Panbo

The Marine Electronics Hub

Category: What’s on board…

Foggy, Brooklin Boat Yard builds an artful automated sloop 17

What's on board... / The Trade

Foggy, Brooklin Boat Yard builds an artful automated sloop

FOGGY_at_BBY_6-2015_cPanbo.jpgMaine 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…

Appreciating fuel management, wanting more 17

What's on board... / Electrical & Engines / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Appreciating fuel management, wanting more

Gizmo_running_down_LIS_cPanbo.jpg

Gizmo is fenders down, awning up, in bustling Baltimore Harbor, and I have tales to tell. This old powerboat sails! That’s no surprise given her windage, but now I have precise data about how much wind (and current) can help her along thanks to a fuel management system. In this photo, for instance, we were making around 10 knots over the ground at 1,350 RPM but still getting over three miles to a gallon thanks to a stiff easterly wind pushing us down Long Island Sound. That’s a wake-pulling, inefficient RPM when running on flat summer water in Maine, but is much easier on crew and autopilot when in following seas like these. While I’m usually willing to spend more fuel money to shoulder through conditions like this, I was pleased to learn that the dollar difference wasn’t great…

MBHH Show 2014: Akalaria RC3, Dock Works utility cat & other surprises 5

What's on board... / The Trade / Zany

MBHH Show 2014: Akalaria RC3, Dock Works utility cat & other surprises

MBHH_Show_2014_Ben_on_MYC_Akalaria_Open_40_RC3_cPanbo.jpg

I knew I’d gotten Maine Yacht Center’s Brian Harris to photograph me in the comfortable driver’s seat he designed for the second Aklaria RC3 finished out at MYC, but how did the shot come out of my camera like this? Did I fall into some revery imagining the 20 knot reaching this exotic Open 40 racer is easily capable of? The 12th annual Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Show was rich in the elegant lobster yachts and daysailors my state has become famous for, but there were also plenty of interesting surprises. Even Mainiac boat nuts don’t realize how versatile we are…

Gizmo 2014, glass bridge shakedown cruising #1 7

Network & control / Navigation / What's on board... / Electrical & Engines / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K

Gizmo 2014, glass bridge shakedown cruising #1

Gizmo_2014_fly_bridge_cPanbo.jpgRedoing almost all of Gizmo’s electronics has taken longer than I would have guessed last fall, when it seemed like a good idea to rip everything off the boat. And sadly I’m not done yet. But the hoped-for glass bridge theme is revealing itself and I like it a lot. But then again new equipment and even just re-installed old gear also means fresh opportunities for things not to work together correctly. In this entry I’ll go over much of Gizmo’s test setup for the next year and a half — though by design there’s room for more — and also note a couple of features that have worked well and not so well during recent shakedown cruises…

New Raymarine a9, a12 & gS19 — aboard the mighty Raymariner 9

Fishing & Sonar / Navigation / What's on board... / The Trade

New Raymarine a9, a12 & gS19 — aboard the mighty Raymariner

Raymarine_a9_gS19_a12_aPanbo.jpgRaymarine recently announced three new multifunction displays, extending the multitouch aSeries to 9- and 12-inch screen sizes, and the glass bridge gS Series to 19 inches (the proportions of my collage are approximate). Given four additional a9 and a12 models with digital sounder or Chirp DownVision built in and the fact that all these new MFDs can network with all the aSeries, cSeries (non touch), eSeries (hybrid touch), and gS models already available, is any other manufacturer offering so much choice? They all run the same software — now up to Lighthouse II, release 10 — so you may already be familiar with most of the features, but the new MFDs do have a few new hardware highlights, some of which I got to see in action aboard Raymarine’s remarkable testing vessel…

On board HMS Medusa, D-Day marine electronics 19

What's on board... / History

On board HMS Medusa, D-Day marine electronics

Alan_Watson_on board_HMS_Medusa.JPGThere’s much to report about my three day visit with the Raymarine product development team, but the impromptu kicker was a visit to HDML (Harbour Defense Motor Launch) #1387, and the vessel’s key story couldn’t be more timely. 70 years ago yesterday, well before D-Day H-Hour, 1387 headed toward Normandy loaded with electronics that helped her crew precisely mark the planned final channel to Omaha Beach, first for the minesweepers and then for the vast fleet of landing craft that left Portsmouth behind her. And today she’s headed for France again, this time with an all volunteer crew led by Alan Watson, the gentleman who so kindly showed me around last evening.

Panbo turns 10, and founder Yme’s Arviro 10 project 23

What's on board... / Green Boating

Panbo turns 10, and founder Yme’s Arviro 10 project

Arviro_10_courtesy_Yme_Bosma.jpgIf you browse to the bottom of the Panbo monthly archives, you’ll see that the very first entry went up on February 4, 2004. So Panbo is 10 years old today, which may be a century in Internet years?  In fact, one motivation for founder Yme Bosma was an interest in what was then the new-fangled “blog” content management format. While he soon had to focus back on his high tech work and I took over Panbo in 2005, but the boating geek bug is often incurable as many of us know. It seems more than coincidental — and very cool — that Panbo’s 120th month is also the debut of Yme’s all electric, solar powered, and iPad instrumented cruiser design, the Arviro 10.

FLIBS 2013, over the top 5

What's on board...

FLIBS 2013, over the top

FLIBS_13_yacht_Remember_When_cPanbo.jpgThe Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show was bigger than ever this year and while FLIBS exhibits really do appeal to almost every boating persuasion, who doesn’t enjoy gawking at the very high end? Click, for instance, on the photo above and check out the remarkable farm of Furuno radars, Sea Tel satellite domes, FLIR cameras, and much more at left. The 162-foot Remember When is equipped to the max and I was not surprised to learn that proud owner John Rosatti started working on boats with his dad at age 13. Meanwhile, yours truly was higher than a megayacht on the sky deck of the odd but accessible 3,200-ton vessel doing business as SEAFAIR. Simrad was celebrating the NSO evo2 debut up here, and we all enjoyed watching the young couple on paddle boards (Remember When crew perhaps?) head off with their cooler to locations unknown. There was lots of marine electronics news in Lauderdale, but this entry will be an eclectic tour of other sights that drew my attention…

Geeks win America’s Cup 34, Larry E. & Oracle Team USA also 24

What's on board... / The future / History

Geeks win America’s Cup 34, Larry E. & Oracle Team USA also

AC34_floating_mark_cPanbo.jpg“Pretty cool…ESPN says one of the greatest upsets in sports history!” my brother-in-law emailed me last night, and he’s a guy who knows who pitched World Series games decades ago, and how well, but bupkis about the America’s Cup. Yes indeed, AC34 was incredibly unpredictable, and exciting, but I’ll argue that the winners all along were the teams who made the race management, umpiring, and broadcasting so innovative and so effective…

Panbo at AC34, photo tweeting 10

What's on board... / AIS / The future

Panbo at AC34, photo tweeting

Panbo_at_AC34.jpgBest ticket ever?  I’m so excited about getting slightly behind the Americas Cup 34 scene — and out on San Francisco Bay for races 6 and 7! — that I’m dreaming up things might go wrong. Could there be too much wind to race?  In race 4 both boats averaged 31 knots — with bursts to 45 — in winds that averaged 19 with peak gusts at 23. Obviously things can really wrong when a catamaran is going that fast while delicately balanced on relatively tiny lifting foils. Or might Oracle Team USA find some way to delay further as crew and/or boat changes are hotly rumored?…