Good luck Jeremy

Jeremy has been with me for many years now. He is the son of a very old friend of mine, and I have memories of Jeremy as a little pink infant in diapers. When a younger Jeremy first started working for me, he had the nickname of "Cabin Boy". The "Cabin Boy" soon morphed into my "Helper", and now he is a good friend, and very skilled professional colleague.  

But alas, the marine electronics business is not his first choice of a profession. Although very talented, he does get seasick at the drop of a hat, and does not like the bosun's chair at all. You can see in the picture below the only time that Jeremy "White Knuckles" Johnson was in the dreaded chair, and although he completed the task, he was not a happy camper about the event.

I also can't understand why climbing into a 120 degree boat in the dead of a Florida summer, copiously sweating, while terminating tiny NMEA wires in a dark place only a contortionist would fit into, wouldn't be your job of choice, but in Jeremy's case it wasn't. For the last couple of years, Jeremy has been volunteering at Myakka River State Park, and taking all sorts of specialized courses in controlled burning, and the ilk. Last week Jeremy started his new career as a State of Florida Park Ranger. My loss, is Myakka River State Park's gain. He is a hard worker, very smart, has a tool bag full of specialized equipment. There is little difference between the RV power pedestal, and a marinas power pedestal.

So Jeremy, both Kate and I wish you the best of luck, you will do well, and there is always a 120 degree boat around for you to work in, if you change your mind.

Ranger Johnson's steely eyes survey the 38,000 acres of his new domain, and he issues his first command. "All critters shall now wear Tyvek booties to keep the woods from being tracked up by dirty paws."

No worries mate, we are precisely in 176.2 feet of water

The owner of this boat called me and said his depth finder wasn't working correctly on a short "Shake Down" cruise from Sarasota, to Egmont Key and back. This was about a 70 mile trip up and back, and he said the Furuno depth finder acted weird on the whole trip. Since we were in about 10 feet of water, the Furuno RD30's depth of about 176 feet, did seem to be a wee bit on the high side. The Nobeltec sounder right next door does have the correct depth.  Look at the picture closely, and above the depth number on the Nobeltec system, you can see the the wording "200 khz "Cruising."

So playing the game of "What's different between these two pictures?", we can now see the Furuno RD30 is  reporting the correct depth, and the Nobeltec sounder is also. The difference is the Nobeltec sounder is now using the "50 khz Cruising" setting. So by now, a lot of boaters have figured what has happened, but for those who need some enlightenment, this is what is going on, in Americanized English. 

The piezoceramic devices in the two transducers are pinging out sound waves, and listening to the returning sound waves as they echo back from the bottom. They are designed to send out a certain frequency sound wave, and hear that frequency when the sound wave bounces back from the bottom. In this case, since both transducers are using the same frequency, they are hearing each other, and the Furuno unit is getting confused. I suspect, but I'm not dead sure, that the Nobeltec sounder module, has a more powerful transducer (I did not climb into the engine room to verify this, it is what it is), and the lower power Furuno transducer just gets overwhelmed. In other words, the Nobeltec transducer is not adversely affected by the Furuno's transducer, but the Nobeltec's transducer bugs the heck out of the Furuno's transducer, if they are operating at the same frequency. Both transducers are made by Airmar, and I hope I got this dialog generally correct Ms. Robb.

The owner now knows, that if both sounder systems are operating at the same time, they must be set to different frequencies, if you don't want to be in 176.2 feet of water all of the time. There are transducer technologies, that can overcome this issue available, and the link below to Airmar will provide wealth of transducer information.

Airmar's FAQ page will answer about 99.1% of your transducer questions.

A little to close for comfort, ahhh, my retinas, and my pacemaker has stopped worki....

I am uncomfortable with the Garmin radar installation below because of the nearly eye level installation, and the about 6 foot proximity to someone sitting at the helm. If the unit had been mounted lower, I most likely wouldn't have looked at it twice. This photo took me off on some research to verify to myself that this radar installation was either safe, or unsafe.

The first thing I looked at was what the manufacturers said about the dangers involved in being to close to the beam of a marine radar. Most of them say about the same thing. For example, Furuno's radar manuals say, "The radar antenna emits electromagnetic radio frequency (RF) energy which can be harmful, particularly to your eyes. Never look directly into the antenna aperture from a close distance while the radar is in operation, or expose yourself to the transmitting antenna at a close distance." It sounds a little ominous doesn't it? It could be really dangerous, or the legal departments of these companies are "showing an abundance of caution", or maybe it's a bit of both. 

On the other hand, there is a fair amount of information that says the radiation levels of a rotating pleasure boat marine radar are actually very low, and hence the hazard level is also very low. I parsed my words a bit here, because high powered, non-pleasure boat radars can be dangerous, and the rotation of the array means the radiation exposure is limited to the time the array is facing you.

So after several hours of reading on the subject, this is what I think. It would not be good for you to get as close as possible, at eye level, to an operating radar array, and stare at it for an extended period of time. I also think, that marine radars, that are installed according to the manufacturers installation instructions, will not adversely affect personnel on a boat. Everything in-between these two extremes is somewhat subjective. Will the installation above smite the owner's pacemaker, or blind him? Most likely not. Would I want to sit at the upper helm while the radar was running? Nope, not if I could avoid it.

Murphy's Laws say that if a piece of toast falls off the table, it will land buttered side down. The odds of winning the Florida lottery are about 23,000,000 to 1. I wonder what the odds would be that a radar could malfunction, and have the array stop while pointing at the owner, and still be transmitting? This would be a long shot, is it possible?

Ben Ellison's Panbo link below has an excellent discussion on this subject, by many more knowledgeable than I, and is a good place to start learning more about this subject. 

Panbo discussion about radar safety

What a dumb idea, stupid, why I oughta.....

This should have been a simple job. A Raymarine E-120 wasn't getting a fix, and the investigation begins. Let's check the power, and antenna wiring. The wiring is by the book, and we have good power. The Seatalk cable is plugged in, so let's make sure that it is the master, and it is. I do a software upgrade, and follow it with two factory resets, and still, the GPS page is blank. So where is the GPS? This is the question of the hour.

It's not on the top of the T-top, and it's not in the electronics box. I looked under the combings, nope, I chase the antenna cable, and find the antenna must be mounted on top of the electronics box. You can see the wire passing through the hole. I had to clear the wiring away just to see this much.

So I reach my hand up to feel where it was, and I couldn't feel it or see it, because someone at the factory had covered the entire area with two part foam, I guess to seal the two small holes passing though the electronics box. The actual GPS was fully encapsulated in several inches of foam. This is one of the areas in a boat, where you can look, or you can get one hand in, but you can't do both at the same time.

It took about an hour to excavate around the GPS enough to free it from the box. Two part foam is very tenacious and the GPS was well adhered to the electronics box, but with the judicious application of numerous explicatives, and some hard digging with my fingers, the GPS finally was removed. The point of the exercise was to see what the little LED on the Raystar 125 was telling me. It couldn't tell me anything, because the chemicals in the two part foam, had obscured the clear port you look through to see the LED status.

I happened to have a new GPS in the truck, and when I plugged it in, the unit immediately started to blink happy green, and within a minute, we had a position fix. So what was wrong with the original unit, we will never know, maybe the foam out-gassed fumes that got into the unit, or maybe stuff just happens.

Recapping the moral of the story, there had to be many other ways to seal the two small penetrations through this box, and I think the worst possible way to do it was to use two part foam. It made pulling new wires through the existing holes almost impossible, it was ugly, unprofessional, crudely done, and I'm going to revoke the boat rigging licence of who ever did this, if I ever catch him. I do have my sealing suggestion below, and don't confuse this with 3M 5200, or I will revoke your licence also. 

Golight Go

Late one afternoon, I was working on my blog, and abstractly listening to the whining and grinding of a wood chipper, and the constant revving of chain saws. A crew was clearing trees away from the power lines next door, and all of a sudden, my computer shuts down, the ceiling fan winds down, chain saws, and chipper noises cease, and a lot of exciting yelling occurred. It seems something went awry with a limb, and it caused an outage. About twenty minutes later, a large truck from the local power company showed up. Since big time electricity always has the potential of offering an eclectic experience, I grab my camera and head outside to check out the excitement. 

Alas, in this case it was a mundane outage, no flaying wires were starting fires everywhere they touched, and no frightened residents were fleeing the scene. It was only a short caused by a branch, that just required the mother of all fuses to be replaced by the power company. I started back into my house, and I looked up at the power truck, and mounted on top were two Golight spotlights. I love seeing marine hardware, being used in a location where salt water is not involved.

I asked the crew chief what he thought of the Golight spots, and he said he liked them. They were sturdy, very bright, and very reliable, but....  

With a smile he climbed into the truck, and got out the remote control. He pushed the "On" button, and both spotlights lit up on the truck. He used the remote to turn the spotlight toward me, and both spotlights moved. The Golight remote only has one frequency he explained to me, that's why they both move. On a dark night there could be four or five trucks with the spotlights mounted on them. Someone gets out a remote, and hits the "On" button, and all of the spotlights, on all of the trucks turn on. When you drive a spot light to follow a power line, it looks like your'e at a shopping center opening, with eight or ten of the lights all moving around at once.

Despite some issues I have always had with Golight's remote controls, it is a great product, at a price that is substantially lower than its stainless steel competitors, and in my less than humble opinion, is better than most of them. Put several of these on your hardtop or arch, grab your remote, and you will be a hit in the boat Christmas parade.

Mr Electricity prime suspect in conflagration. Mr. Aqueous sought as a person of interest.

This is the city, Sarasota, Florida. I work here. "I carry a certification." The story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent."


Monday, July 5th 10:42 am: We were working a bunko, when I got the call about a suspicious arson death. I hurried over to the scene before the beat guys tromped all over the evidence. It wasn't a pretty scene. The body had been moved, leaving a charred spot, and the coroner was in route. I interviewed the boat owner, and he said he just turned around, and saw the fire, he also said Mr. Electricity was hanging around at the time. He pulled the plug, and the fire went out, but continued to smolder, and Mr. Electricity went on the lam. The stench from the fire was gut wrenching, and I worked at controlling my gag reflex. I've been around, but this was as bad as I have seen. 

Tuesday July 5th 12:01 pm: The coroner showed up to take the victim to the morgue for an autopsy, and shook his head. "This body is is in bad shape, I may have to work hard to find the cause of death." I spoke to a couple more witnesses, and one said, he had "seen Mr. Aqueous hanging around before the fire, and he looked suspicious". I said,  "Just the facts sir". I  made a note on my pad to grill him later about the incident.  

Wednesday July 5th 8:05 am: I went to visit the coroner, to see if he was able to determine COD. The body didn't look good. The burnt skin had been cut off, and what was left, wasn't for the faint hearted. The coroner said "Mr. Electricity had definitely been involved here, but I think he must have had some help." 

Wednesday July 5th 6:53 pm: I found Mr Aqueous at a local hangout, and took his statement. "Yeah, I was around, it ain't against the law, it's a free country you know. Mr. Electricity is who you need to talk to. I was just minding my own business, when he started to get angry, and all sparky like. He was getting out of hand, and I left, and hey, I don't have to talk to you copper, get a warrant."

Wednesday July 5th 11:21 pm: You throw a party and that certification gets in the way. All of a sudden there isn't a straight man in the crowd. Everybody's a comedian. "Don't spark too much," somebody says, "or the man with a certification 'll run you in." Or "How's it going, Circuit Tracer? How many fuses did you pinch today?" Mr. Electricity was having way too much fun, and I arrested him, and booked him under section 301 C, felonious sparking. In the car, I asked him if he had anything to say, and sneering he said, "OK, so I helped with the sparking, it's what I do! Now throw me in the bucket!" I sent Officer Johnson over to pick up Mr. Aqueous, and booked him under section 567 D, aiding and abetting a sparking.

There are over a dozen men in this city who know that being a marine installer is an endless, glamorless, thankless job that's gotta be done. I know it, too. And I'm damned glad to be one of them.

The coroner's summary goes something like this. The shore power cable was a fifty amp cable that went from the pedestal to a thirty amp splitter that was plugged into the inlets on the boat. The connections, although reasonably watertight, were not designed for immersion. It turns out that the boat had a slight list to starboard, and after a rain, the connectors were laying in about a half inch of water. We had about a solid week of rain, and although the fire started on first dry day after the small monsoon we had, the damage was already done, but not yet apparent. I think the cable had been shorting for a while, via the rain water, and was already damaged. 

The owner just happened to be there, when the final meltdown started, the connector caught fire, and he was able to quickly remove the power. The ground wire was disconnected from the plug pin, and was spot welded somewhat to the black L1 wire. The copper was good in the cable, and all of the heat was being generated, at the shorted location. The odd thing here was that neither the vessel's, or pedestal's breakers were popped. As you can see in the first picture, had someone not been there, a real vessel fire was very probable. 

You don't often see things, when they are hidden in plain sight. The pictures below are examples of less than perfect shore power connections. I did a story a while ago, about a little box Stephen Rhodes, and Captain Abner Pires thought, up and implemented. This clever idea lifts the shore power connectors off the ground, and covers them to keep the connections dry. I thought it was a good idea then, and even more so now. You can find the story here.

This is a no no! The cable is plugged into the standard household three prong outlet, and then into a thirty amp inlet on the boat. This outlet is for buffers, not thirty amp power.

An uncovered thirty amp cord from a splitter. Note the wet ground around it, a hose has been leaking.

What you can't see well in the picture, is the fact that the boat is being washed, and water is spraying on the shore power connector, which is directly under the hose bib.

This connection has some issues, including the exposed ground connection, positioned so rain water can run into it. I don't know what the tape is all about, but it can't be there for the cosmetics.

I wandered through three marinas, and found about three dozen connections, that ranged from, it could be better, and thus safer, to outright hazards, all hidden in plan sight. Mr. Electricity, and Mr. Aqueous, go where they want, unless you book them, and throw them into the bucket.

Thanks Sgt Joe Friday for some of the lifted dialog.

Sgt Joe Friday: By the way, what do you do for a living? 
Systems Analyst:  I'm a systems analyst, myself. 
Sgt Joe Friday:  Oh? What's a systems analyst do? 
Systems Analyst:  I analyze systems.
Sgt Joe Friday: Makes sense.

Sgt Joe Friday: The subject was booked under Section 601 - in danger of leading an idle, dissolute, or immoral life.

I had forgotten, especially now in retrospect, how much fun the dialog from Dragnet really is, and some links are below:
IMDB Dragnet Quotes
More Dragnet Quotes

The picture of the "Sparks" is from Wikimedia commons, and was taken by Tim McCormack.

Fear and Funnels in Florida Bay

These stunning pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago by Captain Abner Pires. Abner was on the vessel "Grateful" (44' Tiara) owned by Jim, and Sue Hanes, and nearby were Stephen, and Wendy Rhodes on "Phendi" (61' Viking). Both vessels had left Naples Florida together, and were in in route, through Florida Bay to Key West when these waterspouts were spotted in their path. At one point in time, Abner said you could clearly see three waterspouts at once, and he thought there was a fourth one buried in the rain. Abner also said it was hard to tell exactly how many different waterspouts they actually were seeing, because they kept reforming, but thought the total number was about six waterspouts. In the second picture you can see "Phendi" under the forming waterspout above. All of these pictures will blow up when clicked to full size. 

Abner Pires captains larger pleasure vessels, is Sarasota Florida based, and is an extraordinarily professional mariner. The pictures are his property, and he has graciously consented to let me use them. You can contact Abner at Abnerpires@comcast.net. These wonderful pictures, of ordered chaos, speak for themselves, and I will leave a waterspout related link below them. I don't think I have to remind anyone to keep your boat away from these forces of nature, do I?

Wikipedia on Waterspouts

Lock picking tools. Mild mannered marine installer, or secret agent man?

I am an avid fan of National Public Radio. The radio clicks on in the morning at 5:00AM tuned to "Morning Edition" (Kate and I still call it listening to Bob, sorry Steve and Renee, old habits die hard), and in the afternoons I listen to "All Things Considered", and other excellent shows. So milling through traffic one afternoon, I listened to a story on ATC about lock picking competitions that are held all over the world. An obviously excited participant described locks, as "clever mechanical puzzles that were fun to solve". This sounded like fun to me, and I went home to Google what these tools cost, and found out, not very much. About $30.00 dollars will buy a starter kit. I mentioned to Kate what I was going to do, and it elicited a verbally rich dialog that mostly contained phrases like, no, people will think you're a criminal, it's illegal, no, never, what are you thinking?.....

Serendipity is a wonderful thing, and a few weeks later on a Friday evening at my local watering hole (Gecko's in Sarasota), the subject came up again, and this time, all of Kate's friends, Duffy, Julie, Christine, and all of the other women at our large table simultaneously chorused a version of the verbiage I had already heard from Kate, and added some fresh new ones to boot. My friend Jeff leaves the table, and five minutes later he comes back with a lock pick starter kit, and presents it to me. Swearing up and down, that I will only use these tools, and my powers for good, and not evil, Kate relents, and says "okay", but she still eyes them with great suspicion to this day. Thanks Jeff, coolest little tools ever.

These are remarkably useful little tools. I have used them twice for their intended purpose. I left an owner's boat key in my pocket, which subsequently was washed, dried, and the key ended up in the drier's squirrel cage blower, and that's all I'm going to say about the event, other than it will be there forever. While waiting for the replacement key to arrive, I used these tools to open the boat, and finish the job. I also used the key extractor (third tool from left to right) to remove a broken key from a boat lock, and it worked a treat, on an other boat, I couldn't get it out, I need more of these tools.

Now on to the more eclectic uses for these little tools. The mangled pins you see above are at the bottom of a CF card reader slot, used on many chart plotters for chart data, and saving off user data. I have seen this scenario many times through the years. These pins are tiny, and even if you are careful, any misalignment of the chip while sliding it into its slot, can cause damage. On several occasions, this damage has been caused by an ARI (Alcohol Related Incident), where the owner has enthusiastically, and more aggressively than usual inserted the card. ARI's can, and do cause other problems for boaters, but now is not the time, or place.

I encountered this bent pin problem last week (not an ARI event) on one, of two Northstar 6100I's. The owner had bought $900 worth of platinum chart chips for a trip. The problem was that the software version in the machines would not support the platinum chips, and the system needed upgrading.

Northstar interconnected systems must be at the same software level, and this can only be done with a CF card. So send the unit in and get it fixed, or since it was already broken, and the trip was impending, I tried, and succeeded in straighting the bent pins. First a good magnifying glass and light was needed, and the little lock pick tool set. I mostly used the harpoon shaped key extractor, and the tumbler tensioner (far left). I could slide the the extractor into the card slot, and use the sharp point as a pivot, and then by rotating the barb, you could push the pin back into position. It wasn't easy, but after three hours, I got them straight enough to get the software upgrade chip into the machine, and it worked. To be honest, there was also some luck here, if any of the pins solder connections to the board were broken, I would have been SOL In this case, happy owner, happy software, and a warning to use that card slot, only in an emergency, and be very gentle.

Replacing car style radios is a common event. They all come with with little key like devices that inset into the sides of the case, that release tabs that hold the radio in its mounting cage. Years later, they are not to be found. You can take the flat handles of these tools, and slide them down the sides of the case, and lift up the release tabs. Prior to this, I have used a flat blade screw driver, to wedge it out. When reason fails, force prevails.

So in the end, these are very handy gadgets. They are made of spring steel, are very tough, and about 20 thousands of an inch thick. Cleaning in between solder joints, reaching into some crevice, and a myriad of other applications come to mind. I keep them in my bag all of the time. I mentioned to Kate I was thinking about buying a stethoscope to practice opening safes. It will not sell this time, at all, never, it's illegal, people will think you're a criminal, you're killing me.....  But it might be handy at times. You never know.

Ira Glass, you don't have to call me, I promise I will send a check to my local NPR station, and you should also, or Ira may call you.

The photo is from Bent Card Pins.Com  They are experts in repairing CF card slot bent pins in cameras, and certainty have all of the tools, technology, and expertise to do this well. I was lucky this time. This is best left to experts like them.

Burnt offerings

These are two intertwined musings about melting electronics, and access to put out a fire. Below is a controller for a marine device, that was installed at the boat builder's plant. It was located inside the console, along with almost everything else on this boat that was electrical in nature. It was installed according to the manufacturers wiring diagram, and instructions, with the correct wire gauges being used, and as far as I could tell, the installation of this little black box was done to all current standards. I strongly suspect, that in a blackish grey sort of way,  that it is no longer operational, since it seems to have caught on fire.

As you can discern below, the wiring harness is fine, and shows no evidence of damage. The box appears to have had some sort of a internal melt down that caused the fire, with out tripping the fuse. It wouldn't be appearing here, if I hadn't seen another slightly different control box from the same company slag down in a like manner. In both cases, it is likely, if they were left unattended, a real fire could have well occurred. 

In the case of the box above, the owner, while underway noted black smoke coming out of the console, and knew where his fire extinguisher was. It was fully charged, and its contents were quickly emptied into the console's interior. The smoke stopped, and the boat returned to port. Things were done quickly enough, that, short of cleaning up the mess the fire extinguisher made inside the console, there was no other damage, short of the burnt offerings you see here.

A similar (in function) box I installed, had the same thing happened also, but I was there at the time, and removed it, albeit not gracefully, but quickly from the boat. It didn't look quite bad as the one above, but in few more minutes it would have. I think twice is not the charm, and I am concerned about the amount of power that these boxes control, in such a small package. Maybe stuff happens, or maybe there should be some design improvements to make things more robust. I also found some additional comments online about this issue.

Although the story ends well, and nobody had their eye shot out, it led me to musing about access to console interiors, and asking myself the question, "Have I seen boats where access to the console interiors is difficult?" The answer is yes, many times. A fire can occur in many places on a boat, but an electrical fire is statistically  more likely to happen in a place where most of the wiring is, and on many boats, the consoles are one of those areas.

In the case of this boat, there were several ways to get quick access, and a front access hatch was used. But I have been on many boats, where if a fire occurred in the console, it would take time and tools to get to a point where you could use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire, and maybe, by then it would be late.

I was in my local West Marine store, and I told my friend Wayne Seel (Store 63 Manager) about this story I was assembling, and I asked him if I could look at the Beckson-esque deck plates to get some ideas for console access for a fire extinguisher. Wayne got all excited, and said "follow me", I have exactly what you need. Down the aisle we went, and "Lo and Behold" he produced this thing called a Fire Port, made by Marine East. What a nifty gadget this is. A quick hole saw cut, and you have instant access for a fire extinguisher anywhere. It's about 3" in diameter, and is reasonably resistant to water access, and inexpensive. The clear window allows you to see into the area, before you do anything abruptly, and it won't let a lot of oxygen into the area when you push the fire extinguisher nozzle through the port. What a great idea, thanks Wayne, you know your inventory, and you can teach this old dog something.

So the next time you go on board your boat, think about this little story, and see if you could put out a fire inside the console, or other locations. Then find your fire extinguisher (I think it  is under the console cover inside the head, or maybe I put it under the seat somewhere), and make sure its  little needle points to the happy green color. Remember that Darwin always culls the weak and infirm from the herd.

PC purgatory. Increased complexity equals reduced reliability.

"I'm not a big fan of having PC's on a boat, for a variety of good reasons." Now before the devotees of PC's take great umbrage at this, I am going to put lap tops in the "I'm a PC, but a different type of  PC", and cut their users some slack.

So for starters, what could go wrong with a Windows based computer on your boat? Everything!. PC's have eaten thousands of pages of my work over the years, and I can barely keep the one on my desk consistently operating. And now you want it to perform in a marine environment, and as the primary source for the vessel navigation? Blue screens of death, frozen pages, and resets, are all things PC users have had to live with throughout the years. As we know from the ad's, "The new Windows Series 14 takes care of all of the problems the old unlucky Windows Series 13 had."

I'm going to keep this dialog in the real world, and I'm framing it around a real system. You can see below, a real boat, and one of two helm stations. On the left, is a Furuno NavNet black box system, and on the right is a PC based system running a Nobeltec VNS Max Pro based system. I like the Nobletec software, but this isn't really about them, it's the PC thats being discussed.

When I first saw the boat, that cute little computer below was running the PC show. It looked like a porcupine. Every orifice in this little box had something plugged into it, all largely unlabeled. It was surrounded by two white plastic 110VAC fans to keep it cool, and it needed the cooling. When you stuck your head into the underside of the console, it felt like you were in a Hasbro Easy Bake Oven. I mentioned the cooling issue to the owner, and suggested something needs to be done about this.

Unbeknownst to me, the owner called the original installer, and discussed the problem with him. The installer suggested that a new computer could be rigged up, and with a case that had some substantial cooling capability. This was a good idea, at least for the PC processor. The original installer even loaded the Nobeltec software and charts into the system, and shipped it to the owner. Another installer was given the task of installing the new computer. He came in, pulled all of the USB plugs out of the cute little computer, and plugged it into the new one, (you can see it lurking at me below), and pronounced it "Job Done", got his money and left.

This is where my decent into PC purgatory begins. The cute little computer had other things stored in its system, and it was now a little short of peripherals, so getting its additional software contents is no longer easy. What's missing? We can start with a pile of drivers, the Airmar WeatherCaster, and WX Works weather software for starters.

Lets take a look under the hood, and see what kind of stuff we have there. Starting from left to right is a Sea Level four port serial to USB converter, and thankfully labeled. Plugged into it is the Insight sounder, Insight radar, GPS, and  heading sensor. The Sea Level box is connected to the silver USB hub box, along with the Airmar weather station, and a couple of additional USB to serial converters. The silver hub plugs into a USB slot on the new PC. There is also a Syrens WiFi system, connected to one of two wireless routers, and the other wireless router is used by a laptop to access the Nobeltec glass cockpit option. A display splitter, an Actisense NMEA multiplexer, three GPS's in, and a dozen other assorted black boxes are there also. I could feel the very life being sucked right out of me when I first saw this. So what could go wrong here? Don't worry, I'm gonna tell you.

This is a brief list of the bugs encountered. I downloaded, and reinstalled the Airmar software, and it searched for its own port, and didn't find it, or I should say it found one that had GPS data on it, but oops, the wrong port. A call to the ever gracious Irene Robb from Airmar helped me out here. The Airmar software was finding the GPS port first, and thought it was the correct port, because it was hearing things it was expecting to hear. The software had to be manually set to the correct port, which was actually further down the list.

This system has the longest list of com ports I have ever encountered, and the thing about com ports is that you can't give them a real name, Like GPS #1. So a lot of the identification of what port is being used by what device is done by trial and error. Pull a plug, and see what disappears off the Device Manager's port list. OK, now we know that com port 5 is a GPS, and on we go. It took two people to do this chore, because the port list was so long, and the plug puller, couldn't see what disappeared, so someone else had to watch the display. I needed to do this, because in order to re-install the Insight sounder, and other devices, I had to identify which ports they needed to use. The Insight radar also had to be reinstalled, but it was able to find its port by itself.

Since there are so many ports being used for serial data, periodically on start up. The PC sees serial data (and there is a lot of it), and then thinks its seeing a new serial mouse, and because the PC is so clever, it conveniently installs the new non-existent mouse, and changes the port for you. This results in all kinds of erratic cursor motion, menus popping up, and other weird things. The fix for this is to open the console, and start pulling USB plugs until it stops acting up (you can't control the cursor while it is doing this "crazy mouse" serial talk). Then you go to the Device Manager, and disable the newly, and automatically installed "Serial Mouse" it thinks it sees, and plug the offending cable back in. You just hope it won't do it again, but history has often proved otherwise.

The original computer, was an XT machine, and the owners lap top was XT based. Nobeltec's "Glass Cockpit" ran on the wireless network. Now the owner has a Windows 7 lap top, and the new PC for the console is an XT. Nobeltec's "Glass Cockpit" system requires that the computers have exactly the same operating system for this feature to work. Mr Gates has insured, that with each upward change in Windows, software compatibility goes away, and so did this feature. There may be a way to do this, but it will no doubt require more iron, and software, and some Googling to find out.

Power is always a concern with a 110VAC based system. if your generator, or inverter fails, so does the PC based navigation system, and everything with it. Switching over from shore to ship based power systems must be done with care, and you have to be careful about encountering bad shore power systems. Your PC will not like it. Cooling is very important, and you should have a firm grasp of PC operating systems if things go wrong, and you have to diagnose what's wrong. Last but not least, there are way too many single point failures that can completely render the system useless. A hub goes down, a USB plug vibrates out, and you are up the creek, without a PC.

So if you need to have a PC based system, here is some advice. Keep it as simple as possible. When the PC is your, navigation system, internet access, weather station, XM weather source, and hosting a ton of NMEA serial data ports, things can, and will go awry, and figuring out what ended up in left field can be challenging. If you want a navigation system, keep it just a navigation system, that is just standing alone, and less is always more reliable.

So now it's time for the lap top uses. All of the above paragraph still stands for you also, but having said that, the lap top offers tremendous bang for the navigation buck. A $40 USB GPS, free software from SeaClear, and free charts from NOAA, turns your lap top into an effective, and competent chartplotter, even if you don't get free Sham Wows with your USB GPS order.

Oh yes, my last piece of advice is always, always, always have a back up, even if it is just paper charts, or a hand held GPS.

The system I have been talking about will end up working OK, but it will never be as reliable, or as stable as the Furuno NavNet system that is right next to it. This was a very smart decision to have it installed, next to the PC.

"I'm a PC, and Windows 13 was my idea." I just wish that angry mob would stop chasing me.

Some quotes from Murphy's laws:


A computer that has been on the market for 6 weeks is still usable as a boat anchor.
The troubleshooting guide contains the answer to every problem except yours.
The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord.
Standard parts are not.
No part ever fails where you can reach it, or where there is enough light to see how to replace it.
It is simple to make something complex, and complex to make it simple.


There is a fix for crazy mouse, and you can find it here.

Here is a complete listing of all of Murphy's laws.
SeaClear's free navigation software website

Bob and Carol visit the Gulf of Mexico oil slick, an unfortunate series of events occur.

Bob and Carol were watching their favorite news channel, and listening to stories that were saying the oil slick wasn't that bad, and drilling for oil was "Good for America". We remember this insensitive, and not so bright couple, Bob, and Carol from the story about buying their new boat. So Bob, in a very rare display of initiative, tells Carol, "lets load up the boat, and go out and see what this oil slick business is all about". Bob, Carol, and the kids make sure they have all of their important marine gear. The kids grab Ipods, and video games, Carol makes sure there are plenty of chips, and dip on board, Bob gets a back up case of beer, and off they go on their Magnifico 50' yacht. It doesn't take long for Bob and Carol to see the first signs of the slick from the bridge. Bob says "this isn't that bad", and Carol says, "look at the pretty colors, but it does smell a little funny".

Bob and Carol, comforted by the fact that things don't seem that bad at all, carry on. Bob wants to see where the oil leak is, because he saw on TV cool pictures of things burning there, just like it was the Fourth of July. After a while, the kids emerge from the dark cool cabin complaining that it was getting a little warm. Bob says "well stay out here in the fresh air, it will do you some good". The kids wrinkle their nose at the odor, and disappear back below. Bob yells out after them, "just turn the thermostat down". Bob thinks about this for a few milliseconds, and decides the strainers haven't been cleaned for a while, and he will have his boat maintenance guy check it when they get back.

Bob is watching his favorite TV news show, on his chartplotter thingy, and isn't paying attention to the engine gauges. The temperature gauges, on both engines have started to climb slowly up. Bob asks Carol to get him another beer. Just as Carol hands him a new cold one, Bob feels a thump, and the generator shuts down. Seconds later the port engine shuts down, and alarms start squealing on the bridge. A moment later the other engine shuts down, in conjunction with a very loud clanking noise. Carol says "Stop all that high pitched noise, I'm trying to read my Cosmo". Bob turns off the engine ignition switches, and all of the alarms stop, except one. Bob frantically scans all of the gadgets on the bridge, and sees an outline of his boat, with lots of little red lights on it. The one that is lit, is marked "High Water Alarm". The kids come running up to the bridge screaming, "the floor is wet in our cabin". Bob runs down, looks into the companion way, and sees two inches of water over the carpet in the forward cabin. He also smells some exhaust fumes in the cabin.

Bob now has an inkling there may be a real problem now, and he should get some help. For the first time on the trip, he turns on the VHF radio, and starts to yell "Mayday, Mayday". The Coast Guard answers, and starts to ask questions. One of the questions is, "where are you?". It takes Bob some time to figure how to get the TV off of the chartplotter thingy, and get it on a chart page with his position. He tells them the position, and seconds later, all power on the boat disappears. Bob thinks maybe they need those orange floating jacket things, but he doesn't know where they are, and besides, Carol wouldn't get into that black greasy water anyway. One of the kids suggests that the raft in a fiberglass box behind them would be useful. They all rush to the back of the bridge and stare at it. A cord is spotted, and one of the kids jerks it, and it explodes open just in time. The water is now at the bridge, and they all pile into the orange raft, just as the vessel gracefully sinks away underneath them through the thick black goo.

A helicopter shows up, and Bob, Carol, and the kids, are saved, but the Magnifico 50' yacht has now been added to Bob's "Museum of Shattered Dreams" vast collection.

This scenario is possible, although most likely not as Bob and Carol experienced it. I'm not going to turn this into a science fair project, but I will  layout in general terms what is in the oil slick, and what impact it could have on your boat, should you encounter it. I will also add some links for further discovery, if you are so inclined.

The goop in the water can be generically described as "Sweet Louisiana Crude" A crude oil is described as "Sweet", if it has less than .05% sulfur content. Crude oil is a hydrocarbon soup, that is processed into fuels (gasoline), solvents, and many other products. In its raw form, there are many materials naturally present such as Butane, Methane, Ethane, and many more "ane's" are on this list. All of these hydrocarbons can attack, and damage materials that are not designed to withstand contact with them.

So what does this have to do with with your boat. The chemicals present in the oil slick can attack gasket materials, and hoses that are not specifically designed to resist these hydrocarbons. Go to West Marine, and check out the cost differential between 10 feet of fuel line hose, and 10 feet of water line hose. There is a huge difference in price (400%), because materials designed to withstand degradation from hydrocarbons are much more costly to manufacture.

In Bob and Carol's case, I blamed the air conditioning system for sinking the boat, although I can certainly add many additional contributing causes. As the AC cooling water was pulled into the boat, the oil in it started to stick to the strainer basket, slowing the water flow, and hence the less cooling. The oil caused the raw water pump impeller to soften, and the hoses attached to the pump softened as well, and started to swell. With enough time, and pressure, the softened hose from the AC pump burst open, and the system starts to pump oily raw water into the bilge. This would run for a while, until the AC systems start to shut down, due to slow water flow, and the relays automatically turn off the pump. But by now the damaged impeller allows water to bypass it, and water still flows, but at a slower pace.

The generator suffered from a similar scenario, but in this case, the strainer just got plugged up with oil, and it did a high temperature shut down. It survives this time, but the entire cooling system will have to be flushed out, and the impeller replaced, at the minimum. This could be lot worse, depending on the type of cooling system it had.

I didn't talk about the head system, but if salt water was used for flushing, the oil can eat , or damage gaskets such as the joker valve, and hoses.You should also hope that manual heads had a vented loop above the water line, or this could have sunk the boat just as easily.

Now for the engines. In almost all cases, oil in the cooling water can go from just plugging things up, causing shutdowns, to destroying the engines. This goes for gas, diesel, and don't forget outboards. There are a myriad of scenarios here. In Bob's case, remember he smelled exhaust gas in the cabin? It could have come from a failed rubber exhaust elbow, that oil laden cooling water was passing through. It's tough enough job to keep cooling water away from the insides of engines, and transmissions with out worrying about all the gaskets that do that job, failing because of hydrocarbon degradation.

Can it get worse? Sure it can. How about coating your zincs with a nice thick film of oil, rendering them useless. Your ground plate for the single side band radio will also suffer the same fate. The pretty vinyl boot stripe won't like the oil, the hull can stain, and how about the water lubricated dripless stuffing boxes. I'm not sure, but I suspect cutlass bearings most likely won't like the oil either. The list here is almost endless. It's hard enough to keep a boat operating in a highly corrosive salt water environment. Add this nasty hydrocarbon goo to the mix, and you will really shorten your vessels life, and spend a lot of extra money. Did I mention the potential for a fire? A burst hose, or failed gasket spraying crude oil laden water inside a hot engine compartment, does not bode well if an ignition source was available.

The birds, and marine life aren't surviving it, and your pleasure boat won't either!

If you go down into the oil today
You're sure of a big surprise.
If you go down in the oil today
Your boat better be in disguise.

For ev'ry skimmer that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today's the day the BP Oil has their picnic
.

(With apologies  to Mr. Hall for stepping on "The Teddy's Bear's Picnic)


Want to help? Here are some sources
What is crude oil, and what's in it.

Bill Bishop


A small postscript about the story.


I received a flurry of comments today after I posted this. They range from they liked the beginning, but not the technical end, they  hated the beginning, but liked the technical end, they liked it, and they hated it, it was too political, it will discourage boating, and it just made some people uncomfortable. I have fooled around with this story on and off today. It is what it is, and it will now stay this way.


This is a simple story. Bob and Carol, are the foils. They are the Eddie Haskell's of the world, and provide the set up for a general discussion of how the oil slick could affect a vessel. If the subject matter makes people uncomfortable, I'm ok with this, it should. I live In Sarasota Florida, a place with world renowned beaches, and a community whose primary income depends on these pristine beaches, boating, and fishing. It is also a community in denial. No task forces are looking into what to do if the oil gets to us. No planning is going on. We are advertising the fact that we don't have a problem, come visit, but no one is looking forward into the future, and we should be.


Tens of millions gallons have already spilled into the Gulf, and if you accept the the more conservative number of 35,000 barrels a day now being released into the Gulf. Thats 42 gallons in a barrel * 35,000 barrels = 1,470,000 gallons per day (NOAA estimate). Now lets just assume that the relief wells won't cap this problem until mid August, lets say 60 more days. The total gallons of crude oil released just over the next 60 days would be 88,600,000 gallons, or around ten times the Exxon Valdez spill. We can argue about the numbers, but they are staggering at any level. Now if you don't think this problem is going to impact Sarasota, and communities in the down stream flow of the Gulf Stream, including the eastern US coasts, you must have your head in the sand. Just ask someone from the coastal areas of Louisiana, what life is like now. Was it a bit political, yes. Did I try to make it a bit pointed, yes. Did it make you a little uncomfortable, I hope so. "


"We have met the enemy, and it is us". Walt Kelly.


Bill