Favourite electronic gadgets.

[tcm]

excellent. Quite right not to use the vhf, espcially cominginto marinas - just dump it somewhere and sort it out later. Othrwise one gets all the troubles of the marina staff about the other guy who's booked in and due in that space last night but isn't here et and yada yada.

and welcome back rupertW

 

[RupertW]

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excellent. Quite right not to use the vhf, espcially cominginto marinas - just dump it somewhere and sort it out later

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You know me too well /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif , I still think it's immoral to book a visitor's berth in advance.

 

[jonjo]

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I don't really understand the question...

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My question was not intended to be particularly serious, I thought after all the formal product research it would be interesting to hear what people like most in practice. I guess what we come to rely on depends on our type of sailing and location.

English Channel sailors value in cockpit VHF control, offshore types probably need just basic GPS/waypoint numbers close by and the coast hoppers such as me like a colour chart display in view from the helm.

 

[jonjo]

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Interested to know what worries have been eliminated. I can't recall worrying due to lack of a cockpit speaker.

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You need to picture the cosseted yachting life style we enjoy down south in range of Solent Coastguard, none of that frontier highland self sufficient sailing for us thank you!

Pan-Pan Evian, Solent Coast Guard we have run out of bottled mineral water. Yacht in distress this is Solent Coastguard, be advised that that India Juliet will be airborne in 2 minutes with emergency supplies.

Seriously during a weekend sail without a cockpit VHF speaker I might think hmm what’s that strange cloud bank to windward I wonder if I missed a strong wind warning from the coastguard. I can never program the coastguard weather forecast schedule into my brain so would miss many of these.

During a windy weekend in the Solent there are going to be a few distress calls or reports of concern replayed by the coastguard. It is nice to hear this traffic clearly in the cockpit without having to crank a head down below because someone thought they heard the word mayday on the VHF.

If someone did go overboard I know I could deal with the recovery situation on deck and also send out a broadcast from the cockpit handset.

Before leaving Gosport I can listen into QHM just prior to heading out so I won’t go head to head with HMS Invincible by accident.

Then there is the dubious benefit of hearing a French accent telling me about a dead whale reported to be floating near Alderney when I am just a couple of miles south of the UK mainland coast.

 

[Gypsy]

Re your Navtex question - I have a Nav6+ so I think the Navtex side is the same. Yes user interface is "unique"! However why the question about erasing old forcast info - it clears the oldest stuff automatically when it needs more space for new incoming messages. Subject to how many stations you can receive, it will hold 2-4 weeks (or more) of continuous messages before erasing the oldest. Remember it stores all messages even if you do not display them because of the filtering you have set up. This is a neat feature because it allows you to change the filter and then read the messages again for old data.

I agree with you about the Link-10 too. Great kit.
Having a plotter near the helm is also a favourite for me. I have two locations wired, one at the Nav table another under the spray dodger for use in more difficult navigation and weather moments - this also repeats the radar as a bonus.
Ray

 

[Sixpence]

I'll probably get roasted for saying this as an almost total beginner but the gadget I prefer to use is those two things slightly above and either side of my nose . I do like the electrogadget routine but sometimes I think that maybe , just maybe mind , people could spend too long looking at the gadgets and miss that hoofing great mobo bearing down on them from behind when the driver has been distracted by his own little set of electrogadget things that shows nothing ahead

 

[ShipsWoofy]

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I'll probably get roasted for saying this as an almost total beginner but the gadget I prefer to use is those two things slightly above and either side of my nose . I do like the electrogadget routine but sometimes I think that maybe , just maybe mind , people could spend too long looking at the gadgets and miss that hoofing great mobo bearing down on them from behind when the driver has been distracted by his own little set of electrogadget things that shows nothing ahead

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piffle... and spouted every few months, totally and incomprehensibly untested theory, I wonder if this is how you think of most of us on the water, you know, dhurr-brains!

 

[Sixpence]

good night Jules , nice to see your mood hasn't improved , not

 

[Bajansailor]

Well said Dave!

When I read through all these posts by folk worrying about their NMEA outputs and incompatability between the fishfinder and the wind meter while the autopilot is in a strop and not talking to the pre-programmed plotter which is interfaced with the radar and the Navtex is complaining that nobody loves him.........
I sort of get worried, thinking maybe I should have a passionate desire and need for all these happily(?) interfaced talking gadgets as well.
Trouble is, I dont have such desires.
Well, not really.
Although......
OK, we do have a very old Garmin 45 handheld hooked up to the 12V supply, and paper charts on the chart table. Even have an Etrex as back-up!
Did have a set of Stowe instruments - wind, log and depth - but they all died a while back.
Dont miss them out here - depth would be nice, but water is generally clear, although maybe I will get a fishfinder thingy for depth before venturing into waters where we cant see the bottom in 15m depth.
And OK, a log is nice to compare against a GPS to see what the current is doing.
Have tied some string to the cap shrouds and attuned the cheeks to feel wind strength, so am OK in the wind department.
(I was brought up dinghy sailing - no ST60s on Mirrors back then!)

Must admit I am intrigued by these chart plotter thingys - must investigate them more - they do sounds like the business, and could be rather addictive.
And after having sailed with radar equipped boats a couple of times, I must admit it is difficult to not lust after them - especially when the visibility is getting the foghorns excited.

And I must also admit that it would be foolish to go across an ocean now without an EPIRB, as they are so relatively affordable.

A Tillerpilot for the tiller of our Hydrovane would be nice when motoring long distances.....

Hey, I have heard that in an ideal (?) world the tillerpilot can talk to the GPS chart-plotter which listens to the radar which is in bed with the depth sounder and the wind speed while the AIS and the Navtex are chattering away in the background - does this mean that if they all talk to each other, no stroppy arguments or fights, then they will analyse the coll regs, determine who gives way to whom, steer a course to dodge around reefs, shoals, ships on collision courses, itinerant fishing vessels, other yachts (even those allegedly motorsailing?), buoys (! used as waypoints), reduce sail on advice of the barometer re an approaching front and reach the destination safely??

And then tell the anchor windlass to drop the 21st century new generation Rock or Spayed Ankor at a precise location determined by the plotter in consultation with the depth sounder and the lap top which has calculated the tidal heights and consulted the pilot re the local conditions?

Sounds wonderful! Is there anything left for the crew to do? Oh, umm, stow the sails maybe - but they are all push button roller furling controlled by the PC, so that has been done already prior to entering port.

And what happens if any of them do get into a strop?

Back to Trevera's favourite, the Mark 1 eyeball I think.

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[ShipsWoofy]

ok, I know it is often said that only the ladies can multi-task, but I suggest most of us who have chosen instruments, have done so to aid our sailing, you know what, most of us know they can and do break, we use balance, enough to enhance our pleasure, like tcm, without his he can't find his car keys after 2200 and is stuck on the boat.

There are a few topics that come up regularly where the doomsayers appear to tell us we will all die.

GPS
Plotters
AIS
AIS RADAR (god forbid!"!!£"$%^%)
Televisions on board
logs that don't trail 200 cables behind the boat
fishfinders (as most are too stupid to understand the stuff moving to the left has passed)
windex (sin of satan to use and sail with a windex, use your neck boyo)
laptop

laptop (separate heading, cos it's important)

A laptop has no place on board, you by you I mean I go sailing to escape. I can't handle people having differing thoughts on this to me, so I will tell you not to buy the instrument you are asking about, and cyber slap you for wishing to take a laptop on board. Films, hah, games, no way, communication, you have to be joking, kids, nah they wont come, wife, prefers to go to flower shows.

I go sailing to escape, I have convinced myself of this, it is not because my family will not come out on my boat as it is sooooo very boring and my pipe smoke gets in their eyes. They just prefer other things now. I was so proud when I banned music or radio on the boat, now even my friends leave me to sail alone!

I have even convinced myself I prefer it this way, I think my wife is screwing the postman, did I mention that!

 

[mawm]

Tiller pilot
Chart plotter/ fishfider combo
battery operated vacuum cleaner - works a charm to keep boat clean
Dehumidifier - keeps boat dry in winter and stops the lurgy growing below decks

 

[Black Sheep]

Electronic gadgets... ah yes, my handheld VHF - jolly useful to keep a listening watch on VTS frequencies when sailing in the tidal Thames.

I recently bought a cheap second hand GPS & find it rather addictive, particularly for telling me how fast I'm going (don't have a log, and anyway part of what I'm measuring is whether I've found the thalweg).

Tillerpilot? Afraid I use a length of 14mm 3-strand stretched across the cockpit & wound once round the tiller.

Depth sounder? That's what a lifting keel is there for, isn't it?

Windex? Cheeks. String on shrouds. And the set of the sails. I get a lot of enjoyment out of this side of sailing.

Radar? Mark 1 eyeball. (Mind you, I'm nervous of fog).

Chart plotter? I take copies of the relevant bits of my charts onto A4, laminate them, and keep them on a clipboard in the cockpit.

But this all reflects my attitude to sailing (I enjoy doing all the stuff, but then I enjoy splicing 3-strand, and even sewing sails), my background in dinghies, the size of my boat, and the type of sailing I do (East coast, Thames estuary, pilotage rather than navigation).

Meanwhile, I hope you'll all take it the right way when I say that I hope all of you who've bought EPIRBs have wasted your money...

 

[Sixpence]

Ah , now handheld GPS is definately something I'm addicted to , it doesn't work in the car but in the van I find it fascinating . Specially after a recent meet aboard a boat where it was showing me at 43ft above sea level , the boat wasn't 43ft long let alone high

 

[sona]

I also fitted a command mic for the VHF, no dashing below to change channel for coastguard weather etc. and acts as GPS repeater in the cockpit /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Duffer]

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I need to get the AIS info displayed at the helm which is where I would be during any close encounter. However I cannot bring myself to fork out nearly £2k for a medium resolution 8” Raymarine sunlight viewable lcd display powered by a cpu that probably costs less than £40. Why hasn’t a Seatalk plug compatible market evolved? Surely the electronics industry could deliver a plotter screen that is functionally equivalent to the E80 at one third of the price.

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Then buy a C70 for £699! It has the same screen resolution as the E80 and runs the same software (you don't get 3D view or satellite photo overlay with Platinum charts but frankly I think that is a bit of a gimmick). Mount it on/in the cockpit bulkhead under the sprayhood and you will keep the wet off it (and you) and most of the time it will be in shade (from sprayhood or you). Yes it's not as bright as the E screen but you save £1k.

 

[Lakesailor]

Depends what you're doing and what's your latest gadget.

I've managed for ?? years without a multi-meter and have just bought one so I've measured resistance on continuity on just about everything. The cat is (5 ohms).

I also just got an etrex purely for the speed readout to make sure I don't go over the lake speed limit.