On Board with Mark Corke

New England Hurricane

It was less than 14 months ago that we got slammed up here in the North East with a huge ice storm that knocked out our power for 10 days and now history has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Although it's not ice this time but wind that has brought down power lines and smashed boats into heaps. The governor has declared a state of emergency and it looks like another long cold spell without power for me.

Apparently 90 mph winds were recorded in nearby Portsmouth and it was this that led to the sort of destruction that you see in the picture. The mess is going to take some time to clear up and some people will not be boating this year as their boats will be a total loss.

Can you hear me now? Installing a VHF radio

Installing a VHF set is one of the best upgrades that you can do to your boat. A lot of boaters think that the use of a VHF set is now obsolete as they will just use their cell phones. This is very misguided as you may be out of cell range and you may not be able to call for help in an emergency. You will also be able to call a marina or another boat even if you don't know their name as most vessels and other radio stations maintain a listening watch on channel 16 which is the International distress and calling channel.

I installed a Uniden 525 similar to the one shown below.

 

You don't need a whole lot of tools but you do need to take your time and be through and precise. In addition to the tools and the actual radio you will also need an antenna and some cable to connect the radio to the power supply. You should follow any instructions that come with the radio with respect to cable sizing and fuses but these are pretty standard across the board. The step by step below should give you a good understanding of what is involved even if it does not match your particular application exactly.

 

1. Start by reading and fully understanding the instructions that come with the radio set. Then make a list of components that you will need which you can gather together before you start so that you will not have to run back and forth to the store once you actually get going.

 

2. Work out the position of the radio set and cable runs and affix the clips to hold the cables neatly out of the way. I have seen so many boats where the owner, in a hurry to get the radio working has just temporarily connected everything up and the wiring is mess. With the clips mounted screw the radio in position. The radio will either be mounted in a bracket, called a trunnion mount or will be flush mounted in a panel, usually close to the helm position.

 

3. Connect the power connection at the back of the radio to the black and red power lead. As shown here this is often a waterproof snap together connector. Starting at the back of the radio and working back towards the power supply enables excess cable to be removed. Avoid curled up excess cabling at the back of the radio at all costs which can lead to eddy currents causing interference to transmissions and mysterious compass deviations.

 

4. Strap down the cables so that they lie flat and neat.

 

5. Cut the cables to the correct length. They should be not too tight nor have too much slack in them, aim for a graceful loop when the wires terminate. The red wire will connect to the fused distribution panel just visible top left and the black to the negative bus bar on the right side.

 

6. Make neat and proper connections using crimped terminals and heat shrink. Never just simply wind a cable around a screw. The connection to the bus bar is a captive ring type while a spade connector was required for making the proper connection to the back of the distribution panel. For more on how to make proper electrical connections you can read my earlier post by clicking here.

7. Ensure that the correct size fuse is used to protect the equipment. A fuse that is too large will fail to blow if a fault develops and either the radio could be fried or a fire could start. The handbook that comes with the radio will tell you what size fuse is required.

8.The final step is to connect up the antenna which nearly always means that you have to put a plug onto the end of the coaxial cable from the antenna. Follow the instructions that come with the plug but ensure that the outer shield wire does not make contact with the central conductor as the plug is assembled. Doing so will seriously degrade the performance of the radio.

9. Screw the antenna plug onto the socket onto the back of the radio. You are now ready to turn the set on and make sure that it works properly. If there is a problem recheck all your connections.

New England Boat show

It seems that I have only just returned from the Miami show and here I am at another. The New England Boat Show is at the Boston Convention and exhibition center and runs through till next Sunday the 28th of February. For at least part of the time I shall be there with fellow surveyors Norm LeBlanc and Joe Grenier. If you are planning a trip to the show please do drop by and say hello. As you can see in the picture we are easy to find right next door to the Raymarine booth.

Turbo swing

While I was down in Miami last week judging the Innovation awards I spent some time wandering the aisles and came across this product which had it been entered would have stood a very good chance of winning something. Called the Turbo Swing it is basically a stainless steel tube that mounts behind one or more outboard motors and provides an attachment point  for a skier or wake-board tow rope. Ingeniously simple it is a parabolic curve  that lets the skier move from side to side across the back of the boat without being constrained to a tow bit or pylon. This makes transitions form one side of the boat to the other easier and because the tow rope is behind the motors there is less chance of them being snagged in the prop. Also as far as I can tell because the tow is after the engines  and almost over the point of thrust  less power should be needed when turning the boat from one direction to another. If water skiing is not your thing then I can see that the Turbo Swing could be of interest to small towing operators and small inshore rescue vessels.

Price depends on the size of the model required and whether it needs to go around one or two motors. Installation looks like a straightforward procedure as it attaches to the engine mounts and thus saves having to install an arch or large pylon so could pay for itself in the saving of not having to install either of these two latter options.

And finally lest you have not spotted it in the picture above the tow rope would not normally be that short but is just for boat show static display purposes.

Standard Horizon AIS radio

It looks like Standard Horizon are on to a winner with their new  GX2100 VHF radio. In addition to it being a fully featured VHF radio with DSC etc it also very cleverly integrates an AIS receiver into the unit as well. Considering that a AIS receiver from West marine costs the best part of $500 and this still has to be connected to a compatible multi function display or chart plotter then this makes the GX2100 even better value. On the display that you can see above your boats heading is symbolized with a small black arrow in the center of the range circles and the four closest AIS equipped targets are also shown as circle with a small tail. You can scroll through each of these targets in turn and to the right of the display the call sign, the speed and direction of the vessel and all other necessary information is displayed. Up until now I have avoided installing an AIS receiver as it is just another piece of equipment but now one can simply replace the existing VHF set that I have aboard and get the functionality of the AIS as well in one small compact bundle. Incidentally these is an NMEA output on the back of the unit so that it can connect to a suitable multi function display and show AIS information overlaid on the chart.

I have requested a review unit and hope to give it a try in the real world at sea in due course. The GX2100 will be on sale in stores for $399 I am told and at that price I can see the manufacturers selling an awful lot of these radios.

I personally was not the only one who was impressed, my fellow judges at the Miami boat show also like it too and so we gave it an NMMA innovation award in the electronics category.

BMW wins 33rd America's Cup - so what?

So the cup is coming back to the USA. I am sure that I am not  the only one who is less than underwhelmed. What started off as a Corinthian event has now turned into  farce that is played out in the courtroom as much as on the race course. All the arguments that take place before every event and go on for months overshadow in my mind at least anything that actually happens on the water. After all the millions and millions that are spent, the race almost seems to come and go without anyone noticing.

Real boating is to me at least, and many of the thousands of On Board readers about getting out on the water in small affordable boats.

Keeping the boat sweet

A good tip for keeping the boat smelling sweet and odor free is to place a small open bucket of BBQ charcoal briquettes in the bilge or other area which has a malodorous odor. The charcoal will absorb the pong and keep the boat smelling nice. Best of all when the charcoal looses it's capacity for absorbing smells simply replace it and use the old stuff on the grill.

Corke Junior

I have a lot of news to pass on from the Miami show but before getting into that here is an unashamed plug of congratulations to my son Sam who recently won an RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) pennant for racing at the awards dinner at his local sailing club.

Sam has been been having a lot of success recently sailing various classes of dinghies and is now well on his way to becoming a certified captain and sailing instructor. 

Sam started sailing early and first went sailing at age 3 months aboard a  small cruiser. As I recall he slept most of the time on the leeward bunk below and each time that the boat tacked I  had to go below and transfer him from one side of the boat to the other so that he would not roll off onto the cabin sole.

Nifty table at Miami Boat show

I've spent the past couple of days in Miami judging the entries and selecting winners for the NMMA Innovation awards. I'll bring you more information on what won and all the other things that I managed to get to see at the showin due time. But one of the products that did an award was this table which was fitted on the aft cockpit deck of the Hunt 52.

 

At first glance it looks just like many other Hi-Lo tables but what makes this table unique is that it has a unique mechanism that enables the owner to not only move the table up and down but also in and out or in other words further away from the seat.

When  a table is required for dining in needs to be fairly close to the person sitting behind it but when lowered and used in coffee table mode the requirement changes and it needs to be somewhat farther away from the front of the seat.

 

This functionality is achieved by setting the table onto a couple of arms which orbit around the columns. Thus it is possible to swing the table outboard of the columns in coffee table mode and back in again for dining.

Here is the top view with the center leaf removed, which you can just see on the seat in the background. Functional and elegant in either position this table does go along way to addressing the problem of getting a table with a fixed pedestal perform two separate but complimentary functions well.

LORAN - the end is nigh

Today is the last day that the LORAN chains will be fully operational in the USA. As I write this the US government is starting the process of decommissioning with total closure no later than the end of October 2010.

This means that if you are currently using LORAN then you will have to switch over to another system of electronic navigation with all due haste as the position fix if you can get one at all can no longer be relied upon.