We're looking for the trash fence...

I’m in the middle of replacing a gate valve on my boat with a proper seacock and thought I’d share this video from Forespar. It does an excellent job of showing step by step what you need to do.

NOTE: Link lost due to bit rot.

Saturday morning we’re going back into the yard to have the foredeck fiberglass work completed. I’ve done a lot of the prep work, but I want this structural work to be done by skilled professionals.

When it’s completed the foredeck will be closed off completely, removing the anchor locker door and the only hole will be the hawse pipe for the chain. There will be foot switches and a chain stopper but the only hole that is open all the time will be the hawse pipe.

On the left you can see the board I made to be the core for the deck area where the door (also pictured) used to be. This is a 1/2” marine grade plywood which will sit on top of an additional 1/2” of marine grade plywood that is the length and width of almost the entire foredeck. The entire foredeck is going to have an additional 1/2” glassed underneath it and then the area where the windlass will sit will be at least 1” thick of plywood and fiberglass. It should be VERY stout!

With this close to completion we’re already making plans for Thanksgiving and Xmas Cruises! We’ll have some fun things to talk about then (Dawn’s Job) but I’ll still have the technical stuff for all you geeks out there.

I’m in the market for an LSZ-1 if you’re selling one! I was looking at an older unit on online and contact Matt at Sailrite who sent me this great video about the difference between the version 1 and 2 of their machines. Also, here’s a playlist covering many of the features of the Sailrite LSZ-1. These are very well respected, can’t find anyone who has a bad thing to say about them.

Those videos are under their old YouTube account, you should also check out their new one SailRite1.

Check out this awesome video from the Coastal Ocean Observing Center at University of New Hampshire

It’s K-Lassic !

Thanks to Kurt at UNH for the link

Manning Up In Alaska by Dick Drechsler

This is a great book for cruisers who want to see all the little things you will have to deal with while out sailing. No matter that Dick’s pockets are deeper than a lot of cruisers; you’re still going to have to deal with the same equipment failures and navigational challenges. This is one of those books you can read a few pages at a time (good for reading in the head) as opposed to a must read, but it’s a solid book for cruisers to get a feel for the life of cruising.

Just wanted to take a second to give a shout out to a bunch of mailing lists I’m on as I think they useful to anyone looking to go cruising some day.

Puget Sound Cruising Club: The PSCC holds monthly local meetings (if North Seattle Community College is local to you) with topical speakers and on the water meetups. I find the list is a good source of local knowledge and referrals. Most of the members in PSCC have no long-term cruising plans beyond the Puget Sound, but they love to hear about your plans. When Dawn and I did last go to one of their Friday meetings we felt like a bit of a novelty, being under 40, but we were very warmly received. I’d probably find time for the meetings if they weren’t on Friday nights, but the list is a great resource even without the meetings.

These next set groups are area specific and the membership seems to be people actually cruising or planning to leave shortly. Conversations tend to focus around best cruising guides, entrance requirements changes, and referrals for mechanics, haul outs, marinas and anchorages along the route. I am sure there are groups for other regions but as I am not yet interested in those areas I’m not on those lists.

• Southbound Group Focusing on the West Coast of the America’s
• Pacific Puddle Jump This group is affiliated with the Latitude 38 Pacific Puddle Jump Rally, which is not really a rally, but more of a support network of boats leaving southern Mexico and Central Mexico and arriving in French Polynesia.
• Circumnavigation & Ocean Crossing Going further? Going Everywhere? This is probably the group to look for information not covered in one of the other groups.

There are also several lists oriented towards different technologies you might find of interest;

• Airmail2000 This list will walk you through setting Airmail using an internet connection so you can at least rule out the SW not working when you go to use it on your SSB Rig
• NavMonPC NavMonPC is a PC based instrument display that works by displaying the data on your NMEA network. I am experimenting with this on Deep Playa. The guy who writes it is very nice and fixes bugs as you point them out, but it has a ways to go still in terms of usability, modernity of UI and reliability.
• WINMOR A software based PACTOR hardware modem equivalent. I have a PACTOR so I don’t really follow this group too closely. If you don’t have a PACTOR you should at least give this a try.
• 12VDC_Power Most members are doing off the grid installations,but they know a lot about 12V DC, solar panels, wind generators, etc.
• Honda_EU2000_Generators All hail the mighty Honda EU2000, enough said.

How do you handle all of that email?

1. I use an email address that I don’t plan to use all that often once we go cruising. That way random people won’t have my email address I plan to use on my SSB.
2. DIGEST MODE !!! You can edit your subscription to any Yahoo! Group so it sends you a daily summary email of the posts on the group. For these groups you’ll get one email per group instead of 5 to 10 (or more).
3. Stay on Topic – These lists are about getting things done, not social networks (well maybe PSCC is, but it has low email volume) so keep your replies and questions relevant.

Lot of information to glean and by all means don’t just ask for help, try to offer some answers as well these lists only work if people who have information share it.

I feel like the Scout Report includes this type of stuff just for me, thanks!

The Mariners' Museum http://www.marinersmuseum.org/

Started in 1930 by Archer Milton Huntington, The Mariners' Museum has grown over the past eight decades to include a host of exhibits on the seafaring life, including the recently added Monitor Center. Visitors who are new to the Museum's site may wish to take the virtual tour on the homepage to get a sense of their collections. Moving on from that, visitors should also click on the "Exhibitions" area. The best part of this section are the "Stationary Voyages", which take a look at boats as objects of art, interpreted through contemporary photographs. Visitors are also encouraged to add their own photographs to this particular collection. Also, the "Collections Online" area allows users to search over 30,000 items online. The website also includes ample visitor information for those who find themselves in the Hampton Roads area, and there's also an email form that allows interested parties to ask curators question about the museum

>From The Scout Report, Copyright Internet Scout 1994-2010. http://scout.wisc.edu

I was reading this post on Panbo about the RogueWave Wi-Fi system which is the same as the Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP I am using at a much inflated price. Granted I don’t’ have anyone to call for tech support, but for this, it isn’t something I need tech support. Here’s a picture of my setup which I have mounted on my mizzen masthead.

The components

• Ubiquiti Bullet M2-HP\ This is the Wi-Fi Bridge. It connects the network on my boat to external Wi-Fi networks. If you were comparing this to your home system, it serves basically the same purpose as the cable or DSL modem (but different).
• Linksys E3000 Access Point\ This is the network the PCs and iPhones and other such toys on the boat connect to. I picked this one because it had a USB port on it which allows me to have a large USB drive plugged into it and to have all ship’s documents, manuals, PDF catalogs, magazines, etc available to all the computers I let on my network. I can also grab that little USB Drive if I need to ditch the boat and have all my documents with me in electric format as well and hard copies in my ditch bag.
• 12Volt POE outlet – I don’t have a product link for this. I had one from another device and reused it. POE – Power Over Ethernet is standard that allows power (heh!) and data to travel on the same Ethernet cable. This little device has an AC  to DC converter wall wart that connect to it. One Ethernet port to connect to the Bullet and another to the Linksys Internet port.
• 50’ Direct Burial Ethernet cable Direct Burial cable is filled with gel so water won’t get into it and wick down inside. This is the Ethernet cable I ran up my mast and connected the POE outlet to the Bullet.
• Digital Antenna 825-WLW Wi-Fi Antenna I was buying a Digital Antenna VHF and AIS antenna so I went with their Wi-Fi antenna as well.
• Blue Sea CableClam + P-Clip Together these hold the Ethernet cable securely as it exits the mast, prevent it from chafing on the hole in the mast and prevents water from getting into the mast as well.

In order to protect the radio and secure it to the masthead I made a PVC sleeve that the radio is inside and the the antenna attaches to. I then made a teak bracket to hold the sleeve to the mast because I couldn’t think of anything better and was running out of time. Here’s the basics on that.

• Protective Sleeve for the Radio\ I didn’t want to leave the Bullet exposed to the harsh UV and rain, so I made a PCV Tube that the protects the Bullet. Here’s how that works:
• Let’s pretend the Bullet is 5” long
• I have a 7” x 2” PVC tube (approximately)
• The Top has a PVC Fitting that has a 1” threaded hole. This end is sealed with silicone and two screws to hold it securely but also to allow it to be taken apart if needed.
• The Digital Antenna 825-WLW threads into the 1” hole on the top of the sleeve.
• The Bullet threads directly onto the bottom of the Antenna
• The bottom of the PVC tubs has an cap with a hole drilled in it to allow the POE wire to exit and is glued onto the bottom of the sleeve with PVC primer and cement, just like when we made the conduit for the mast.
• Custom Mount for the Sleeve I could not figure out how to mount the PVC pipe to my mast, so I made a bracket out of teak that is essentially a rectangle but with a half-circle routed out of one side, kind of like a U-Chanel. I bolted the teak to the mast and then used hose clamps to hold the PVC sleeve in the U channel. This was a tad tricky as I had to drill some holes through the teak for the hose clamps to pass through. click this pic to se a close-up of that bracket.  I admit it’s not my best work, but its functional and it’s 40’ in the air so I’m never going to see it anyway. :-)

That’s all of the pieces and how they go together. Let me know if you need me to write up any more about the wiring or the actual network setup. One thing I will not is that the POE and Linksys are currently running on AC, I plan to convert them to run directly of the DC power in the future.

After the first night of trying to sleep in the same cabin with the DSM 250 on “low” backlight lead to me turn it off at nights. But this isn’t so good because then the buffer of data is uses to charts graphs is lost.

Turns out you can do this, sort of. The Brightness button (the one that looks like a sun) and the three levels it cycles through are configurable. From any display screen press along:

1. Enter (to get into the config menus)
2. Select “Display Settings” and hit Enter.
3. Select “Backlight” and hit Enter\ At this point you’ll see settings for Low, Medium and High.
4. Change Low to 0% by selecting that line and hitting Enter.\ Then hit the down arrow till the value is Zero and hit Enter again.
5. Hit Back until your back at a standard instrument screen.

From here tap the Brightness button.

One of your clicks should turn the screen off completely. It’s probably not off completely in the electrical sense, but it certainly is on low and it’s not emitting light so you can sleep soundly or just have the display be less intrusive.

!!UPDATE!!

I forgot to mention. While the display is dimmed to 0%, the DSM250 is still capturing data which means all the trend charts you want to see (like barometric pressure) will have historical data, instead of being blank like they would be if turned the display completely off.

A great workaround!

I’m going to start working on a feature comparison of PC based navigation software packages and could use some input from you on what you want to know. Do you have a favorite feature you think should be in all nav programs? Let me know and I’ll try to include it in my research. Here’s what I have so far after just a few minutes:

• Company
• Software
• Website
• Price
• MOB
• RADAR Overlay
• Tides
• NMEA 0183
• NMEA 2000
• Instruments
• Custom Depth
• Ship's Log
• Maintenance Log
• Ship Inventory
• Social Networking
• Photo Support

The obvious omission is chart format. That list of formats seems really really long, so I’m trying to figure out a way to handle that more efficiently than 30 different checkmarks.