After pestering the experts round here in recent months I though it is time for some pay back. The Brittany cruise did not happen due to crew problems so the following is based on just a 7 day jaunt from Gosport to Brixham.
AIS.
I think it is great and watching +50,000 ton ships steer round me has enhanced my opinion of professional mariners. The stubby 8” v-tronix antenna mounted on the lower pushpit rail is picking up big ships up to 8 miles, this is ok for collision avoidance but I would prefer to see further out so that skipper can get 20 minutes shut eye during a cross channel passage.
The EasyAIS VHF to NMEA decoder does the job and by listening on both AIS frequencies I think it will provide extra security during a close encounter. I would not be happy missing half a ship’s AIS squawks as per the NASA implementation.
For this cruise I observed the AIS info on a laptop which is not suitable on a lively sailing yacht. After some installation heartaches my preferred program called Yacht-AIS eventually found the data on 2 serial cables. Yacht-AIS only does AIS and presents the info on a radar like display, this is ideal for quick reference while standing in the cockpit during a night passage and it has a night time low-light display mode. The program is still a bit 1st generation, for example it does not display time of 1st acquisition or last squawk received for a target.
I should have purchased a smarter SeaTalk/NMEA interface box since the Raymarine GPS position becomes garbled en-route through the EasyAIS box. To overcome this I feed AIS and GPS independently to the laptop, one cable goes through a serial to USB converter.
I hear that Raymarine know their interface box is too dumb into today’s world of complex data bus interfaces and something better is undergoing product testing.
4” Plotter at the helm.
This is the best techno enhancement this season. The RC400 is now a discontinued Raymarine product but I am convinced it is sensible to have a GPS plotter display mounted within easy reach of the helmsman. A 4” display is just enough and on my boat a larger 8” Raymarine display would require some stainless steer alterations at the binnacle. Pulling up tidal curves and tidal current predictions without a trip to the chart table is a real bonus.
One complaint is that on the Raymarine gadget the tidal diamonds only show up at an eight mile resolution and it can take a lot of scrolling to find one in the middle of Lyme Bay. I had once accident with the mainsheet getting caught round the whole instrument pod during a messy force 7 tack which is sometime to consider when adding new stuff.
The display is far too bright for constant use at night but by leaving the backlight adjustment on screen it is possible to flip the display on and off with a single click.
Amp Hour Counter.
Love it. I suppose old sea dogs know their daily electrical consumption so well they can ignore these devices but I found it eliminated one big source of worry and some days I saved a few ££’s by skipping the option of an electrical hook up in a marina.
My Link-10 is the newer LCD design i.e. not the old LED model as trusted by blue water types over the past decade. Maybe the NASA at ½ the price would do but the Link-10 takes up very little facia space but it does require a lot of depth behind the panel.
ICS Navtext.
I bought the deluxe ICS model with the NMEA input by mistake and almost returned it but now it is proving very useful to have the main SeaTalk data on display at the chart table. Prior to a sail I can keep can eye on wind speed and direction without a trip back to the helm. Also the 15 minute auto log function is a nice back up for those days when I am too lazy to maintain a proper log on paper.
The under deck antenna is picking up Niton ok all the time but until I get down to Brittany I cannot assess how effective an under deck location really is.
In general the ICS NAV6 range is well designed and worth the extra £££ but I feel Niton could pump out more upto date weather reports and I find I rely on Coast Guard VHF reports more than I expected.
Dinghy Rigged Over Stern.
Complete disaster. Maybe my 10.75 max beam is a factor but at high heel angles in +20 kns the dinghy stern tubes catch the stern wave. Back to the drawing board, maybe I should invest in once of those electronic pumps that suck out air and then mount the rolled up 2.6m dinghy over the stern in a custom PVC fabric scoop.
I have already tried forward of the mast = no good cause it catches the genoa sheets. Aft of the mast the dinghy catches the lines led back to the coach roof clutches.
Roll up sprayhood panel.
I think this innovation will be a winner in hot weather. My two window spray hood was changed for this season to a 3 window design (looks better) and the central panel rolls up. Opening the center window is faster than dropping down the whole hood because I can leave all the companion way clobber in situ.
Bavaria Match Keel.
Still there last time I looked despite some gut wrenching, mast wobbling pounding while I motored out of the Needles north channel into a big sea.
AIS.
I think it is great and watching +50,000 ton ships steer round me has enhanced my opinion of professional mariners. The stubby 8” v-tronix antenna mounted on the lower pushpit rail is picking up big ships up to 8 miles, this is ok for collision avoidance but I would prefer to see further out so that skipper can get 20 minutes shut eye during a cross channel passage.
The EasyAIS VHF to NMEA decoder does the job and by listening on both AIS frequencies I think it will provide extra security during a close encounter. I would not be happy missing half a ship’s AIS squawks as per the NASA implementation.
For this cruise I observed the AIS info on a laptop which is not suitable on a lively sailing yacht. After some installation heartaches my preferred program called Yacht-AIS eventually found the data on 2 serial cables. Yacht-AIS only does AIS and presents the info on a radar like display, this is ideal for quick reference while standing in the cockpit during a night passage and it has a night time low-light display mode. The program is still a bit 1st generation, for example it does not display time of 1st acquisition or last squawk received for a target.
I should have purchased a smarter SeaTalk/NMEA interface box since the Raymarine GPS position becomes garbled en-route through the EasyAIS box. To overcome this I feed AIS and GPS independently to the laptop, one cable goes through a serial to USB converter.
I hear that Raymarine know their interface box is too dumb into today’s world of complex data bus interfaces and something better is undergoing product testing.
4” Plotter at the helm.
This is the best techno enhancement this season. The RC400 is now a discontinued Raymarine product but I am convinced it is sensible to have a GPS plotter display mounted within easy reach of the helmsman. A 4” display is just enough and on my boat a larger 8” Raymarine display would require some stainless steer alterations at the binnacle. Pulling up tidal curves and tidal current predictions without a trip to the chart table is a real bonus.
One complaint is that on the Raymarine gadget the tidal diamonds only show up at an eight mile resolution and it can take a lot of scrolling to find one in the middle of Lyme Bay. I had once accident with the mainsheet getting caught round the whole instrument pod during a messy force 7 tack which is sometime to consider when adding new stuff.
The display is far too bright for constant use at night but by leaving the backlight adjustment on screen it is possible to flip the display on and off with a single click.
Amp Hour Counter.
Love it. I suppose old sea dogs know their daily electrical consumption so well they can ignore these devices but I found it eliminated one big source of worry and some days I saved a few ££’s by skipping the option of an electrical hook up in a marina.
My Link-10 is the newer LCD design i.e. not the old LED model as trusted by blue water types over the past decade. Maybe the NASA at ½ the price would do but the Link-10 takes up very little facia space but it does require a lot of depth behind the panel.
ICS Navtext.
I bought the deluxe ICS model with the NMEA input by mistake and almost returned it but now it is proving very useful to have the main SeaTalk data on display at the chart table. Prior to a sail I can keep can eye on wind speed and direction without a trip back to the helm. Also the 15 minute auto log function is a nice back up for those days when I am too lazy to maintain a proper log on paper.
The under deck antenna is picking up Niton ok all the time but until I get down to Brittany I cannot assess how effective an under deck location really is.
In general the ICS NAV6 range is well designed and worth the extra £££ but I feel Niton could pump out more upto date weather reports and I find I rely on Coast Guard VHF reports more than I expected.
Dinghy Rigged Over Stern.
Complete disaster. Maybe my 10.75 max beam is a factor but at high heel angles in +20 kns the dinghy stern tubes catch the stern wave. Back to the drawing board, maybe I should invest in once of those electronic pumps that suck out air and then mount the rolled up 2.6m dinghy over the stern in a custom PVC fabric scoop.
I have already tried forward of the mast = no good cause it catches the genoa sheets. Aft of the mast the dinghy catches the lines led back to the coach roof clutches.
Roll up sprayhood panel.
I think this innovation will be a winner in hot weather. My two window spray hood was changed for this season to a 3 window design (looks better) and the central panel rolls up. Opening the center window is faster than dropping down the whole hood because I can leave all the companion way clobber in situ.
Bavaria Match Keel.
Still there last time I looked despite some gut wrenching, mast wobbling pounding while I motored out of the Needles north channel into a big sea.
