Snowgoose-1
Well-Known Member
Which one ?
The one needing 3 AA Batteries or the hand cranked one ?
Who owns (and still uses) the most ancient bit of marine electronics.
- Thread starter Snowgoose-1
- Start date
The one needing 3 AA Batteries or the hand cranked one ?
Snowgoose-1
Well-Known Member
You could, until fairly recently still buy the Stingray sounder from NASA Marine. Their website say they are no longer being made because the right parts are becoming scarce.
I don't wish to swank, but I have the one that also has a digital read out as well as the whirligig . Also stand alone if required with AA batteries .
dombuckley
Well-Known Member
Original Lucas magneto on a 1956 Stuart Turner engine (and it works).
doris
Well-Known Member
I have one and still use it. Brilliant piece of kit that has not been replaced by a new alternative,
wombat88
Well-Known Member
Seafarer depth sounder anyone? Or better still a VDO speedo/log driven by a small prop and speedometer cable. Admittedly I took this out...
DownWest
Well-Known Member
The 700 has a digital readout (bit cloudy) and takes a 9v battery. On the shelf, I also have the Seafarer log unit with the solid state sensor, but that is staying there.
Best bit of old kit is the central processing unit that integrates wind speed and direction, depth, course to steer, speed and autopilot, but that is begining to get glitches, dates from '47
mjcoon
Well-Known Member
As in the ancient joke re beer: "What do you expect; thunder and lightning?"
I have a couple of ancient hand-held Garmin GPSs, neither of which are unusable merely because the displays are illegible...
Rappey
Well-Known Member
Seafarer voyager echo sounder,(digital)around 35yrs old, on its 2nd transducer but a great echo sounder.
Seafarer voyager wind instrument. The part up the mast reliably spun and rotated for 33 years without any maintenance or repairs but finally lost the wind direction readout. Took it to be repaired, but it is not repairable
Seafarer voyager wind instrument. The part up the mast reliably spun and rotated for 33 years without any maintenance or repairs but finally lost the wind direction readout. Took it to be repaired, but it is not repairable
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Buck Turgidson
Well-Known Member
Prosser Tideclock.
I'm sure this was state of the art at some point in the past. Its current function is to hide the screw holes for it's own mounting bracket in the otherwise lovely GRP. It still works but I've never used it in anger.
AngusMcDoon
Well-Known Member
I've got one of those too. I usually get tide curves from the BBC website but use this device when there's no GSM signal. It's quicker than booting up the chart plotter if it's not on.
Frank Holden
Well-Known Member
Did someone mention Lucas - Prince of Darkness?
I still have the original 1986 Lucas sternlight on my boat with the original incandescent bulb. It's outlived more than a few Aquasignal tris and bi's.
Some young pup suggested I should change it for a fancy new LED jobby ( that's Glaswegian).
That would be akin to turning off the Centennial light
Centennial Light - Wikipedia
I still have the original 1986 Lucas sternlight on my boat with the original incandescent bulb. It's outlived more than a few Aquasignal tris and bi's.
Some young pup suggested I should change it for a fancy new LED jobby ( that's Glaswegian).
That would be akin to turning off the Centennial light
Centennial Light - Wikipedia
DanTribe
Well-Known Member
I have two, one from a 1937 Stuart and one from 1963. Identical design. Both magnetos still spark but the Stuart Bastards long since gone thank goodness!
oilybilge
Well-Known Member
Poignard
Well-Known Member
I used mine until recently (I have sold my boat) simply because it was very useful.
The ability to take 3 accurate bearings of distant objects, and store them until required, made it very useful for coastal navigation, and for collision avoidance, especially when crossing busy traffic separation lanes
The built in stopwatch also came in handy, and not just for timing eggs!
DownWest
Well-Known Member
I borrowed one to set up my first satelite dish, back in '91. Not very impressed with it as around 5/6° off, which made the line up tricky. Dug out an ancient binnacle job, which sorted things out.
I still use my little Souwester one, got to be 50 yrs old.
Poignard
Well-Known Member
That's odd. I never had any reason to doubt the accuracy of mine whilst navigating around the French Atlantic coast.
Mark-1
Well-Known Member
Was France colder than you expected and all the Frenchmen lived in Igloos and fur seemed suddenly fashionable?
Poignard
Well-Known Member
Was France colder than you expected and all the Frenchmen lived in Igloos and fur seemed suddenly fashionable?
It was so cold in Brittany in May this year you might be forgiven for thinking you were far to the north.
Some evenings we had the Taylors cabin heater fired up!
OffScotland
Active Member
Raytheon R72 Radar. What is good about it is that I have the manual which includes the full circuit diagrams which identify each and every component. Only date I can find in the manual is 1987
johnalison
Well-Known Member
I had that with its plotter in 2000. I liked the fact that it kept a half-hourly log. The radar was perfectly adequate for me and enabled us to actually enjoy several foggy trips. The later e7 has more functionality but so what?