What might I want to install at my future chart table?

[prv]

I've just started the process of designing a new instrument / electrics panel to go above the chart table on the new boat. I'm completely replacing what's there as it doesn't suit my needs, but I want to avoid having to make a similar major change again for as long as possible. To help decide how much space (and what shape) I need to leave for future expansion, I'm trying to think what kind of things I don't currently have but may want to fit there in future.

The current firm plans include:

• VHF
• Navtex, which also provides an instrument repeater
• Old-fashioned GPS for use with Yeoman and charts
• Small panel for controlling the lighting
• Small alarm panel connected to the AIS display in the cockpit
• Little plaque with name, callsign, MMSI, SSR engraved on it
• 4" or so of bookshelf for almanac and current area pilot (obviously there's a main bookshelf elsewhere for everything else)
• Electrical panel including battery monitor (main purpose of this overall layout exercise right now is to decide how much space I can spend on the panel)
• Holders for pencils, dividers, rubber, etc

Not currently planned, but I can imagine I might get in future:

• An Echomax or Seame, which have a control box that would go on the panel.

I guess at some point I may succumb to the trend for using a PC on board, so there's no need to mention that although I really don't want to set aside a monitor's worth of empty space just in case.

Things I'm unlikely to install:

• A plotter (there's one there now, I'm moving it to the cockpit). I'm a paper-chart-ophile and will continue to do all my planning and slow-time navigation that way.
• Radar, as separate radar screens have pretty much disappeared in the leisure market and it'll be combined with the plotter.
• Big Sexy Radios, as I have no plans to cross oceans in this boat (and if I did there'd be a minor refit on the cards anyway).
• A fitted autopilot control; if I wanted to control the pilot from around the boat, I'd get one of the remote jobbies instead.

So what have I not thought of, that I may suddenly decide to put on my chart table in the next few years?

Cheers,

Pete

 

[Greenheart]

what have I not thought of, that I may suddenly decide to put on my chart table in the next few years?

View attachment 30843

 

[dk]

Pete

What you are planning to fit sounds a little personal, which is fine if you're not planning to sell in the near future. I am rebuilding mine and have left room (after DC/AC breaker panels and battery monitor), for a VHF/AIS combo (that way you don't need an AIS receiver or antenna/splitter), an auto bilge pump switch, heating control, remote panel + 3-pin 220V outlet from small (500W) inverter for laptop, two auxilliary power outputs (1 x 12V cigar/1 x 5V USB). Thought I might mount a PC display on the inside of the chart table lid and modify the latter so as it can be 'flipped' through 180deg to become a TV/DVD screen for the saloon. It will rarely be used for chart work having a dedicated CP/RADAR in the cockpit.

I'm sure i'll think of more as soon as I start using it in anger!

D

 

[Blue_mischief]

Electronic barograph?

 

[lustyd]

This is normally where the ship radio goes as well if you plan to have music? Fit one with a USB connector and you can use it to charge phones too

 

[Rivers & creeks]

Chart table? Please sir what's one of those? We haven't had one on any of our last five boats, from 19 to 35 feet

If I had one I'd like an instrument repeater so I could check wind and tide info from the saloon.

 

[prv]

What you are planning to fit sounds a little personal, which is fine if you're not planning to sell in the near future.

Both true

remote panel + 3-pin 220V outlet from small (500W) inverter for laptop

Thanks - inverter control panel is a good point, goes on the "maybe one day" list I should allow for.

Pete

 

[prv]

This is normally where the ship radio goes as well if you plan to have music? Fit one with a USB connector and you can use it to charge phones too

Already got one

It is *currently* at the chart table as the easiest place to shove it in and get sailing, but to my way of thinking it doesn't belong there as it is domestic rather than operational. When I get round to it, it will be going in a new piece of cabinetry above the saloon seats, along with a dedicated phone tray with a dock connector plus a couple of power-only USB sockets for whatever other people might bring. A similar unit was the last piece of work in Kindred Spirit's refit.

Since it's now such a long way to go to hit Next when a song I don't want comes on shuffle, I also have a remote panel to be fitted in the cockpit.

Stereo, sorted.

Pete

 

[prv]

Electronic barograph?

Hmm. Possible. Have to admit I've never really paid much attention to the barometer on board before, but it's certainly not on the "never gonna get one of those" list.

Thanks.

Pete

 

[prv]

If I had one I'd like an instrument repeater so I could check wind and tide info from the saloon.

Already got that - second bullet in the original post.

Pete

 

[halcyon]

• VHF
• Navtex, which also provides an instrument repeater
• Old-fashioned GPS for use with Yeoman and charts
• Small panel for controlling the lighting
• Small alarm panel connected to the AIS display in the cockpit
• Little plaque with name, callsign, MMSI, SSR engraved on it
• 4" or so of bookshelf for almanac and current area pilot (obviously there's a main bookshelf elsewhere for everything else)
• Electrical panel including battery monitor (main purpose of this overall layout exercise right now is to decide how much space I can spend on the panel)
• Holders for pencils, dividers, rubber, etc

Why use separate panels, most things can be combined into one panel. ?

Brian

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I have my ships clock and barometer mounted on the chart table panel. Sure there are other sources of time available but I like to have an independent time piece from my watch, phone, GPS etc. The chart table panel is a more convenient place than on a bulkhead remote from the chart table area. I also have a small drawing of the yacht with dimensions from water line to mast top / transducer and keel. This is just a carry over from when I sailed various yachts - it prevented confusion, especially when tired. I have toyed with the idea of turning this into a plaque (Trefolite type) and adding LEDs for the various navigation and deck lights but I have not got round to it. I do have the procedure for sending a VHF distress call written on a card attached to my panel, next to the VHF. So, thats possible space for clock and barometer, draught/air gap mimic, VHF distress procedure.

Radar you are of course completely right with it being combined into modern plotters - I removed a big CRT set from the chart table panel area, the space it freed was colossal!

 

[prv]

Why use separate panels, most things can be combined into one panel. ?

Don't understand what you're getting at.

I'm talking about what to mount on the largish sheet of new plywood I'll be putting up above the chart table, to replace the current Swiss cheese one.

Pete

 

[dylanwinter]

A tupperware box with two fully batteried Etrex GPS devices, a hand held VHF and a hand bearing compass that you will never use

what more do you need?


Etrex from ebay - never let me down yet

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Garmin-eT...7?pt=UK_In_Car_Technology&hash=item3f243edb93

 

[halcyon]

Don't understand what you're getting at.

I'm talking about what to mount on the largish sheet of new plywood I'll be putting up above the chart table, to replace the current Swiss cheese one.

Pete

You keep referring to small panels, why not integrate into one.

Brian

 

[prv]

You keep referring to small panels, why not integrate into one.

Oh, as in the small panels for lighting and the AIS alarm? Mostly because I wanted to get them made (they're out for engraving at the moment) before I'd decided on the overall layout - indeed I may well install them (in the current temporary board) before I have built the new layout.

I also prefer the aesthetic of individual parts mounted on a varnished cherrywood board, rather than sitting facing a square metre of black plastic (ok, it's not quite that big). When it's not being my own little ship's bridge, it's effectively a piece of furniture in the corner of my living room.

Finally, small separate panels will make life easier when the eventual refit does come around, to install that large but must-have device that they're going to invent in 2015 . If I put it all on one big one, I'd have to scrap the lot and start again. This way I can keep my lighting controller and my AIS alarm and reuse them on a new piece of plywood.

Things that are related do go on the same panel - so for example the lighting panel contains dimmers and red/white switches for both the chart light and an overhead strip that illuminates the whole area, plus a master switch that turns the whole lot on and off (so you can set the levels as desired and then just flick one switch when you come down to do the hourly plot) - and a tiny dim LED so you can find said master switch in the dark! All the electrics will go on one combined panel, because they're all related - as I said in my first post, the main reason I'm doing the overall board layout now is so that I know how much space I have available for the electrics panel.

I can do combined when it makes sense though:

Cheers,

Pete

 

[laika]

+1 on barometer and clock
Also:
More 12v power outlets and a couple of those cigarette lighter to usb thingies (or a dedicated 5v usb outlet)
RJ45 socket for the network you don't necessarily have yet
serial port with convenient serial-to-usb cable / usb port, connected to something outputting NMEA-0183 (or whatever other protocol your instruments talk)
jack connecting to the aux input on your stereo. Possibly covered by a flap so your friends don't know they can plug their laptop/ipod into the boat's sound system
Switch for the cheap GPS puck you wired in behind the panel as an emergency backup GPS source

 

[prv]

+1 on barometer and clock

Got a barometer on the cabin bulkhead (though it's a cheap crappy one that may get replaced). I don't think I would fit a barometer at the chart table, though an electronic barograph as suggested earlier is an outside possibility.

Clock for log purposes lives in the Navtex - it's very configurable, and I've set up a page that it will probably be showing most of the time on passage. This has time, log distance, heading, and speed (position is handled by the Yeoman).

I can press a button to switch to a different page of instrument data (wind, depth, etc), an automatic logbook thingy, and the weather forecasts from Navtex. This screen covers pretty much all my requirements for nav type data down below - very happy to have spotted it on the For Sale forum for a good price

More 12v power outlets and a couple of those cigarette lighter to usb thingies (or a dedicated 5v usb outlet)

Definitely fitting some of those around the boat. Wasn't planning to put any at the chart table though as I don't expect to use any such devices there. They're small, though, particularly the USB sockets, so perhaps I should put one on the electrics panel just in case (a cable would reach over the partition from the abovementioned phone nest by the stereo, so it's not as if there could never be any power there if I didn't).

RJ45 socket for the network you don't necessarily have yet
serial port with convenient serial-to-usb cable / usb port, connected to something outputting NMEA-0183 (or whatever other protocol your instruments talk)

Mm. I'm very unlikely ever to fit a general purpose wired network - if I did anything at all it would be wireless so I can slump in the corner of the saloon with my iPad . A USB socket with NMEA data I guess goes on the "never say never" list - I don't really like the idea of a laptop at the chart table but it's not impossible.

jack connecting to the aux input on your stereo. Possibly covered by a flap so your friends don't know they can plug their laptop/ipod into the boat's sound system

Yep, one of those is on the cards, but on the stereo panel in the saloon, not the chart table. No need for a secret flap, I haven't had a problem with friends playing terrible music through the aux input on Kindred Spirit

Switch for the cheap GPS puck you wired in behind the panel as an emergency backup GPS source

Yep, got one of those (the puck). It feeds the radio and the AIS display, and runs off the same switch. No need for a dedicated control.

Cheers,

Pete

 

[alteredoutlook]

Electronic barograph?

get yourself a Samsung galaxy smart phone!

Which brings me round to thinking that to 'future proof' your boat you mainly need to be aware of developments in the smart phone/tablet market?

 

[Greenheart]

get yourself a Samsung galaxy smart phone!

I can't agree, though I would like to...I have one, and have sung its praises here, but in truth it frequently can't find its way on land, when other phones on similar contracts have no difficulty. It's clever, but definitely flawed.

I'd want a dedicated unit, for any information that I really relied upon.

...two fully batteried Etrex GPS devices...

Umm...I assume you have the second as a reserve or back-up to the first?

But if they're telling different positions when you're short enough of visible/other indicators to need GPS, which set do you believe?