Monthly Archive: July 2015
The competition around sonar burns hot on many fronts and the more the merrier, I say. At the recent iCast show Lowrance introduced StructureScan 3D, which displays in many ways like the Garmin Panoptix Down looking sonar which I saw demonstrated last February in its Forward looking version. Trade Only’s Chris Landry noticed the similarity too and reports that SS 3D will also be supported on Simrad NSS evo2 displays. The necessary StructureScan 3D transducer and module are due out in December and purportedly improve on SS HD’s standard down and side views as well as enabling the new 3D mode…
One of the most valuable improvements I’ve made on Gizmo is a Maretron TMP100 able to put six different temperature sensors on the boat’s NMEA 2000 network, particularly the one I’ve set to alarm me if the engine block gets even slightly hotter than normal. I wrote about the plan in 2013 and will detail how well it worked out soon. Closely monitoring certain temperatures can save a lot of hassle and money though one impediment is the need for either a Maretron DSM display or a USB Gateway to configure the setup. It’s intriguing then to learn of Yacht Devices’ $99 N2K temp sensor with its clever cost-free configuration. But there are some potential issues…
Nobeltec Furuno PC-Radar was announced at the Miami boat show, but I don’t think it’s gotten the recognition it should. Yes, it’s like the Furuno MaxSea PC Radar that came to Europe in 2013, but now the feature/cost proposition seems to fit a wider range of boats, plus it’s actually available over here. It’s also noteworthy that Nobeltec’s TimeZero v2 app is now out with support of Furuno WiFi radar and it’s interesting to see how these two radar solutions compare. It looks to me like Nobeltec and Furuno are blazing two distinct paths to primary limited visibility navigation without multifunction displays…
The hardware portion of the YB3i tracker/messenger couldn’t be much simpler or tougher. It’s just a little bigger than the GPS mushrooms also installed on Gizmo’s flybridge and it feels solid, while the ScanStrut Rokk rail mount that it fits is truly rock-like. The black cable only leads to a power source (9-30v DC) and the YB3i can get along without that for quite a while, thanks to an internal backup battery. And finally, the single LED “interface” is really only needed for extreme trouble shooting. But such hardware simplicity is only possible because of the impressive array of satellite services, cloud server wizardry, and mobile apps that comprise the rest of the ecosystem…
Maine is rightfully well known for boatbuilding but the craft was largely dormant when I got here in the early 70’s, and it stayed that way for quite a while. In the late 80’s many of the talented builders I worked with at WoodenBoat School were doing repairs and restorations. A commission for most anything larger than a sailing skiff was a big deal. But wow, did that change. It’s been wonderful to witness remarkably crafted custom vessels launch at yards like Lyman Morse (now also in Camden!), Rockport Marine, and Hodgdon Yachts to name a few. In fact, I only learned on June 20th that Brooklin Boat Yard — already masters at composite “Spirit of Tradition” beauties — were working on the extraordinary sloop above…
For me, this story began with a March 5th email titled “AIS patent wars – a tax on safety?” It referenced the SRT stock market announcement partially shown above and went on to say:
The whole point of using CSTDMA instead of SoTDMA in the original design of Class B was to avoid any problems with patents to ensure the successful uptake of the system by manufacturers. I see this as a tax on safety and a desperate attempt by SRT to force manufacturers to use their solutions rather than those from competitors and so create a pseudo-monopoly in the Class B world, which cannot be good for competition or the end user. To say I am furious would be putting it mildly…
