"the goodies arrived"
My experience in fog was suitably nerve jangling that I vowed never to be caught out again. Initially my intention was to acheive this goal by never again putting to sea unless there was completely clear skies and a forecast of nothing less than perfect visibility for several days either side of my intended excursion.
"the goodies arrived"
Sadly I live in England and my stubborn but sensible approach was, although very safety concious, certain to shorten my sailing season to around three days a year. As a result I began the process of scouring the magazine articles and websites for what was current in the world of marine electronics so I could install a suitable array of beeping screens and glowing buttons that would allow me the confidence to continue sailing even if an unforecast area of resticted visibility was to blight me once again.
It appears to be a worrying trend these days whether its computing, home entertainment
systems or boat gadgets, to continually confuse the reader with a disturbing
array of three letter anacronyms (TLA). It is almost as if we have made the
technology so complex that our language can no longer keep up. Alternatively
you might be of the opinion that the initials are to hide something so complex
that a mere consumer would have no hope of understanding the jargon, after all
if it has enough letters after its name it must be assumed to have been given
them as some kind of accolade.
According to the learned opinion of the manufacturers advertisements I needed
- as a bare minimum - a WAAS enabled GPS, a DSC VHF that complied with GMDSS,
a NAVTEX receiver and an AIS Receiver, all joined together with NMEA. To put
to sea with anything less appeared foolhardy in the extreme, and it was a wonder
that before all this guff was available any vessel ever managed to return to
its home port.
In a nutshell the GPS tells you where you are. The AIS Radar tells you where
everyone else is, and the DSC VHF allows you to shout at them if they get too
close (or alternatively allows you to hear them shouting at you if you get in
their way).
Once I had selected what appeared to be the right equipment for my boat and
my budget, I went on the internet and in less than the time it took to find
a parking space outside my local chandlery, I had shaved about 10% off the best
prices I could find advertised in the boating press. I had to remember to take
into account the delivery charges, and no one supplier was cheaper on everything
so I purchased from several different companies, but even with all that factored
in I had made a considerable saving.
I placed the orders, and a few days later the goodies arrived
Moving up from a basic GPS only unit to a flashy colour plotter was like upgrading
from a calculator to an Apple Mac. The range of units available was mind bending
and all of them were packed with features that actually appeared as if they
would genuinely make the navigating of a small yacht at sea easier and safer.
The siting of the old GPS aboard Enigma had been on the instrument bridge behind
the wheel, making it perfect to program in the marina whilst confortably sat
down, but at sea the navigator had to get his eyes to the level of the helsmans
crotch and then stab at the controls whilst the spokes of the wheel continually
swept in front of the control surface. I opted for installation in a much more
sensible position on the instrument bridge above the companionway. This would
mean the helm could see it - as long as the graphics were big enough - but also
allowed navigating to be performed under the protection of the spray hood.
My old box aboard Enigma was a Garmin and I had always preferred the terminology
and menu structure of the Garmin to other units I had used or owned. The price
to features ratio for their range was impressive, and my opinions were also
supported wholeheartedly by a variety of comparitive magazine reviews, which
I had kept hidden in the bottom drawer safely out of the wifes sight.
It was also imperitive, but so very easily overlooked in all the excitement,
that my new unit actually fitted the instrument bridge.
The
GPS before and after instalation
I have to say that it was a doddle to fit. Garmin made the instructions very clear, and ultimately all I had to do was cut a template out that was supplied with the unit and follow the instructions. Drill here, cut there, allow for this here, and finally replace the flimsy bit of paper with the expensive box of electronics. The actual drilling was a tad nerve racking. A good cock up at this stage would have caused untold misery and expense, but I think the fear of this made me measure twice and cut once. Though in practice it was probaly measure four times. get someone else to check it, measure again. make a pilot hole, measure again. look for obvious errors, measure again, pace around nervously, continue drilling. Stop. look for something really obvious like it's upside down or that once installed the companionway hatch will not close. Measure again, drill, cut, look for flaws in what you have done and then when all was confirmed as being well, fit the unit, tighten it up, nod sagely to yourself because you always knew it would be fine, and then when you are absolutely sure no one is looking punch the air whilst wah-whooping in tirumph and doing a very embarrassing dance.
Bought when first I put my little 22' trailer
sailor to sea, my cheap old VHF radio had become a freind. The thing had
been working perfectly for 10 years and the gentle tone of its speaker had clearly
received messages from Humber, Thames, Dover, Solent and Portland coastguards
and had faithfully broadcast my voice loudly and clearly to some of the finest
- and the foulest - harbourmasters in the country. So replacing it just to comply
with the new GMDSS
technology was a little frustrating, but then that is the price of progress.
The new VHF had to be at least as reliable as the old one, but I couldn't justify
any unit that was four times the cost, because my bottom of the range unit had
served me so well for so long. In the end I opted for the mid priced SILVA S15.
This had the ability to receive and display NAVTEX messages, a feature which
was unique and would save the price of a seperate stand alone NAVTEX unit, though
if I had had any inkling of the catalog of nightmares this feature would generate
I would have settled for something a great deal simpler.
The AIS RADAR and DSC VHF installed
When one is poking wires through the outside of your boat to the inside, one
wants to be as neat as possible. Partially because it looks nice and partially
because it doesn't allow as much water in that way. So when manufacturers fit
nice large plugs or juicy fat connectors on the end of their cables they can
hardly pretend to be surprised when the boatowner cuts the end off to allow
it to pass through a small hole in the hull.
As a result, to allow the cable to pass through the various bulkheads it would
encounter on its journey from the taffrail to the saloon, I merrily chopped
the fat DIN type male and female plugs off the ends of the cables, and then
deciding to elliminate the need for these plugs completely, I directly soldered
the yellow red and blue wires coming from the Navtex receiver, onto the yellow
red and blue terminals on the tiny adaptor box the Navtex needs to interface
with the S15.
It would be logical for anyone soldering the end of a connector back on in this
way to assume that the manufacturer would choose to use a consistent wiring
convention on both ends of the same cable. Unfortunately the Swedes who made
my radio have chosen to use a more challenging concept, and although they use
the same colour and gauge of wire in both receiver and adaptor box, they have
opted to use a different colour coding scheme. As a result when I confidently
turned it on, I sent 12 volts of power up the data wire of the receiver, and
with a withering beep of protest, it expired in a wisp of foul smelling acrid
smoke.
The man at Silva UK in Scotland was very helpful in explaining how I had come
to destroy £100 worth of electronics first time it was turned on, but
also pointed out that since I had chopped the connectors off it was no longer
covered under any manufacturers warranty. This, coupled with the incredibly
unergomic menu structure on the radio, and the fact that some function buttons
are on the mic whilst others are on the radio for no reason other than to confuse,
I have formed the opinion that the Silva S15 is a badly cobbled together pile
of kak that has clearly been designed by a large group of engineers that quite
obviously did not communicate with each other. Not a particularly strong basis
for designing a piece of safety equipment primarily meant for emergency communications.
Red Jet 4 leaves Southampton at 37 Knots
All ships over 300 Tonnes now have to carry an AIS
transmitter that every few seconds broadcasts very useful information about
the ship. Information like the ships name and exactly where it is. The Nasa
Marine AIS Radar receives this information, and tracks it, which means that
if the ship is moving, the unit can work out how fast the ship is going and
in what direction. If you add the information from your GPS in as well, the
Radar can work out where you are and draw a pretty picture, with you in the
middle and everyone else that has an AIS transmitter dotted around you at the
correct range and bearing. Fantastic in restricted visibility or when in the
open sea, as you can receive the ships signals up to 36 miles away, and if you
know they are there you can take whatever evading action required to avoid being
run over.
On the down side, the instruction book is rubbish and the user interface is
pretty awful too, but most important of all, not every vessel is fitted with
AIS, and far far more scary than that was that we noticed that some vessels
that should have been on the screen just didn't appear! Most notably for us
when on Southampton water was that none of the high speed Red Jet ferries that
go between Southampton and Cowes showed up at all. Even weirder is that they
do now? Inexplicable and very frighteneing in fog.
Despite its drawbacks though, as a cautiously used safety aid it is definately
better than nothing. On our channel crossing in the summer it was a god send,
picking up the massive container ships that were greasing along the channel
at 25 knots before they had appeared over the horizon.
The most complicated sounding bit of the whole project was to make all three
of the above units talk to each other using the NMEA
0183 serial communication protocol to get them to exchange data. Sounds
very complex indeed and frought with the kind of problems that would make an
electronics engineer take a week off work to avoid getting roped into, but in
fact it was the easiest bit of all.
Simply identify the NMEA wires from all the devices and join them together.
In this case NMEA 'Transmit' or 'out' of the GPS,. and NMEA 'in' or 'receive'
on the AIS and the DSC VHF. Twist the wires together and turn everything on.
And that is it!
To test it before installation I even held the three wires together
with my fingers and it worked every single time.
Buy Garmin because it offers really good value for money with well thought
out features, an intuitive user interface, clear instructions and trouble free
installation, and don't buy Silva or Nasa Marine because they dont.
Oh, and dont be scared of
NMEA.
