Chart rune ruminations

It started when I saw the odd rune looking symbol on a chart. As a matter of fact when I first saw them, this entire island was surrounded by these mysterious runes. An odd sort of curvaceous "E" with a tale hanging off it, with jagged lines adjacent. The pattern I circled was everywhere around the island.

Might they be there to scare boaters away? They certainly would discourage me. A special symbol for old naval mines? Maybe they mark active volcanic vents. Could this be? And why is there an airfield on this tiny little island so near the very end of the Aleutian Islands chain?

Snap shots

Film is cheap, and I use of lot of the digital versions of it. My theory is is you take enough varying images of the same thing, one of them statistically will be usable. Not high art mind you, just in focus, and tells the story. I'm rarely without the camera, and I burn through about one a year graduating in technology each time. I also seem to see things many never notice, which at times can take a decidedly odd turn. Huh? Click. I was going through my pic files, and stumbled across these. A mix of the interesting, and others that are just the product of my imagination.

The Production Boat Designer

I thought it was an inspired idea. If I wanted to know why so many boats are so difficult to maintain, and so installation unfriendly, I should talk to some boat designers. Go to the horses mouth so to speak, and get the facts. I look online and find some firms whose sites aver they do production boat design, and pick some likely ones to communicate with. There aren't really very many of them. I pick one and send an email that goes somewhat like...

Dear Production Boat Design Professional, I'm a writer, and own a small company that installs marine electronics. My blog is built in part around the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moments I encounter working on boats both large and small. These stories typically have one of three themes.

Inappropriate application of technology on boats, design/construction doesn't anticipate the customers future basic equipment installation needs, and boats which are extraordinarily difficult to maintain due to assembly/access issues or lack of documentation.

An example of one of these stories is here.

I have rules about these stories. The manufacturers are never mentioned, and the pictures are all close ups to make it impossible to identify the specific boat. My intent is to have builders improve upon these issues, not to point a finger, or hurt someone.  If you had some time to talk with me about the designers role in this, I would very much appreciate it. My suspicion is the designer largely plays little role in these issues, and the fault mostly falls with the manufacturer. If you would rather not, I understand, I have scared a couple designers away already, even with the opportunity to have some control over the content. Anyway, thanks for any consideration. Tnx Bill

The silence was deafening. I was in space, and you couldn't hear me scream. A mote of dust settling on a feather, the tree that fell in the forest. You get the picture. I know one firm read one of the story links I included, and the others not so much. In retrospect I shouldn't have expected any of them to want to assist me. What, help the guy who's always disparaging boat design and construction? He's a witch, burn him! I suspect the truth is whether they are in some way responsible for the problems I write about, or not, they may have been involved with boats that I have had less than kind words about. They are numerous to say the least.

New products from the Politically Incorrect Chandlery

With Xmas just around the corner our buyers have been searching high and low for holiday gift items for the truly discriminating boater, and these unique new items are now available. Don't wait, stock is limited on some items, and we can assure you these are only available at PIC, your exclusive high end marine chandlery.

Our Super Bright Spot Lights

30 second cinema, iPaper prototype testing

The Parmain laboratory at work.

Racing on Morgana

I think this should start with introducing you to Morgana. I have had a long association with this vessel starting with my encounter when electrolysis severely damaged her rudder, and more recently with my Acticense and NMEA adventures. She's a beautiful custom built gaff rigged ketch whose lines come directly from the sailing coasters of the early 18th through the start of the 20th century. These were the coastal trucks of the seas that transported cargo, and passengers from port to port. There are a small handful of original coasters left sailing today mostly used as tourist attractions or museum exhibits. They became obsolete with advent of the gas engine, and by the 1930's they were almost extinct. Nowadays the term "Coaster" applies to any of a variety of smaller vessels that provide coastal area transport services.

Navigating the USS Midway

When launched in 1945 just days after the end of WWII, she was the largest ship in the world, and is still mightily impressive today. There are many who tell her history, and of the 225,00 sailors who lived on her during 47 years of service. I will leave some links behind for you to explore. I had some spare time during the NMEA conference, and visited the USS Midway Museum, a most worthy way to spend a few hours. Today we are talking about some of her navigation gear history. The USS Midway offers a slice of navigational equipment history spanning two generations.

Dallas tripping

My eyes snapped opened at 5:00 am. It's Saturday morning in San Diego, and I'm heading back to Sarasota after the NMEA conference. Marine electronics propaganda is secured. My scattered clothing is gathered, and hung in the bag. A final sweep of the room ensures I haven't left anything behind. I head down to the lobby to check out, and grab a coffee. I'm doomed, and don't know it yet.

The San Diego Sheraton is right next door to the airport, and I'm whisked there in less than five minutes. Finding an empty ATMesque check in computer my e-ticket number gets scanned in. There's my seat assignment alright, and it sucks. The dreaded center seat in which it's guaranteed you will be squashed in-between a 300 lb professional wrestler, and a mom holding an infant that is crying nonstop and needs its diaper changed. Despite the fact I had purchased the ticket five weeks before the flight, the coveted aisles had been booked. I study the remaining options and what's this? An exit row aisle seat is available. That's great, it means if there is an accident I'm the first one out the door, but it requires paying another $27.50 to get it. Grimacing, I swipe my card, and acquire it, a most fortuitous decision it turns out.

I wait patiently for boarding. "We're boarding our super deluxe platinum members, and service men and women in uniform. Gold card holders, and passengers with small dogs in strollers may now board. We are now welcoming aboard our advantage plus members and all one eyed passengers. Silver plated club members may board at any time. Now boarding group one. I stare at my ticket and sigh. I'm group four.

The fixer

Jaytron, is my favorite marine electronics distributor. I can't remember how long I have dealt with them but its been many years. They're fair, have a smart staff, and a huge inventory. The conversations I have with them often go like, "Hi Frank, it's Bill, I need one of these Seaview round wedgie thingys for a KVH M1 satellite system mount and a Ray backbone kit, you know, the one with really long blue cable. Yeah that's it, the 20m cable is the right one. Thanks Frank." A large amount of my transactions are done from my cell phone whilst milling around in my less than palatial vehicle trying not to run over tourists. The slow ones at any rate. I rarely have part numbers at hand and rely on their very experienced staff to help me. Jaytron however has another huge asset.

Today is different, I'm waiting patiently in line at Jaytron clutching a large canvas bag. Vinnie, wearing a black suit and holding a clipboard is manning the rope line. "What's in the bag buddy?" inquires Vinnie. I quaver, "It's a Ray classic E-120 with no back lighting, and a classic C-80 with a broken on off switch. Vinnie stares into the bag for a second, then reaches back, unhooks the velvet rope, and says "The Fixer will now see you."

The Fixer is Steve Senft, a quite remarkable and extraordinarily talented professional. He was an electronics warfare tech in the navy, and afterwards worked for several contractors including GE on Andros Island. For the last twenty years he has been associated with Jaytron repairing marine electronics and amateur radio gear including single side band radios, one of his many specialties.

The museum of shattered video dreams

Despite the video's title, it was, but now isn't going to be used. Every year I enter the Boating Writers International writing contest in the "Original Online Content" category.  This entry has required a 300 word essay be submitted answering questions about your journalistic standards, media forms you use and others. In the past few years I have done cartoons as my essay form. They are still 300 words, but the toons are more fun to do, and in many ways exemplify more adroitly what I'm trying to do with the blog. Dealing with work and tech, while having a little fun at the same time. The Rant is my real voice, and if you have heard me speak, there is no difference.  

Xtranormal, the software, and website that I used to create these went out of business on July 30 2013 with little notice. I still had credits, so I did this piece, and finished on July 29th. This is one of the last ones made. It was buggy software, and the computer voice spoke phonetically requiring some real gyrations at times to make it understandable. If I wanted a character to say NMEA, it would look like "Knee Maa." To make the voices clear required some tedious editing, and in this case it took about two days of mucking around to complete it.

But the contest doesn't close until December 31st you're thinking, why now? Well it got some attention the first time I used a toon, and I actually won third place. So if I won the second race at the track, by betting on the number two horse, why not try it again? I think I haven't won again not because of the cartoon essays, but maybe poor my choices in entry selections. I tend to pick the ones I had the most fun writing, which maybe aren't the most glowing examples of my writing skills, and perhaps lacked the gravitas expected of a professional boating writer. I had fun writing them though, and who else would tackle these subjects in this way? Senators all named after boils?

In the end I have to be fresh, new, and on the cutting edge, while still being slightly irrelevant. I have found it! Tech galore, stretching audio editing to it's very limits, and animatronics to boot. You will be able to see it right after the Miami boat show when the winners are announced. I can already see myself accepting the keys to the city while holding the first place plaque. I hate to waste work product. There's sort of a bartender joke along with some insider gaffs, and references. Here is the not to be used unused essay.

The top ten things that make my life difficult.

These are the things that grate on me. Although the numbers are very difficult to get at, I would estimate that annual North American sales of marine electronics related gear is about $800,000,000 per year. My guess is about 15 percent of the sales costs are required to install all of this gear. This works out to about $120,000,000 a year. Of this number easily half is spent working around poor boat design. That's $60,000,000 in annual costs to owners that good boat design would have saved.

Lets look at a small typical new boat package. Chart plotter ($2500), radar ($1000), VHF ($150), sounder module ($500), transducer ($200), VHF antenna ($80). This totals $4230. Using the 15% rule, installation costs would be about $635, this would be about one man day plus or minus to install the system. The wasted cost to the buyer is $317.00, This is a small system, and not an extreme case, of which there are many. So right out of its shrink wrap the new boat is already costing owners lots of real money. 

The incapability of most boat builders, both large and small in understanding even the basics of how their customers will use their boats, and what they might want to install on them astounds me daily. Why are the water pick ups on both sides of the hull insuring I can't install a properly working transom mount transducer? Did you think this might be important, or you just don't know any better? It was purported by marketing to be a offshore fishing boat, but there is no mounting plate to install a radar, and no way to get the cable down to the chart plotter. The three hours it took to pull the transducer wire to the console because the 2" piece of PVC pipe pretending to be a grown up conduit is already packed to the max. The boat with no place to install an autopilot compass. A console interior with no mounting blocks to install gear. No fuse blocks, power leads, documentation, wire pulls, and many others round out the list.

# 1 The wire pull.

Thinking ahea

I'm sure the marketing department felt they had a winner. I can just imagine the presentation. "In conclusion, Magnifico Yacht customers polled liked the idea, and it's becoming common in many luxury autos. We can also point out the safety aspects of not having to take your hands off the helm to change the stereo volume, or channel." "Good presentation Bob, and I like the idea. It's a lot better than that Grey Poupon mustard cockpit holder you pitched us on last week. We'll go with." 

Iron Chef, Mac and Cheese Battle

This is Gecko's in the Landings mac and cheese cook off. Eighteen entries were submitted by regulars for the mass's consideration, and prizes to boot. The prizes were nice, but oh how the bragging rights would be coveted for all time to come. Teams were being formed, and the smack talk started early. Pejorative allusions to other's cooking skills and the quality of their palates were rampant. Ingredient teasers, and red herrings abound. Did you hear the rumor about the abalone and truffles mac? 

Local boats I like,"Route 66"

This is the first of the "boats I like series." These are vessels that catch my wayward and mercurial eye. Since Sarasota has such a diverse boating community, these can range from something stashed away in a garage, to vessels hidden in plan sight in the many local marinas and canals. The one thing they have in common is their uniqueness, and personal appeal to me. With most of these boats, I don't know the owners, and have never boarded them. We're starting today with "Route 66" that is currently residing in the Longboat Key Moorings marina.

You can miss the nearly 80' of elegantly crossed braced mast and swept back spreaders on Route 66 designed by B&R Designs (Lars Bergstrom, and Sven Ridder). If a sailor isn't familiar with these names, just look look up at the Windex atop your mast. This is one of their many sailing innovations.

Lar's, an experienced pilot passed away in 1997 due to a tragic powered sailplane accident. One of my favorite possessions is one of the carbon fiber water tank test hulls of Route 66 I bought when his Sarasota facility was closed and it now hangs from my living room ceiling.

Route 66 is the product of the many lessons learned from the Warren Luhrs's ocean racing sailboat children, Tuesday's Child, Thursday's Child, and Hunter's Child. 

Hunter's Child's hull shape was an improvement on Thursday's Child's designed by both Paul Lindenburg, and Lars Bregstrom, and built by B&R Designs. Thursday's Child was already a big winner, and broke the New York, to San Francisco record held by the clipper Flying Cloud since 1854, along with other records. 

The Miser Flag

"Hi, this is Bill." "I'm John, do you install marine electronics?" "Yes that's what I do, how can I help you?" "Well Bill, a couple of years ago I had a guy install a Sparrow fish finder on my boat, and it only works when I go real slow." I just bought a used Chartomatic Five inch combo sounder/GPS on sale off the Internet, Flag but this time I want it installed by a professional. So I called the manufacturer and got a list of six certified installers, and your name was first on the list. I want only the best to do the work."

"Well thanks John, but I suspect the list was alphabetical, and I don't think all of them actually live in Sarasota, but anyway tell me what you need done." "Well Bill, I want the Sparrow unit and transducer removed intact because I want to sell it on Ebay, Flag and have you install the new to me Chartomatic and transducer on the boat." "I can do that, John, what kind of boat is this?" It's a Magnifico 30 go fast boat." Flag Flag Flag Flag "I'm familiar with that boat John, where does it live?" I don't want to tell you that yet." Flag "Well that's fine John, is it on a trailer or in a marine facility?" "Ah no it's on a boat lift, and you will have to bring a boat to install the transducer, or do whatever you guys normally do to install these things. The water is only five feet deep at low tide, you could do it in the water." Flag Flag "Okay John this is possible."

"Bill how much will you charge me to do this?" Well it's hard to say John, I haven't see the boat, but normally on most boats it would take about three hours at $70.00 an hour to do this from scratch. That would be about be about $210 but like I said I haven't seen the boat. It might be less if the transducer wire pull is easy, but the transducer will be much more difficult to do on a lift." "Three hours? Flag You charge $70 an hour? Flag That's outrageous, I'd  rather do it my self." Flag, Flag, Flag, Flag, Flag, Flag

   

"Well you said you wanted a professional John. I'm certified, insured, bring all of the tools required for the job to you, guarantee the performance of the system, and teach you how to use it. I can't get a plumber to show up for less than a $100 at my house, and that's before he picks up a wrench. You apparently didn't have a professional install your Sparrow fish finder or it would have worked in the first place, and in the end it will cost as much to uninstall the Sparrow as it cost you to buy in the first place." "Well thanks for the advice Bill, but "I'm not one to just throw my money around. I think I will keep shopping around." "That's fine John, If you need me I will try to help. I will flag your number in my phone directory so I will recognize your call."

"I wanted to make real sure I was too busy to take that call if it appeared. It fortunately hasn't happened yet, and I'm delighted. I'm pretty sure he has a difficult time hiring a plumber. Sheesh!

Radar Rx

It's not op art, only a cheesy replica of a radar screen image I get to see on occasion. In reality it's pretty close to what the screen actually looks like. This image has two likely sources. If it's a reasonably clear image the array is not turning, and you're seeing an image from one direction only. If the image is noisy another possible scenario is you have a lot of condensation on the inside of the radar dome.

In this case the little domed Furuno array was not turning. Opening the dome and seeing the drive belt disconnected immediately conjured the insight that if the belt was put back in place, the array would turn, and the problem would go away. This proved to be the case, for a few seconds at any rate.

Pretty picture, oops concentric circles again. The dome gets re-opened, and I take a closer look. The belt is off again, and when I looked closely at the little DC motor drive gear, I found it was loose.

The Compass Conumdrum

I hear it often from power boaters, nothing ever matches. The compass says one thing, the GPS says another, and the autopilot heading is different. Which one is right? My answer is usually all of them to some degree, but when in doubt, trust the GPS/COG heading. Why It's a math thing assuming you have a decent fix, and you can check on that. The magnetic compass in the dash, as well as the autopilot digital compass are actually more prone to give you a wonky readings due to a variety of environmental factors.

I'll start with the venerable magnetic compass. This is old, very old technology that works perfectly as long as it's in a wood boat with no ferrous metal, or electrical wiring. Truth be told, this is rarely the case, and here is a simple example. The boat builder installs the compass that came from the factory perfectly calibrated. Also installed within inches is now a chart plotter, wiring harnesses, and even a nearby storage compartment to keep your steel screw driver, and hook pliers in. Calibrated it may have once been, but now no longer.

The Illustrated Garmin DIY Auto Pilot Installation

It's a "Green Field" autopilot install. By that I mean I'm dealing with a new boat. I've also been waiting for a while to find a boat with little infrastructure, and design forethought for an autopilot. This will allow me to talk a bit about some of the tribulations you can encounter, and what the options are to solve them. At some point I will ask that the Garmin and Teleflex people to leave the room briefly, while I read from the Installer's sacred text titled "In the Real World." The goal is to make you feel good about your chances of installing one of these systems, and have it work, ahem, the first time.

As my colleague Jay Sellers used to say, "Here is my office today." The good news is it's clean, and has room for me. The bad news it's steam room hot, there is little room to install things, and the dealership has already installed a chart plotter, radar, stereo, and other odds and ends.

The leaking Capilano caper

I missed it, sort of. The older Capilano helm was leaking in the front. There was that steady insidious small line of hydraulic juice weeping its way down the console face, and being collected by a towel whose presence wasn't desired. Sure I can fix that, I say with my ounce of image. I call Teleflex, and get the part number for the helm shaft o-ring. Oops, I have to buy the entire rebuild kit for the pump. It is what it is and I have to have the gasket. The kit comes, the helm shaft o-ring was leaking, but not very much. I change it and wipe everything down. I'm done, but I wasn't.

A few days later I get another call. It's still leaking. I go out and take another look. It's the twisty knob shaft that's now doing it, or more likely had been all along, I wipe everything down. I take some Q-tips and clean up the area, and yep, that is another leak. It was a good thing I bought the entire kit. Capilano helms have a knob that sticks out below the helm. Rotating the knob clockwise reduces the number of lock to lock turns, and increases the number of turns in the other direction. 

Big box store TV repairs, a rant.

It's the bottom of the ninth. The Rays are ahead, and closing pitcher Fernando Rodney is hurling balls at the plate with speeds nearing 100 miles per hour trying to keep it that way. At that moment, the right half of the TV screen turns grayish. It's like I'm watching it through a veil. Then it goes black. The left side stays on for a few more seconds, and then winks off also. We now own a very large radio. I listen to the remaining last few minutes of the game. Rodney gets the job done. Rays win.

The Super Boat races 2013

It's a bit of a misnomer to call these vessels boats, yes they float and travel on the water, but beyond that they bare little resemblance to what most of us use in our daily life. To me they conjure terms like space shuttle, fighter jet, Formula 1 race car, and the ilk.

Crew help the drivers, and throttle men squeeze through a small water tight hatch on top and into formed seats. Hans devices are passed down and installed. Next come helmets loaded with comm gear. Restraints are fastened. Looking down the dock, I see a portable air conditioning system being disconnected from a craft being cleared for departure. See, it already sounds like a description of a fighter aircraft being prepared for a mission. The only thing that seems to be missing are the heads up displays, and the air to air missiles. 

KVH 24/7, why not others?

It was a good service call, and it's all over in about 30 minutes. It was a 2007 KVH M4 dome that stopped acquiring the DirecTV satellites. I could hear it whirring around looking, unwrapping its cables, seeking again, but no TV signal joy was to be had. The DirecTV receiver also verified the story. The endless searching for satellites message. Testing the transponders showed zero signal.  Not even a whiff of RF was detected. But I was ready.

I had KVH's software on my netbook, and everything on this boat is super convenient. The KVH data port is right next to both the TV and the receiver. This is the Christmas miracle of marine electronics work. An air conditioned cabin cool enough to hang a side of Angus beef in, everything is within a couple of feet of me, and I don't smell or look like a sweat soaked old guy.

Hurricane preparedness

The lovely, and most aptly named West Marine associate Marina agreed to pose in front of her hand crafted Hurricane preparedness poster. I thought her Vanna White pose was the best of the photos I took. I liked two additional aspects of her art work. The wind flayed captain's boxer shorts are detailed with West Marine logos, and his expression reminds me of Nick Park's Wallace and Gromit claymation characters. Many thanks Marina.