The Marine Technology Hub
Sometimes news stays under the (ahem) radar for quite a while. Today’s story starts with the Austrian university project Roboat (for RObotic BOAT) needed a self-tuning radar scanner that could be used to avoid moving targets. In 2011 they started reverse engineering the Ethernet traffic from a BR24 radar scanner. They used the above test rig so that they could drag their development hardware out to a side arm of the Donau in Vienna.
Holy Batman, the just-announced Garmin Quatix watch can connect wirelessly to a Garmin autopilot and not only show you what the AP is doing but let you steer the boat from your wrist. Plus if you fall overboard the lost wireless connection will set off an MOB alarm on a Garmin MFD and the AP will try to steer back to you. I hereby rescind my recent mumbling about Garmin’s conservative approach to marine electronics! And aside from all the connectivity — the Quatix can apparently interface with Garmin PC, Mac, and iPad apps too — it seems like a heck of a boating watch even if you aren’t running other Garmin gear…
The surprising press release just came in. I didn’t even know that Navico multifunction displays could handle “raster” style digital charts — the ones that look like paper charts — let alone that NV Charts was working to make its large portfolio of handsome cartography available to the owners of Lowrance HDS, Simrad NSE/NSO/NSS, and B&G Zeus MFDs…
A Panbo reader sent this recent photo of empty VHF shelves at a West Marine in Florida along with a store manager’s report that Standard Horizon and Uniden had called in their inventory for a software upgrade needed to meet an FCC regulation. Yikes? The reader wondered if this had something to do with Class D VHF mandates and worried about same model radios that had already been bought and installed. My head hurts from the research involved but I’m pretty sure that the answer is “no worries”…
When Kees spotted Maretron’s new little display at METS, it didn’t seem like a big deal. In fact, it’s fairly homely compared to other contemporary NMEA 2000 all-in-one displays like the B&G Triton and the Raymarine i70. But now that the DSM150 is fully detailed, I think it represents a significant new opportunity for boaters who used to think that Maretron gear was out of their league…
I probably made the PR guy’s day! He called out of the blue with two questions — did I think that many boaters care about cellular boosters and had I heard of Wilson Electronics? — and my reply was not only “heck, yes” on both counts but also a report on how pleased I already was with the Wilson amp I installed on Gizmo last September. The company may have just decided to pay attention to the boat world, but I was more than ready to test the box of Wilson gear that recently showed up at Panbo HQ…
When most of us were enjoying the holiday quite the sea drama was playing out off Kodiak, Alaska. Last Friday the mighty 360-foot icebreaking anchor-handling tug supply vessel Aiviq (above) “experienced multiple engine failures” while towing the unusual conical drill ship Kulluk in 20-foot seas. Assisted by several large tugs and especially U.S. Coast Guard cutters and helicopters, the Aiviq eventually got her fuel issues solved and by Monday the Kulluk was back under tow, though without a crew and in even worse weather. And then the story turned again: The Aiviq’s tow line parted, the CG ordered the tug Alert to drop hers for the crew’s safety, and by New Year champagne time the Kulluk was hard aground being pounded by 30-foot waves…
Panbo may not make the corporate masthead any time soon, but the agreement that begins today is definitely a collaboration between this little web site and the Active Interest Media Marine Group, and I’m quite excited about it. AIM not only includes Power & Motoryacht and Sail magazines, where I wrote columns for many years, but also Soundings and PassageMaker, both of which I’ve long admired. In fact, one of my first formal acts as AIM’s Senior Electronics Editor will be delivering a seminar titled “Dedicated Navigation Systems and the Apps Revolution” at the Fort Lauderdale Trawler Fest on February 1st, a seminar I intend to write aboard my trawler-like Gizmo in South Carolina. But my main goal for 2013 is to make Panbo better than ever and AIM is going to help…
2013 is going to be a bang up year for Panbo, I think. News about that tomorrow, and soon we’ll be back to actual electronics news and reviews, I promise. But first I have one more bit of boating nostalgia to cap off 2012. I took the photo above in April, 1978, as the good sloop Alice reached along well offshore about half way to Maine from Man-O-War Cay in the Abacos (hence the conch jerky hung to dry in the rigging). We’d already endured some fairly heavy weather without problems and this was a glorious morning when Alice was taking care of herself nicely and I was further enjoying the fruits of our long relationship…
I never would have guessed that I would last see Bruce Ray on the September day that began with this misty dawn photo of his beloved sloop Zingara in Chesapeake City, Maryland. For a guy pushing 70 and burdened with damaged lungs, Bruce seemed phenomenally hearty. In fact, he’d just run solo for two long days and a night to get here from western Long Island, which meant he’d driven right through Cape May Harbor instead resting there like Leonard and I had. But Bruce knew how to stop and smell the coffee too. Later that morning, the three of us old coots enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at the Bohemian Cafe and then walked around the harbor and admired the old-time engineering on display at the nifty C&D Canal Museum…
Recent Panbo Comments