Masthead camera...are they a useful addition to accessories available today?

Greenheart

Greenheart

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Given that one can mount a camera anywhere on board for minimal cost and weight, is the masthead a good spot for improving judgement of distances, and of seeing over the horizon, plus verifying safe bridge clearance? Not that I'm thinking my Osprey needs one.

I'm often surprised how near the beach fixed marks seem, from an elevated place ashore. Any yacht's masthead would give a very different view from what we see at deck-level.
 
I've heard that they are useful for spotting shallow patches in less-charted waters, especially coral areas, or conversely for finding leads through the ice in the (ant)arctic. Traditionally in both cases someone would shin up to the spreaders for a look; I've seen blue-water cruisers with ratlines on one set of lower shrouds for the purpose, and a serious-looking aluminium pilothouse yacht (arctic style) with a sort of mini crow's nest in the position where some of us carry our radars. The other thing they are reputedly useful for is in low-lying fog, where the masthead might reach above it!

Not sure that judgement of distance is helped particularly - if anything the monoscopic view would hinder that. Seeing over the horizon is not so important nowadays, and hopefully bridge clearances are charted.

Pete
 
I have been considering just this - but does anyone have any good suggestions?

Something than can be remotely controlled would make sense and not too a large a form factor.
 
you might be best off with two cameras: one with normal and zoom, and one such as a FLIR for use in the murk.

Perhaps some form of gimballing might be worthwhile ?
 
My Garmin plotter can accept an RCA composite input - do any camera experts know if that is a standard output from a cctv type camera ie plug and play or will I need some kind of interface ?

A friend has recently bought a cctv camera for around £100 and the quality is amazing.

The more I think about this the more I like the idea - just mainly as another toy . Am not sure that gimbals would be essential - just have to get used to an angled view if on a heel.
 
Much as I love the idea of a high view point I would have thought the camera would need significant damping, not the rain type, to offer a steady picture.
 
Storyline said:
My Garmin plotter can accept an RCA composite input - do any camera experts know if that is a standard output from a cctv type camera ie plug and play
Click to expand...

Yes - it's the standard analogue video signal, usually presented as a single yellow "phono" plug. I guess CCTV cameras are increasingly going digital in the form of either USB or IP networking, but there are still a lot of cheaper analogue ones out there and they should just plug straight in.

Pete
 
dancrane said:
I was thinking the view needn't only be fore and aft...so without gimbals, you could be looking only at the sea or sky.
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Yes, good point. There are gimbals (3 axis) made for small drones but not sure they will work off 12v. The whole thing would start to get complex and also not sure how well they would stand up to being dosed by a salt water rich atmosphere. The camera would be likely be too light for a crude home made gimbal to work smoothly imo. Another issue that would really rule out the whole idea is that the camera lens would quickly get covered in salt residue. Nice idea but not really a goer unless spending a whole pile of cash. Another way would be to make something that could be hauled up a spare halyard I suppose.
 
Storyline said:
Yes, good point. There are gimbals (3 axis) made for small drones but not sure they will work off 12v. The whole thing would start to get complex and also not sure how well they would stand up to being dosed by a salt water rich atmosphere. The camera would be likely be too light for a crude home made gimbal to work smoothly imo. Another issue that would really rule out the whole idea is that the camera lens would quickly get covered in salt residue. Nice idea but not really a goer unless spending a whole pile of cash. Another way would be to make something that could be hauled up a spare halyard I suppose.
Click to expand...
Back in the olde days we had a crows nest.
 
I see the advantages as these - could be very useful for working through reefs etc. Sails are unlikely to be up but the height is a huge advantage. While sailing, seeing other craft approaching "under" the sail is always a problem and on longer passages no bad thing to be monitoring that quarter from the comfort of the wheel or even saloon! Working into anchorages etc.

It might be easier to mount a camera on the spreader tree (and I have seen a few including smart FLIR systems) but with the Genny up I am guessing leeward visibility is still obscured.

I am interested if anyone knows how much damping is required to make the picture useable. It seems to me when not sailing (working through a reef, into an anchorage etc) damping would not be a bit factor but it would while sailing (albeit the picture now serves a very different purpose).

There is quite a range of remote controlled CCTV cameras which provide pretty much 360 pan with azimuth - but I wonder how well they work?

There are some very smart FLIR cameras with full gyro stabilised cameras but at a price!

FLIR sounds interesting for serious crusing when there are times it just might be a lot more than a nice gimmick - but I wonder?
 
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