Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: Cabin & deck gear

Ode to hydronic boat heating, and Sure Marine Service 29

Cabin & deck gear / Green Boating

Ode to hydronic boat heating, and Sure Marine Service

Maretron_DSM410_showing_boiler_in_action_cPanbo.jpg

It seems appropiate to kick off 2018 with a discussion of heating technology, specifically the diesel-fired hydronic system I installed on Gizmo last year. It was a significant purchase and a major install, but the 66 degree pilothouse temperature seen above certainly made my early December ICW trip a lot more pleasant. I’ll explain why I chose hydronic, detail how the system went together, and profusely praise Sure Marine Service, a marine heating equipment distributor par excellence…

Smörgåsboat 2: More tasty test electronics southbound on Gizmo 2

Cabin & deck gear / Communications / What's on board... / Zany / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Smörgåsboat 2: More tasty test electronics southbound on Gizmo

Passagemaker_Who_is_Ben_Ellison_article_opening_spread.jpgThe jury is still out. Brian Lind may have written a blushingly laudatory profile of Panbo and me for PassageMaker magazine — and you can now check out “Who is Ben Ellison?” online — but I agree with regular readers who may rightfully doubt my ‘authoritative’ ‘expertise’! This site is not the “arbitrator of marine electronics” — no such thing exists — and evidence is building that I’ve become a bumbling old boat guy barely in command of all the gear he’s installed, plus very darn slow to write about it…

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Cabin & deck gear / Network & control / Navigation / PC & peripheral / Communications / Entertainment / AIS / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K / Monitoring & Tracking

Smörgåsboat: The tasty testing buffet installed on Gizmo for 2017

While I do think that Gizmo offers a bountiful spread of delicious marine electronics these days, a more serious title for this entry might read: “Guilt: All the darn gear I’ve borrowed but haven’t...

Navico Hawks 2017: “Full boat integration into one display cluster” 21

Wireless & Apps / Cabin & deck gear / Network & control / Electrical & Engines / The future / Weather / Monitoring & Tracking

Navico Hawks 2017: “Full boat integration into one display cluster”

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The Miami Boat Show was loaded with marine electronics news, but first let’s visit the Navico writers event held at Hawks Cay, Florida, earlier this month. Deeper still – Mercury engine integration, B&G Zeus PredictWind weather routing, the Halo radar VelocityTrack Doppler upgrade, Navionics SonarChart Live everywhere, Simrad’s new 3kW 3-channel S5100 super sonar, and Lowrance Carbon (Gen3) MFDs are some of the goodies that were demonstrated and/or discussed. But I was especially taken with CEO Leif Ottosson’s opening “big picture” presentation and think it’s valuable to anyone interested in the future of boating…

Ebikes for boats, learning from a Sondors 44

Cabin & deck gear / Zany / Green Boating

Ebikes for boats, learning from a Sondors

Sondors_electric_bike_profile_aPanbo.jpg

Folding bikes seem great for cruising boats. You can extend your sightseeing, fetch supplies, or simply get some rolling excercise. But I’ve wondered if a compactable electric bike could be even better and more fun. While that manly beast above is certainly unfit for stowing on even a mid-sized trawler, it’s led me to love the ebike concept and taught me what a good one may look like for my cruising situation…

Garmin wireless wonders #1: Virb XE and now the Virb Ultra 30 9

Wireless & Apps / Cabin & deck gear / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Garmin wireless wonders #1: Virb XE and now the Virb Ultra 30

Garmin_Helm_app_showing_wireless_Virb_XE_cam_and_gWind_cPanbo.jpgThe multiple layers of Garmin wireless communications going on above may seem crazy, but they all work well and have endless practical and/or fun applications around a boat. Normally, for instance, it would take two people to align a fixed boat camera, plus running power and video cables. But I simply climbed up Gizmo’s mast, mounted a Virb XE with an adhesive base, and aligned it using the free Garmin Helm app on my phone to see the Virb video screen running on the flybridge GPSmap 7612. It took mere minutes to get a masthead view at my helm, and while mounting the gWind sensor required tools, it too is completely wireless. Garmin is blazing several worthy wireless trails…

Articulating display pods tested: SeaView, ScanStrut & NavPod 4

Cabin & deck gear / Navigation

Articulating display pods tested: SeaView, ScanStrut & NavPod

Gizmo_Glass_Bridge_II_August_2016_cPanbo.jpgThe latest multifunction displays (MFDs) look smashing on Gizmo’s flybridge, I like to think. And it’s not just that Raymarine, Simrad, Furuno, and Garmin — that’s the lineup, left to right — have almost all further evolved the black glass style that promises to be with us for a long time. Those two articulating pods also contribute to the clean look, plus they make it easier for me to use the podded MFDs from different spots on the bridge. It’s time to discuss the SeaView, ScanStrut and NavPod articulating pods I’ve tried in the last few years…

Thermal boat phones: Boat Beacon AIS, Flir One & the Cat S60 2

Wireless & Apps / Cabin & deck gear

Thermal boat phones: Boat Beacon AIS, Flir One & the Cat S60

Boat_Beacon_Flir_One_ship_test_1_aPanbo.jpgThe Boat Beacon app running on the iPhone screen above looks like a fairly ordinary AIS target display app that can also show your own vessel. In this specific example your 28-foot sailboat is plotted on center as you head south at 5 knots into the Solent with the ship Morning Calm overtaking you to starboard. But, hey, it’s pitch dark, the iPhone has a Flir One thermal camera attached, and Boat Beacon’s “Live View” augmented reality feature can now make use of this night vision device…

ScanStrut Rokk Mini, premium marine mount system 7

Wireless & Apps / Cabin & deck gear

ScanStrut Rokk Mini, premium marine mount system

ScanStrut_Rokk_Mini_cable_tie_mount_fishing_cPanbo.jpgI used the Garmin demos in Miami to also test the new Rokk Mini mounting system recently introduced by ScanStrut. There are many ways to attach a Virb XE camera to a boat, as I’ll detail further down, and almost all are less expensive than the system of three Rokk components at work above. But I doubt that there’s any mount with so much range of motion and yet so rock solid when you find the position you want. The Rokk Mini system is also exceptionally well made and can solidly mount phones, tablets, smallish marine displays and more…