Predicting the boating trends of 2014

It's an annual ritual. I don my pointed hat emblazoned with stars and moons, and cast the bones to divine the future of boating. The accuracy of the predictions is easily on par with the Magic Eight Ball, but with more of a bourbon infused necromancy feel.

The Arduino autopilot that Jack built

Autopilot kit for sale. Only $350, some assembly required. Jack Edwards, a mechanical, engineer, loom builder (yes as in weaving), and many other things in his professional career has built a functioning Ardunio based sail boat auto pilot system. The little Ardunios have piloted his aptly named boat the Wile E. Coyote over 400 miles this summer using both heading, and GPS track mode with cross track error correction. There are some chores left to complete such as wind instrument integration, but it's an impressive success with such a tiny capital outlay. 

December 25th

“I once bought my kids a set of batteries for Christmas with a note on it saying, toys not included.
-Bernard Manning

The Boaters "Twelve Days of Christmas

On the twelfth day of Christmas
my true love sent to me:
twelve bankruptcy attorneys
eleven plumbers plumbing
ten canvas stichers
nine genset repairmen
eight mechanics wrenching
seven electricians shorting
six gelcoat fixers
five golden props
four Sea Tows a towing
three insurance agents
two bottom divers
and a boat in a marin a

Merry Christmas to all from Bill, Kate, and the greyhound girls.

The Marine Concepts facility visit.

Building a production boat is like a recipe for Cajun Gumbo. First you start with a roux, or in our case a boat plug and mold. Most production boats are now designed using CAD (Computer Aided Design) software. This process yields many advantages. The design output is very precise. Hydrodynamic and stability characteristics are modeled, along with displacement, water resistance, and much more.

If a mold's plug is going to be CNC/robotically milled the design complexity of the plug can be increased well past the point where humans can efficiently hand make them. For example bait wells, storage compartments, anchor locker, or console can all be integrated into one deck mold.

More complex hull shapes, steps and strake designs are now possible. Some CAD software can model pulling parts from a mold by checking for interference problems before construction. This answers questions like, "Can my design with a reverse transom actually be released from the mold?"

The first thing I noticed about my visit to JRL Ventures/Marine Concepts is the vocabulary. The main term used is "Tooling". Using this word is a reflection of the way they see their business, and technologies they apply.

Boeing and Lockheed use tooling. The boat builder historically uses molds. They're exactly the same thing, but the mind-set between these two words can often be huge. Tooling in my mind immediately implies aerospace grade precision, and this is what Marine Concepts is all about. 

Verado/Uflex Autopilot Hydraulic Plumbing DIY 101

Installing a autopilot with a Verado or the Ulex equivalent steering system is not difficult, but it does come with some nuances. These systems come with a proprietary high pressure power steering assist pump, and helm pump. Despite this, the plumbing is pretty straight forward, but the fittings and hoses are different. In this case we are installing a Raymarine system, but the process is similar for the other systems.

The saga of Bob's Boathouse restaurant

The permit application for the new Bob's Boathouse restaurant in Sarasota was applied for in April 2010, and granted in September 2010. Construction moved at a pace not unlike the slow drift of continents apart. With great fanfare though they finally opened after over three years of construction in November. Bob's Boathouse restaurant was back in Sarasota after a decade long hiatus.

The building site selected for Sarasota's first Bob's Boathouse restaurant was a pastoral piece of waterfront property at the end of Old Stickney Point Rd on Siesta Key. It consisted of a small retail building, a tiny stand alone wine and beer bar, and a half a dozen quaint (spelled dilapidated) wood framed cottages, one of which I lived in during the early seventies.

The reverse polarity light AC leaking musing

If white touches green, your boat can get mean. What this freshly made up maxim means is the neutral white AC wires are never supposed to be connected to the green grounding wires on your boat period. Well almost, the gods of technical details say there is a small exception to this rule, and it is the reverse polarity light.

Holiday appetizer from the galley

I understand the the dilemma many boaters face during the holiday season. You've been invited to that dockside potluck, and you don't know what to bring. Staring at the rusty one burner alcohol stove, and the three cubic foot icebox you clench up. No Beef Wellington is going to come out of this galley, and you're out of liver pate anyway. Looking in the pantry at the can of Spam, and the box of KD, you decide your famous fried Spam casserole isn't going to cut it with your erudite boating friends palates. There is an answer however, the quick and easy festive holiday season..... Baloney Cake.

Say Ahhhhh

It wasn't that the fix was hard, but that the process was so maddening. The existing shower drain hole was just the wrong size for everything period. It's a shower drain circa the late seventies that had a home style fixture originally installed. It long ago disintegrated into crumbling green shards during its final decent into darkness. The associated pump had long since passed away, and the hoses were desiccated and in a state of rigor mortis. These were the easy things to replace. The drain fitting, not so much.

Addiction

The first day going cold turkey was easy, and the only issue was what to do with all of the extra time on my hands. On the second day as usual I got up early, made a cup and plunked down in front of the computer. I opened my home page, and there was zip, nada, squat.

The new Garmin products lollapalooza

I have to admit it's one of the most impressive product roll outs I have seen in some time. Garmin is introducing nearly 50 new products including their new SideVü and DownVü CHIRP sonars. 

Add to this list the new 800, and 1000 series combo chartplotters with built in sounders, the new and free Garmin Helm iPad app, and lots of new software updates.

There is also the new Nexus wireless twin vane wind instrument, and it's one very sexy looking device. Built in solar panels keep it charged up. I'm playing with one as part of a larger project.

The list keeps on going. The Meteor sound system, LakeVü cartography (the umlauts are killing me kids), advanced high def radar and more. You know I don't do electronics product reviews here, but I can tell you nobody does it better than Ben Ellison at Panbo.com.

Technical writing

I have written technical materials most of my life. The past few years are the first time I have written just for the pleasure of it. In previous years as the head sales guru for custom built robotic and factory automation companies, I was always in charge of the proposal generation. There's an old rule of thumb in the aerospace business that the weight of a proposal should be one pound per million dollars bid. There was a lot of truth to this.

Niney

This scenario eerily  reminds me of another. A owner had purchased a new boat, and had a long laundry list of things that he could not live without. A kick butt stereo, loads of electronics, and inexplicably, although this boat was just short of forty feet, there was no anchor winch and he wanted one. I go forward and stare at the bow. There is no anchor pulpit, and to install one the bow light and a cleat will have to be removed. Okay that can be done.  The story got worse when I actually looked inside the anchor locker and discovered it was barely large enough to hold a hundred feet of rode.

I called the manufacturer, and asked why the locker anchor was so small, there was no anchor pulpit, and it will take some heroics to install an anchor winch. There's a pause, and then the response. "Where we live if you go off shore in twenty minutes you're in a thousand feet of water, and you can't anchor anyway. Most of the people here use a anchor lifting ball to pull up the anchor."

"Okay" I said. "But where this boat lives you have to go an hour in a really fast boat to get into a hundred feet of water. Are you telling me that after spending nearly $300,000 on a boat almost forty feet long that you expect the owner to attach the ball, haul up the anchor, drag a couple hundred feet of wet rode, chain, anchor, and a two foot ball into the boat, sort it all out and stow it in a locker half the size of a real one single handed? Your kidding me right?" After a very long pause the customer support guy said, "Well he bought the boat didn't he?" I adjusted the boat to the way it should have been built, but not without some tribulations and real expense.

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.