baked but did in fact work for over a year. Yesterday may have been particularly tough, what with big temperature and humidity swings. I’ll ask Standard about the fogging, but I’ll also write more about the CPV, which I have been quite impressed with.

Continue Reading

It's Fall, and maybe a flaky Panbo

The truth is I sometimes use Panbo myself as a sort of diary of where I’ve been and what I was up to, at least in the boating/electronics portion of my life. So I’m sticking up this photo a friend (thanks, Howard!) took last Thursday evening. It was amazingly warm—I sailed until after sunset in just a t-shirt—but the signs of Fall are there…the changing leaves, the schooners getting decommissioned and prepped for shrink wrap. (And, by the way, for your sense of Camden geography that tower on Mt. Battie is where I take Panbo’s header photos.) 
   So I hauled Annie G. yesterday, not just because the season is winding down, but because I’ll be on the road for a while. First a week in NYC visiting the boat’s namesake, me mum, who’s fetched up on one those medical shoals of old age. Then back here briefly, then NMEA conference on Amelia Island, FL, back to NYC, and finally to FLIBS. I’ve got tons of material for Panbo posts, but some days may not get around to it. If you live where there’s a real winter, get some last boat rides in!

Hello MadMariner.com, a new sponsor

As of today, MadMariner.com joins Power & Motoryacht and Sail as a Panbo sponsor. You may not be familiar with the site, as it’s nearly brand new, but it’s an ambitious operation putting up fresh, and mostly original, boating content every day. Mad Mariner will be streaming Panbo along with its other blogs, which puts it side by side with HardWired, another marine electronics blog written by Jeff McLaren. Jeff is a manager at a Southern California marine distribution company, and also created an impressive set of Raymarine C– and E-Series instructional videos, and I think our blogs compliment each other nicely. Meanwhile, Panbo is poised to cross the 50,000 unique reader mark for September, and that doesn’t include some 15,000 Mac fans who stopped by. And note the advertisers who are braving BlogAds’ kludgy interface to get onto the right column. I thank them all, and especially Mad Mariner, for support that will help Panbo to improve and expand.

The Panbo lab, show business!

Oh my! Or maybe “Ole!” as I’m posed like some sort of honky flamenco dancer. Actually I was trying to get the propeller beanie spinning with my left hand while I took the photo with my right. I once teased about the lab coat, and today can reveal its purpose…an August PMY column opening with a less demented version of this shot and describing the setup of what I dubbed the “Marine Electronics Performance and Interface Testing Facility.”

Continue Reading

Panbo offshore, sporadic

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.

V2, up & running

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.

Electra & Panbo V2, psyched for the weekend

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.

Ugo's spider cat, now in Cannes

OK, I’m grumpy, and don’t feel like thinking about electronics. Late on a deadline, in all day when the weather’s gorgeous, it happens. Plus I’m still sour that I’m not megayachting in Cannes, especially now that Proteus showed up there. You may have seen shots of this wacky catamaran when it mysteriously appeared in San Francisco Bay. Later I found the site of Ugo Conti’s Marine Advanced Research, where you can download an enormous .mov movie of this baby in motion. Actually, you may need to go through the press registration, but the video really tells the tale. Proteus is a WAM-V, or Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel. Those are gigantic hinges and springs attached to that inflatable hull. Even the drives articulate. In motion the damn thing undulates like a movie starlet slipping off a slithery dress.
  Electronics seem to be by Raymarine, but isn’t the real question that backwards prop behind the pod? (Hint: “Modular”). Hey, wouldn’t you be grinning too.

PS 5/23: Cool, the gCaptain found at least some of the video, and here’s another. But I want to see more undulation!

BMW Oracle Racing, going down?

Geez, call it my American arrogance, but I really thought Larry Ellison’s America’s Cup team was a contender. But I haven’t been paying much attention, and it looks like BMW Oracle Racing may lose the semi-finals today, especially as Ellison (no relation) apparently fired skipper/helmsman Chris Dickson before today’s race. There are video clips and breaking news at cupinfo.com, and Kimball Livingston is blogging the cup here, very well I think.

PS.  Yup, the U.S. team is done; no Cup in San Francisco anytime soon, I guess. I dug around for some dope on BMW Oracle’s—or any IACC boat’s—electronics, but only found this vaugeness. What the hell are all those aft antennas (seen in this Gilles Martin-Raget photo)? Anyone?

Cobra F80 #2, in the lab

I’ve got to say that this VHF, also seen yesterday,  is pretty darn impressive, especially for the money (under $150 from some sources). Of course I love the Rewind feature, and, unlike the handheld 425, it does work on the weather channels. But more important, really, it sounds good and scans well, and that’s compared to two pricier units I have down in the “lab”, a Uniden 625c and an Icom M504. I must say I like the bigger knobs on both those units, plus the separate squelch, but the F80 is more compact. Still it has a large display, seen above and bigger here. Note the somewhat odd Lat/Long display (and, yes, I was feeding it an odd location from the laptop), but I think that high precision means that the set has taken care of the M.821 gotcha (though I haven’t yet tested it’s ability to plot a DSC call).
   Note too the two soft keys, used here for fast favorite channel selection, but also useful when you move through the well thought out menu system. I don’t think any other VHF, aside from the high end Ray218, uses soft keys. I find the screen almost as readable as the Icom, but the Uniden remains my favorite, even though its screen is the smallest of the bunch (color counts!). And how about that basement lab, bigger here? Yes, friends, the test Garmin 545s may have gone missing for a couple of weeks—glitches happen—but now it’s joined by a 430s, and a GXM 31 antenna. More on those tomorrow.

Big storm, how about a contest?

Whereas many of us are hunkering down for a monster low that’s bulling its way up the East Coast (gusts to 70 knots predicted here tomorrow!), another PMY navigation/photo contest may be in order. Above is the Raymarine E screen that’s printed on the inside back page of the March issue, and below is the boat’s waypoint, as shown in a photo from Marinas.com. Where is the lighthouse? And, for extra points, what is the boat’s present location. As before, please submit answers by email, not comments. By the way, I think this one is much harder for Google jockies to figure out, but nonetheless the real contest (with real prizes, but now closed) had quite a few correct answers. How’d they do it?

Head's up, a nav contest

If you read Power & Motoryacht, you may have noticed a contest we’re running on the last inside page. Each month there’s a beautiful full page photo of a distinctive coastal landmark from the vast archives of marinas.com. Inset is a Raymarine E-Series with screen like the above, only smaller. The challenge is to use the data on the screen to figure out where the landmark is.
  Well, we’re getting more correct answers than expected and I’m especially curious why because I’m making the screens (harder and harder). So help me out; can you figure out where this lovely place is? Did you do it using the screen, or by searching through marinas.com (for a long time), or some other way we never anticipated? Please email me your answers. By the way, the contest has some nice electronics prizes, but, sorry, the entries for this February edition are closed. If you’re good at this, you could always buy the March issue (try a big bookstore, PMY is not into newstand), or a subscription .

XML feed, email subscription too!

Some Panbo readers who like to keep up with this blog via an XML/RSS reader, like Google’s or Bloglines, have noted that the feed is screwed up, and I apologize for that. The fact is that I didn’t even know about the particular feed they were using! The one meant to work is this one, hosted by Feedburner, and it still does. I also just added a way to subscribe to Panbo by email, also hosted by Feedburner. It’s very easy to set up, and the only thing you have to share is an email address, which will not be abused. If you use either service (also available down at the bottom of the right column), you’ll see that you only get a short text excerpt from new Panbo entries. That’s because my sponsors and I want you to come to our sites to read the full entries.
   Sponsors? Yes, both Power & Motoryacht and Sail are now helping to make Panbo possible. PMY is also streaming the content at its site and Sail has a link and recent excerpt on its home page. Yet another reason I feel gratitude toward these magazines, and partially why I have a paid hand now rebuilding Panbo on a more reliable hosting site. Admittedly I’ve been talking about this for a long time, but the rebuild is truly getting closer and will eventually include a wider format with a little space for companies that want to support Panbo with graphic adverts. In this regard I’ve been investigating the services like BlogAds that could make this easy for all parties; suggestions welcome. 

Multihull madness #2, the Stealth 540 delivers

I actually turned down a short trip on Earthrace Tuesday, but it was partially because I knew I’d be spending yesterday on the Stealth 540, an experience I’ve been scheming about for months. What a blast! This boat has interesting electronics and electrical systems (like a 3kw Victron inverter/charger able to make up for a modest generator and shore power setup), but they’re overshadowed by the hull and power train technology. Time and again we passed boats of similar size and luxury appointments but with significantly greater horsepower and diesel thirst. Like the pair below, which we left in the (Q-SPD generated) rooster tail at 45 knots. At about 17 knots the Stealth raises up a foot or two on its foils, leaving minimal wetted surface. The main foil also provides some shock absorption in waves and seems to help the boat carve turns. Truth be told, it drives like a big sports car. The “HYSUCAT” system has been around for many years, but my impression is that Stealth has really put it all together. (Now, back to Maine; bye, bye, Miami.)

PSs 2/23–25: The guy above (who’d really like to rip that wheel out of my hands) is Bob Kyle, owner of Yacht Share, where you’ll find some recent pictures of the 540. I will be writing up the boat test for PMY, by the way. And here’s the home site for Professor Hoppe’s HYSUCAT designs, with a video of the Stealth 540’s first trials in Cape Town at the top of the list. And finally, sail boats can be fast too, as nicely illustrated by this entry over at the nicely reborn blog Navagear. It’s expected that a sailboat will break 50 knots this year, and it will probably be on hydrofoils.

Boat Show Craziness, and a wee dram of brag

Let’s see, a few highlights from two days of Miami Boat Show: a tour of the Garmin 5000 series from the company’s head marine software engineer; collecting more details on new AIS receivers from Raymarine and Furuno, not to mention three big brand Class B transponders awaiting approvals; hearing how the new Jeppesen Nobeltec C-Map team envision the future of marine charting; and watching the founder of Navionics sing and dance Volare at NavAid2. But my very favorite moment was at Power & Motoryacht’s gala pirate-themed advertiser appreciation party high up in the “starlight room” of our hotel. There I was, trying to get a few photographs of the high-spirited craziness seen above (yes that’s a pirate band playing on an elaborate pirate ship stage), when some glinty-eyed, snaggle-toothed buccaneer/stranger looks up at me from the mosh pit, raises his fist in the air, and shouts out, “Panbo rules!” 
   It’s just mind blowing how many people in the marine electronics industry are reading this blog (and your comments); Panbo’s future is bright. Once I get through the rest of the show, I’ll report on the above and many more interesting developments, but right now I’m feeling quite a bit of appreciation for the two magazines who support me so fabulously in this endeaver. PMY and Sail rule!

NavAid2, geeks on guitars

It’s amazing how many marine electronics sales and product people can really make music. I learned that during last year’s Miami Show when Navionics hosted a benefit to aid victims of Hurricane Wilma (the one which did so much damage to South Florida just before the 2005 Ft. Lauderdale show). The Navionics “house band” played with many guests “artists” (that’s a Raymarine Product Manager wailing in the photo), and the event raised $7,000. Navaid2 will take place this Thursday evening, starting at 5pm in Room B118 of the Miami Beach Convention Center, and will benefit American Cancer Society and to the Ian McWilliam Saints Fund (McWilliam was “a friend and well-known marine industry colleague, who passed away this past fall after a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer”). More info here.  Be there, or be square.

Ow, that hurt!

Yipe! As many of you noticed, Panbo went off the air—”Forbidden.…You don't have permission to access / on this server.” etc.—last Saturday. I will not bore you with the gruesome details, but it was actually my hosting service that shut Panbo down, without warning or even a “suspend notice” until 24 hours after the fact. It seems that the old spam comment issues were still affecting server CPU usage, though totally without my knowledge. The two+ day getting-it-fixed saga featured horrendously slow support response, misinformation, and hours on hold being serenaded by a looping schlock rock tape. I remained polite, but my inner very angry customer really wants to express himself!
  However, just to be on the safe side, I will not name the offending host service until Panbo has a new one. This incident really brought home to me how much I value and enjoy this blogging part of my work life, and I’m more fired up than ever to improve the site…stability included! But first I have to catch up on work, and get ready for Miami. Back to business!

Atomic watch, and industry chatter

I’m feeling so old today. First I saw this Casio Waveceptor watch going for $25 on Woot. Five times a day the thing listens to WWVB, the time signal station in Colorado, and adjusts itself to atomic precision. I remember in the 70’s laboriously tuning into that station and tracking errors in the various expensive chronometers on a whale research vessel where we were using celestial nav to map and stay safe on the big banks off the Dominican Republic.
  Then I hear that Darrell Lowrance has retired and a fellow young enough to be my kid has taken over as new CEO of Navico (Simrad, Lowrance, etc.). And early this week old time big yacht installer Larry Smith Electronics suddenly shut its doors. I suspect some sort of financial mismanagement was the cause, not lack of business. Meanwhile, this old guy’s phone is busy as companies prepare to strut their stuff in Miami.

A New Year's Good Wish, from Maine

I’m feeling oh-so-content as 2006 slips away, partly because Panbo has become such an satisfying and promising part of my life. Thank you all so much for reading this blog, making comments, and patronizing its advertisers. I photographed this bit of Americana, bigger here , on Main Street in Stonington, Maine on Memorial Day Weekend, and it made a Holiday card that hopefully suggests the  good humor pervasive in this household. Hope you’re all feeling ducky too.

"Best of" lists, your favs?

There are only two “Best of” or “Most Innovative of” 2006 marine electronics lists I know of—MotorBoating’s and Sail’s—and neither is public yet, but I like browsing through the more general tech lists that are now hitting the Web waves. So far I’ve come across PC World’s 20 Most Innovative Products of 2006 (they’re list crazy and also have the 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time and lots more). Then there’s Weblog Awards Best Technology Blog 2006 list, and Popsci.com’s innovation of the year is a nail! What have you all found out there?

PS Here are David Pogue’s top 10 new tech product features, SciFi.com’s top 10 gadgets for the filthy rich, Cnet’s Top 10 tech we miss, which includes wires.

RTFM, another side of the acronym

So today I was on the phone with tech support at a certain marine electronics company (it probably could have been many). After a while, the gravelly voice at the other end and I developed a certain rapport. That’s when I happened to ask about a certain confusion in the product manual, and that’s probably why he gave me a truly honest answer. I’m paraphrasing here, but the gist was:

“Man, I haven’t read any of this company’s manuals in over fifteen years. First they develop the specs in xxx (a country) and then the software gets written in yyy (another country), and finally the manual goes together in zzz. In the end it’s not worth a damn! I just push buttons on the unit until I know how it works.”

I got quite a chuckle out of that, and now you know the other side of that old saw, RTFM.

Weekend weirdness, tis the season

Tis the season of wondrously weird marine electronics related holiday cards, and the indisputable winner thus far is EchoPilot’s elaborate goof on megayacht trends. The “New Super Maxtremetti 300 Baby Bling” (bigger here) is beautifully rendered on an 8x11” card with something like a 1,000 words of tongue-deep-in-cheek descriptive prose on the back. To wit:

“Baby Bling is the world’s most automated vessel. All her vital functions, hotel systems, cameras and instruments are digitally linked by satellite to the Internet. She can be monitored, manoeuvred and navigated from any password-enabled broadband-connected PC in the world, allowing her owners the combination of absolute control and zero effort to which they are accustomed.
  Automation and remote control also means Baby Bling only requires three crew to operate her using specially modified iPods. The remaining 127 crew look after catering, hotel and wetbar systems.”

Thanks to Mike and Susan at EchoPilot for a good giggle, and let’s hope they add it their Web site for the rest of the world to enjoy.

PS 12/18 And they did!

Comment comment

A Panbo reader reports that TypeKey, needed to make comments here, does not work in Firefox 2, which I haven’t tried yet. As best I can tell, it does work fine in Firefox 1.5 and Internet Explorer. If you’re having trouble making comments, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me to bitch or just to have me post your comment. Thanks.

Weekend weirdness, USCG fleet failure

I’m steamed this morning, having just read the New York Times detailed expose on all the problems plaguing the U.S. Coast Guard’s multi billion dollar fleet upgrade. It’s just unbelievable. Personally I’m neither anti-government nor anti-corporate, but read this and see if you don’t want to do damage to some greed heads at Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, and their cronies at the Dept. of Homeland Security.
  So I went looking in the CG image archives for pictures of the electronics screw ups—like the non-waterproof (and now shorted-out) radios installed on open patrol RIBs, or the oversize navigation systems that are apparently still being installed on the new National Security Cutters even though the Guard plans to strip them right off. What I found instead was this shot of 123 Haitians trying to make Miami on a funky 40’ sloop. Now that’s the moxie we humans are capable of, and vaguely akin to the energetic work the USCG has been getting done, often despite their own old boats. So how did all the new ones get so messed up?

State of Panbo, Mea Culpa edition

Due to a spam attack and a resulting warning from Panbo’s server host, I had to cut off all but TypeKey validated commenting today. I have a guy working on this and other site issues, but the spammers worked faster. Your comments add a lot to Panbo, so please consider TypeKey, which is easy, free, and ‘pseudonymous’ (“meaning that no personally identifying information is required”).
  And, while I’m tossing out Mea Culpas, here’s a big one for everyone patiently waiting to see their product discussed on Panbo, products I’ve borrowed, or asked endless pesky questions about. Got backed up; sorry!
  Then there’s my last State of Panbo, nearly two months ago, in which—just before flitting off around the world—I solicited possible sponsers for a redesigned site, and then didn’t even respond to some of the interested parties. What a sorry bonehead!

Subscriptions for Soldiers, a good thing

Though possibly a bit self serving, I’m pleased to find out that the corporation I largely work for—Primedia, owner of both Sail and PMY—has introduced a program whereby anyone can buy inexpensive subscriptions to many of its “enthusiast” magazines for active duty U.S. soldiers who would like to spend a little time immersed in boats, or hot rods, or fishing, or whatever. Whereas things aren’t going so well for them, some enthusiastic words and pictures must be a welcome diversion.
   I once went to a PMY staff conference where Primedia’s head creative guy deconstructed our magazine, and others, looking for how they actually affect users. He saw our role in high fallutin terms—giving nutrition to a reader’s passion, saying ‘yes’ in a ‘no’ world—that challenged us to do better,  even if only fractionally true. Of course another way to support the troops is to vote. So, for goodness sake, vote!

Boat guy turns 60, (the new 50, right?)

Honestly, I have no idea why I snapped this boat show self portrait outside the elevators at my FLIBS hotel, but isn’t it funny how the ceiling fan accidently suggests my propeller-head nature? I’m 60 years old today, friends, and I’m taking the day off. 

The State of Panbo, 10/1/2006

Dear readers, it’s time for another entry (also here and here) on the state of Panbo:

*  If you’ve been accessing this blog with an RSS reader, instead of going directly to the site, you may be annoyed because I recently changed the feed from full on to just summaries. I’m sorry about that, but it’s part of a transition meant to generate some income for improving the site, and also for the efforts of yours truly (direct contributions are also welcome).

*  In that regard, Panbo will soon have a major sponsor (whose identity will be no surprise), as well as some small banner space for “Friends of Panbo” sub sponsors. Please e-mail me if your organization is interested, and hasn’t already been in touch. No worries, though, Panbo will not get plastered with ads; and, hopefully, you’ll see improvements like full length reviews and forums in due time.

*  Finally, I’m just about to embark on a rigorous travel schedule—a press tour of Cape Town, South Africa, boatbuilders and boat show; the NMEA Conference in Naples, Florida; the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show (aka FLIBS); and METS in Amsterdam. Posting will necessarily be choppy, but, by golly, I should get a good look at what’s new in electronics, not mention some insight into how they’re used on the other side of the planet.

PS. Please note that using a feed reader will still keep you informed about the when and what of new entries; you’ll just have to click over to www.Panbo.com to read the whole thing.

PPS. I hauled my boats last week, and turned on the house heat today. Ralph, is now serviced and sitting on a refurbished trailer ready for another happy owner (major electronics shown below excepted).

 

Weekend weirdness: a DIY dink-sized car

Marine connection? Hey, this two seater, at under 400 pounds, could fit on the boat deck of a trawler, or even the hybrid power catamaran (though perhaps at the sacrifice of some solar panels). Besides the inventor is my friend and neighbor Jory Squibb, who’s probably delivered more boats than anyone I know. Plus he gave me a ride in Moonbeam…which was exciting, especially at 80 MPG around town! Here’s where Jory explains how you can build one yourself.

A Panbo break, a good one!

Wonder how I got that high shot of Ralph yesterday? It was from the fly bridge of this baby, Shanghai Baby, an Island Pilot 395 that I’ve finagled use of for a week. Designer Reuben Trane turned the helm over to us on Sunday, and we got acquainted by dubbing around the fabulous Spirit of Bermuda launching in Rockport. Yesterday was photo day, with Jamie sometimes on Ralph’s roof while Andrea and I made like tourists around Camden Harbor and hot rodders out on the bay. Fun, particularly as the boat handles quite nicely at all speeds. Today the weather here is crappy and I’m trying to get packed and tie up loose ends. Tomorrow morning we’re off to Essex, Connecticut, probably crossing the Gulf of Maine overnight at displacement speed, for fuel economy and sheer joy of getting offshore on a flat night. Are you getting the picture? Postings will be slim to none until next week!

Sorry, at boat show, no time to post today

Imagine a thick New York accent, “So sue me, already.” Maybe the whole thought is, “Hey, pissed off cause I can afford to keep this cherry Bunker & Ellis as shiny as a violin? So sue me!” Sorry, no electronics today, folks, but another in a continuing series on catchy boat names. Have a great weekend (and if possible do drop by the fabulous Maine, Boats, Homes and Harbors Show.)

Wired weekend, Ralph's got some testing to do

Ralph may be very much for sale, but until that happens I going to keep piling on the temporary electronics. Check out the bigger picture of this rig…dual MFDs, dual satellite weather, and dual ultrasonic weather stations…and some other stuff. By the way, if you don’t get the name, does it help to know that the dinghy is “Norton”? Wishing you a cool and boaty weekend.

Neato, my magazine work is getting back online

Panbo readers who’ve been with me for a while may remember how I’d regularly link to my Power & Motoryacht columns as they simultaneously came out in print and online. It worked nicely, I thought, as the columns often brought together the blog noodlings into a more coherent whole. But that came to a screeching halt last fall when, due to personnel changes, PMY cut back on what went onto www.powerandmotoryacht.com. 
  Well, the situation seems to be changing. My 2006 columns aren’t up yet, but PMY did recently post the features from our June Electronics issue, including my opus on PC charting programs (and also Pete Dubler’s hands on experience with M-Tec marine cellular gear and highliner Karl Anderson’s take on creating 3D bathymetry). I dare say the same gentleman is also responsible for putting much of the Voyaging Spring issue online, including my Helm Shot column, profiling Steve Smith and his Raymarine H6, and Hudson River Melting Pot, a totally non electronic feature that I had a lot of fun researching. Plus Sail has put up a page linking to PDFs of its three May communications articles including my take on significant 2006 products. When it rains, it pours.
  My understanding is that both PMY and Sail are working on vastly more informative Web sites, and it’s my hope that Panbo might be involved in that effort. (In the meantime, thanks to all who dropped something in my PayPal tin cup yesterday.)

Gonna be a few changes around here!

It was a miserably rainy weekend here in Maine and much of the East Coast…lousy for boating, but good for testing weather systems and fooling around with blogs. It took Yme and I longer than anticipated to actually transfer all of Panbo’s accounts, but now it’s done, and I’m feeling a little frisky. Hence the slightly modified blog name, header graphic, and sidebars. Yes, that is the threatened contribute link over there. I do spend more time on Panbo than is economically justifiable, so here is a way appreciative readers can help…until the big sponsorship revenues kick in (smile).

At any rate, please join me in a big thank you to Yme Bosma who founded Panbo—including coming up with the mysterious, but memorable, name—and is now toiling away at the amazing Eccky and no doubt many other high tech endeavors. Here’s wishing him some dry air and fine boating.

If you write comments, please register at TypeKey

Like many blogs, we’ve had a lot of trouble with spam comments. For a while now, we haven’t even let comments go up without first inspecting them, which is a bit of a pain for commenter and inspector (me) alike. I’m pleased to announce that you can now use the TypeKey Authentication Service—which is free and reputable—to post comments immediately. Signing up only requires a name and e-mail address, and your deciphering one of those graphic code thingies that frustrate software spiders. Once acquired, your TypeKey name and password will work on many blogs created with Movable Type. Please register.

We are still allowing comments from unregistered, even anonymous posters, but we have to deal with hundreds of spams a day to make that freedom available. It is tempting to simply limit all comments to folks who are TypeKey registered.

Buy this boat, so I can get a bigger one!

Ralph is in the water and running sweet, but I’m trying to remember that I want to sell it (just can’t call this boat a ‘she’) so that I can seriously look for a larger boat that Andrea and I might cruise for weeks at time, maybe all the way down the East Coast. Ralph is an odd boat, a 1976 Wellcraft that I completely made over in the late 90’s. I’ve just put a pretty complete listing, with lots of photos, at UsedBoats.com. Please be in touch if you’re interested, or just have advice on how to sell it. Thanks.

Gizmo found, Web the hero!

I was hiking to Schoodic Head this afternoon when I got a very garbled cell call. Going by the few words I heard (“Mr. Ellison, we’ve…”) and the phone number, I guessed that either Gizmo had been found or my house had burned down. Well—hot diggity dog, and blow me down for being such a pessimist—it turned out to be option one, and sounds like Gizmo is in good shape. More detail tomorrow.

PS, 7/7: Yesterday I found the fellow who recognized Gizmo from the Village Soup article; he doesn't want his name in print, but he's a good guy, and a boat owner, and praise be to him. Thanks also to the Waldoboro officer, who made me feel somewhat less dumb by saying that his boat also sits in his yard completely unlocked, ready to go. Thanks too to my local officer who encouraged Village Soup to publish an article, and of course to Village Soup itself.

As for the thieves, it seems like they weren't too smart. They took the big cooler, the anchor, and docklines but left a tank full of gas and a color fishfinder. They also scraped the name decals off—and some paint, darn it—as if they were going to keep the boat, but then they abandoned it. I suspect they changed their small mind(s) when a friend said, "Hey, I saw that boat on the Internet", or maybe they just couldn't sleep due to the bad vibes sent their way by my friends on the Soup message board and here on Panbo! Thanks to all!

Gizmo gone!

I can hardly believe it. I’ve lived on the same property since 1978, and no one’s stolen even a paper off the front step. Late this afternoon I went up to the area behind my house I like to call my “boat yard”, intending to hook Gizmo onto the new trailer hitch I’d just installed this morning. The plan was an early morning fishing trip (and engine check) on Lake Megunticook tomorrow, and an island exploration near Jonesport on the 4th of July. But Gizmo was gone. Some time in the last few days, some bastard had the brass to haul it away, even though several of my neighbors can see the area fairly well. I’ve talked to the police and prepared a .pdf to send around and post (download here). If you live in New England, please be on the lookout for Gizmo, and wherever you are please think very, very bad thoughts about whoever stole my boat. Thank you.

 

This 'n' that, #1

It’s late and hot out, and I’m behind in so many ways…so how about a little this ‘n’ that:

* Remember the guy who was out trial sailing his schooner Maggie B. off Nova Scotia in March? Well right now he’s 13 days into a passage to Brazil and just about to cross the Equator. If I understand his Web site correctly, his crew are four French mademoiselles and an English engineer. Damn!

* NavimaQ is back. I remember back in ‘99 interviewing the couple that first developed this early and popular Mac charting program, literally as they sailed their cruising boat down Chesapeake Bay. Neither the cruise or marriage worked out, and NavimaQ has been off the market for several years. Now Barco Software has rewritten it for OS X, but it looks to me like they’ll need to market it better (more screen shots, demo, etc.) to have a chance of denting GPSNavX.

* Today I spoke to a nice gentleman who just had a bad lightning experience in Ft. Lauderdale. Headed to the Bahamas, he started up his 58’ Viking and next thing he knew his dual MTU’s were revved up in reverse out of control and he was crashing around his canal. Several of his electronics are blown out or damaged and he thinks the accident was caused by lightning screwing up the Mathers/ZF electronic engine controls (though apparently they check out OK now). Anyone heard of electronic controls going crazy like that?

* So I may have been a little jealous about the Bermuda Race last weekend (still don’t know who won), but I did manage to build an antenna farm suitable for my driveway and other test locations. Check it out big size and you’ll also get a peek at my almost new GMC Sierra hooked up to Gizmo, and ready to explore Malaga Island and thereabouts with my daughter tomorrow (which explains yesterday’s screen shot).

Laptop down, a cautionary tale

So immediately after I bragged/blogged about riding the high tech LimoLiner to New York City, I managed to incapacitate my laptop! It was pouring buckets when we stepped off the bus, but I just didn’t think about leakage through the zipper of my snazzy rolling computer bag. I’d left the laptop in standby mode, too, which I think may have compounded the poor thing’s fragility to a few drops of water. At any rate, I did notice moisture and I did try to dry it out, but when I turn the old Gateway Solo on all I get now is a “can not find operating system” error message. It may be repairable (and I do have a boot CD back in Maine), but I thought this a good excuse to buy a new mobile computer (with a wonderful 17” screen). And I lost very little data as I’m fiendish about backing up (pat on back). Still, the whole deal has set me back time wise, and I don’t yet have all the software tools I need to create full Panbo posts. So posting may be raggety here until I get back to Maine at the end of this week. Treat your electronics better than I do!

Comments comment, the damned spammers

Panbo’s often interesting comments section has been regularly filling up with spam drivel, despite all efforts to block it. So I’ve finally curtailed anonymous and immediate comment posting. Oh, you can still speak your mind (please do) without giving up your e-mail or anything else, but it won’t go up on Panbo until I’ve had a look at it. (By the way, please do include your e-mail and then I can contact you directly, sometimes useful; we will absolutely never misuse it).

I’m also working to enable a service called TypeKey, which identifies you to any site using Movable Type blog software while still letting you be anonymous if you wish. After their first post, TypeKey users will have their Panbo comments immediately approved and posted. 

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.

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.

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?

SAIL's FKP innovation awards, the PDF

I’m glad to see that Sail has posted a PDF of this year’s Freeman K. Pittman awards (downloadable from this page). In honor of former Technical Editor Pittman, every December four of us choose what we think are the most innovative, exciting products recently introduced in the category we cover. I take it quite seriously. Regular Panbo readers won’t be too surprised to learn that I singled out Garmin’s 376C with XM Weather, Navman’s 3380 autopilot, Uniden’s UM625C VHF, Navionics’s Platinum charts, and Si-Tex’s AIS receiver (which I qualified as a contrarian choice due to its poor build quality). What did I miss, or better yet, what brand new product should be on my candidate list for the Feb., 2007, awards? 

Buying a new cell phone, and other personal matters

Generally I’m pretty good about sticking to marine electronics, but today I’m going slightly off topic. For one thing I’m looking for a new cell phone and service contract, and I’m betting Panbo readers may have some helpful opinions. I’m thinking of dropping my venerable Nokia 5165 with AT&T analog and TDMA service in favor of Cingular GSM and a HST Wizard, aka the 8125 above. It’s a hell of a phone, and would let me try at least one of the wireless e-mail and web services that some boaters are becoming fond of (nicely combined with WiFi), not to mention Windows Mobile marine apps like the coming ActiveMap. I also need a better phone because I’m going to be spending a lot of April and May in Boston getting some medical treatments (one of those prostate problems us old guys run into). On a cheerier note, I’m pretty much set on GSM because it’s finally gotten to midcoast Maine and also because my daughter thrillingly reminded me of its global capabilities by calling me from a boat on the Ganges River last week. She just bought an Indian SIM card and popped it in her T-Mobile Sidekick II; the call quality was superb. She’s why I went to India in 1999, when she was an exchange student, and now she’s briefly back there as part of a course called Covering Religions that she’s taking at Columbia Journalism School. A hell of a course! Check out her contribution to the class blog. (She’s the one with magenta forehead, and she makes me proud!) 

I'm busy, but these guys are workin!

I’ve done a lot of boating around the port of Miami over the last two weeks, and, wow, there’s just no end of interesting scenes. Check this one out bigger ; notice how the tug skipper has his mast down and a guy on the bow checking his clearances. A little hairy under there! I wish I was still on the water, or posting on Panbo, but I’ve GOT to finish an article. (By the way, this picture was taken about where the dialog box is on the last entry’s screen shot).

Heard in Miami: "Got any engineers?"

Yeah, yeah, a Uniden Mystic that plotted AIS targets would be cool; so would a CVP that was also a Class B AIS transponder (see these comments). But it’s not that easy. An AIS receiver might lose targets if you’re transmitting through its antenna, and a transponder definitely needs a separate antenna. And aren’t all the tuners—2 for AIS, 2 for class D VHF—essentially separate? There’s also the hassle of FCC and European certifications. I do ask VHF makers about such things and sometimes they say, “We’re looking into it.” but mostly they shake their heads. Several times at this show—usually when I was asking obnoxious questions like “When are you adding NMEA 2000 support” or “How about a GPS chip and DSC in a small handheld VHF?”—manufacturers would say something to the effect of “We need more engineers! Got any?” In fact, I learned that Garmin also bid on Lowrance, (it’s in the public record, Raymarine too), which seems more about acquiring engineers than products, which overlap quite a lot. Got any engineers?

Miami Boat Show, back in one piece but busy

“Will report on the Boat Show this week as possible.” Yeah, right! Seems like I regularly think I can accomplish more than I can actually accomplish. I even planned to work on several articles—all due very soon, if not past due!—while I was there. So the bummer is that I saw all sorts of great stuff I’d like to Panbo about, but posting will be darn thin until I get through this deadline cycle (and another trip to Miami and Bimini next week).

"With apologies to Masefield", author unknown

 I must go down to the sea again, in a modern high-tech boat,
 And all I ask is electric, for comfort while afloat,
 And alternators, and solar panels, and generators going,
 and deep cycle batteries with many amperes flowing.
 I must go down to the sea again, to the autopilot’s ways,
 And all I ask is a GPS, and a radar, and displays,
 And a cell phone, and a weatherfax, and a shortwave radio,
 And compact disks, computer games and TV videos.
 I must go down to the sea again, with a freezer full of steaks,
 And all I ask is a microwave, and a blender for milkshakes,
 And a watermaker, air-conditioner, hot water in the sink,
 And e-mail and a VHF to see what my buddies think.
 I must go down to the sea again, with power-furling sails,
 And chart displays of all the seas, and a bullhorn for loud hails,
 And motors pulling anchor chains, and push-button sheets,
 And programs which take full charge of tacking during beats.
 I must go down to the sea again, and not leave friends behind,
 And so they never get seasick we’ll use the web online,
 And all I ask is an Internet with satellites over me,
 And beaming all the data up, my friends sail virtually.
 I must go down to the sea again, record the humpback whales,
 Compute until I decipher their language and their tales,
 And learn to sing in harmony, converse beneath the waves,
 And befriend the gentle giants as my synthesizer plays.
 I must go down to the sea again, with RAM in gigabytes,
 and teraflops of processing for hobbies that I like,
And software suiting all my wants, seated at my console
 And pushing on the buttons which give me complete control.
 I must go down to the sea again, my concept seems quite sound,
 But when I simulate this boat, some problems I have found.
 The cost is astronomical, repairs will never stop,
 Instead of going sailing, I’ll be shackled to the dock.
 I must go down to the sea again, how can I get away?
 Must I be locked in low-tech boats until my dying day?
 Is there no cure for my complaint, no technologic fix?
 Oh, I fear electric fever is a habit I can’t kick.
And software suiting all my wants, seated at my console
 And pushing on the buttons which give me complete control.
 I must go down to the sea again, my concept seems quite sound,
 But when I simulate this boat, some problems I have found.
 The cost is astronomical, repairs will never stop,
 Instead of going sailing, I’ll be shackled to the dock.
 I must go down to the sea again, how can I get away?
 Must I be locked in low-tech boats until my dying day?
 Is there no cure for my complaint, no technologic fix?
 Oh, I fear electric fever is a habit I can’t kick.
###

Hey, someone sent it to me! My reaction: read it out loud, it’s pretty darn good. And there are some snippets of truth in there, but the electronics cat is way out of the bag. For instance, contemplate the fleet of floating technology I see out my hotel window (telephoto).

 

Why you should know about Woot

Woot sells one product a day, either until it’s sold out or the next day comes along. Shipping is always $5, and the sales pitch is usually a riot. Today’s deal is a Lowrance iFinder handheld mapping GPS, similar to the one I’ve been trying, for $140. Good machine, excellent price I think.

Free Furuno, you could get a makeover!

You’d think I’d know more about this than I actually do! Apparently Voyaging Magazine—for which I write a column called Helm Shot (only the first one is online, unfortunately)—is running a ‘makeover’ style contest in which the winner will get a whole Furuno NavNet vx2 electronics system installed in his or her boat. Nice! Now Voyaging (created by PMY) is about powerboat cruising, so you have to own that sort of boat. Then you need to take some decent pictures of your current setup and write an essay of up to 1,200 words describing it and explaining “how winning brand-new Furuno equipment would improve your cruising lifestyle.”  The winner will be chosen by a panel of Voyaging and Furuno experts (including me) “based on the creativity and originality of the essay and photographs entered.” I’m sure Voyaging and Furuno will do a lot of promotion about this contest (which ends in June), but how many folks will actually enter? Sounds like an opportunity.

If, on the other hand, you’ve already put together a cruising power boat electronics package that you are particularly proud of, maybe you’d let me profile it and you for Voyaging. There’s no prize, except for a few free copies, but it is fun. Write me.

Simrad buys Lowrance, very, very interesting

Weird! I was just writing an entry giving Lowrance some grief about their NauticPath charts, when a stock trading friend of mine called. “What the hell is going on with Lowrance?” says he (as I had once suggested LEIX as a possibly good investment). After a few minutes a release came up on Business Wire, excerpted here:

Simrad Yachting AS and Lowrance Electronics, Inc. (Nasdaq:LEIX) announced today that Simrad Yachting has agreed to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Lowrance for $37 per share… Darrell Lowrance, the current Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lowrance who founded the company in 1957 and is still its largest shareholder, will become the Chief Executive Officer of the combined company. Jan Berner, the current Chief Executive Officer of Simrad Yachting, will become Deputy Chief Executive Officer and lead the integration work.

Wow, Simrad and Lowrance are quite the combination…I’m still reeling over the implications. One thing I’m feeling very good about is the big kit of Lowrance gear that arrived for testing last week. I’ve been thinking for some time that Lowrance deserves more attention in the saltwater, bigger boat world, but my timing is really, really lucky. I also I think my buddy owes me a nice dinner out.

Weekend special: memorable boat names

Imagine the VHF calls! “This IS M/V Emergency Mental Services. How can we be of help?” This beaut is the yard boat of the very good humored Westerly Marina in Ossining, NY, seen on my Hudson cruise last fall. On closer inspection you’ll see that Marine Response Unit No. 10 probably once worked at Emergency Enviromental Services. Meanwhile, up the river in Newburgh, is a boat I would not like to vocalize on the radio. Just too stupid:

Ben's big catamaran adventure

 

Well, would you believe that I’m writing this from the cockpit of the Leopard 42’ catamaran above, riding on a mooring at Great Guana Cay, Abaco, Bahamas? Uploading to Panbo via an ISP that’s nicely blanketed the cruising harbors in WiFi? Ha ha! Oh there was the hellish getting here, which included a pre dawn Sunday drive through a sleet storm and idiot me forgetting his passport, which caused a lay over in a grungy Ft. Lauderdale Econolodge, then USAir temporarily ‘misplacing’ the passport my dear wife had driven to Portland and put on a plane. Ah, but did I mention that I’m sitting in shorts and a t-shirt as the sun comes up? So the deal here is that I am attending an Offshore Sailing School Catamaran Live Aboard Cruising Course on behalf of Sail magazine. There’s one other student and an instructor, both fine guys, and I’m excited about sailing one of these beasts. I also brought along a lot of different electronic charts of this area to try out and compare. So, more later…if and when we stop in right place WiFi wise.

The very unhappy customer, a phenom

Mike Slinn’s weblog sounds like a tabloid:  “The dangerous secret about Raymarine radars that the manufacturer doesn’t want you to know.” Well, I read all the correspondence Mike posted and don’t understand at all how he’s come to the conclusions he has. It looks to me like various Raymarine people responded to all his issues—even though some are just RTFM (read the blanking manual) simple—and meanwhile Mike apparently hasn’t even taken their advice to update his firmware and check his power supply. I also question his concept of using this dinky radar, or any radar, to “catch up on sleep without compromising safety”. So what do you all think of Mike’s gripes, which he’s posting all over (like here, here, here, and here), and has anyone heard of another boat with this problem of a constantly resetting Raymarine radar scanner? 

By the way, Mike is certainly not the first really, really unhappy marine electronics customer I’ve come across. Supposedly one went so far as to hire a plane to tow a derogatory banner over the Miami Boat Show a few years ago! Is this a particularly strong phenomenon in the world of boats? I think so, but not because marine electronics (or boats) are particularly poor…but because we care about them so much.

Clean my screen, seriously