Peter Turner visited on Friday and did some more installation work.
He connected the masthead antenna to the VHF radio and we started to hear traffic from the Mandurah base, which is pretty impressive.
He then set up the Raymarine C120 display/chart plotter. The installation of the GPS antenna went without a hitch. Once this was done the C120 displayed an image of the boat and as I moved the cursor around I got a display of the bearing and distance. He also interfaced the C120 with the Autohelm ST6000 self steering (using the "sea talk" protocol) so that, for instance, I can see the angle of the rudder on the C120 (that will give me an indication of weather helm), and the C120 can issue commands to the Autohelm to steer the boat to a way point. The C120 comes with a rough chart of the entire world - good enough to get from place to place, but not good enough to get details on places. It looks like I'll be purchasing about four Navionics chart cartridges to get to the US, covering Australia, NZ, the South Pacific, and from Hawaii to the US. The Navionics "Gold" charts are the standard top-quality very detailed charts. The "Platinum" pampers you with 3-D views, pictures of ports so that you can see what you are getting into, depth contours that change according to the time of day and hence the tide, and the ability to step through a 24-hour cycle to see if you are going to hit bottom while trying to get some sleep at anchor. Very sexy.
It is a long, long way from navigation by compass bearings, cocked hats, running fixes, set and drift vector analysis, celestial observations, etc. Of course one good lightning strike or some serious international warfare and it will be the white-haired sea dinosaurs from the old school who will find their way.
The radar installation is tentatively scheduled for next Monday. However, there is likelihood that the radar bracket will have to be moved down the mast a bit to ensure that the radar dome is well clear of the inner forestay. I ran into Edgar the rigger at the jetty today and he is aware of the problem. Hopefully he and Peter will get together and resolve the problem by Monday.
The AIS is a Comar CSB200. It just a black box with a couple of LED's. The LED's are useful. One of them comes on when a ship has been detected. It requires its own dedicated GPS antenna and Peter has taken an unused Garmin GPS antenna that came with Pachuca back to the shop to see if it will work with the Comar. If it doesn't I'll sacrifice the Lowrance GPS and use its antenna for the Comar. The other requirement is that I obtain an MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The MMSI will be transmitted by the AIS and I believe also 406 MHz GPS's, giving identification of the ship. I'll fax that application in tomorrow.
Yesterday I installed the lee sheets on the settees of the main cabin. We will sleep in these settees when underway. To avoid the trouble of having to remove the bedding of the starboard settee in order to access the valve that switches water tanks I cut a slot at the base of the settee and moved the valve for really, really easy access.
I ordered the 4-person RFD life raft (There goes another $3300!). It will be deck-mounted in a canister. For $120 I purchased the "hydrostatic release" option. The idea, as I understand it, is that if the boat goes down before we have time to launch the raft a pressure switch will go off at a depth of about 3 meters. When the switch goes off a knife cuts through a restraining rope, the lashings are released, and the raft inflates. Hopefully we would then see the raft pop out of the water and the next task would be to swim like hell before the wind blows it away. Next Monday we are to visit RFD to give them a set of items that we would like packed into the raft in addition to the ones to be provided. At this point I am thinking of a pair of reading glasses, a Ventolin puffer, two parachute flares, and some water dye. I'm still debating on whether to pack a 406 EPIRB, or rely on a grab-bag.
Attached are photos of the chart plotter, repositioned water valve, and lee sheet being road tested.
No comments:
Post a Comment