On Board with Mark Corke

Filming from a boat

I wish I could claim to have shot this video but I did not but it is very instructional in getting a nice steady shot. This is shot on a calm lake and working on a tossing boat would be a little more trying and require different techniques. However what is also worth noting is that the video is shot on a full frame DSLR camera. I have just taken delivery of a Nikon D800 which has this capability and have yet to try shooting any movies with it but I will try to get something up on the blog soon just as soon as I have waded through the two hundred or so pages of the user manual!

 

Fridge tips

On a small boat keeping things cool can be chore in the hot weather especially if you do not have a fridge and do as I do and instead use an icebox. A well insulated icebox can be significantly improved by using a small self contained fan to circulate the cold air. One such device the cheap and cheerfull 'Fridgemate' fan. If you do an internet such you will come up with a ton of results; the best deal is often on Amazon.
Cold air being more dense than warm air tends to sink to the bottom of the ice chest but placing the fan which runs off it's own small battery in the bottom of the cooler forces the air to circulate and thus cools the contents much better. For longer term storage I like to wrap the contents of the cooler in space blanket before placing them into the ice box. The space blanket takes up no space at all and will extend the storage time of the wrapped item by a day or more over similar unwrapped items.

Compact charging

 

Time was battery chargers on boats were large heavy ugly affairs that hummed a lot and produced huge amounts of heat. Not only that but they were very expensive too and only the largest boats tended to have them. Luckily things have moved on from those not too far off days and now we have beautifully compact units that do not use tons of electricity that is wasted as heat. Better yet the newer units, the smaller ones anyway, are pretty much fully water resistant if not waterproof thanks largely to their fully 'potted' electronics which are encapsulated in some form of resin. One such unit is the Turbo M106E from Powermania. Cost is a dollar less than the full eighty and at a shade under 5 pounds the weight is non issue. The makers claim that it is capable of charging a single battery bank of up to 72 amp hours but this I feel may be a little optimistic as bringing a large battery up to full charge takes amps and time and this may be where the 106 E falls down, however to be fair I have not seen or tried one as yet so cannot report on the makers claims with any authority. This is not a 'battery maintainer ' type of charger but a proper three stage unit offering bulk, absorbtion and float profiles so it should be safe to use on even expensive marine deep cycle batteries. User selectable for AGM, Gel and flooded cell types this charger would seem to be ideal for smaller boats like center consoles and dailsailers that have one or two group 24 batteries.

Fire fighting

Of all the things that can happen on your boat one of the most frightening has got to be a fire. We often think that keeping the boat afloat with the water on the outside is good thing and when i take a novice out sailing for the very first time the one thing that they are most afraid of is the boat sinking few if ever ask about the possibility of the boat catching on fire. The thing is that a only a few years ago fires aboard recreational boats were rare but with boaters wanting more creature comforts the risk has increased. Many boats have complex electrical systems which have the potential to start a fire should there be a short circuit or other problem then there is the obvious danger of propane bottles for cooking and heating to consider. A well found boat that has been well manufactured and maintained has little to fear but if the worst happens and a fire breaks out we what to have the best chance of putting it out or at least bringing it under control. Three things are needed for any fire and these are heat,fuel and oxygen; remove one and the fire will go out. Water which is probably the best known fire extinguishing agent puts out the fire by cooling it, likewise if you light a candle it will go out when it gets to the end because the fuel has run out. So how does all this relate to boating, well all boats should have some means of putting out a fire and this basically means fire extinguishers. Extinguishers come a vast array of sizes and types but the ones that are of most use to boaters are those that are marked as being suitable for type A,B and C fires. Type A are those fires that can be put out with water and these include such things as wood, paper, some plastics and many soft furnishings. Type B are flammable liquids; propane, gasoline, diesel, oil etc and finally type C are those involving electrical appliances, wiring and other energized electrical equipment. Therefore it follows that if you have an extinguisher that is marked ABC you can use it on any fire that you have aboard. However there are a couple of points worth noting and that is that the USCG requirements are the minimum and any boater would be well advised to have additional fire fighting apparatus aboard. If a small boat only has one extinguisher aboard as it is required to do and you cannot reach it in an emergency then you may not be able to put the fire out.
It is also a sobering thought that a 2.5lb fire extinguisher will only operate for between 8 and 10 seconds before it is spent and this is unlikely to be sufficient active agent to enable the operator, who will most likely be in a panic to put anything but the smallest of fires out.
If you have an enclosed engine room on your boat then the best defense is to have an automatic fire extinguisher. These work by releasing an inert gas when the engine room temperature rises to dangerous levels filling the engine room in an instant and putting out the fire out by starving it of oxygen. These work very well and the cylinders used to contain Halon which was avery effective at controlling fires but this has been banned from new units since the nineties and now this has been replaced with Heptafluoropropane which like Halon puts any fire out by smothering the fire and depleting it of oxygen. Some of these automatic engine room fire extinguishing systems are very sophisticated and will shut down the engines if the extinguisher is activated.

One aspect often overlooked by owners is routine servicing of extinguishers. It is recommended that they be checked at least once per year by a recognized service individual. Often many marinas and boat yards can arrange this for you. Extinguishers when properly serviced should have a card luggage style tag attached to them with the date of inspection, the inspectors initials and the date of next inspection and even though this is USCG and ABYC requirement sadly it is the exception rather than the rule.

Don't ask!

Let's just say I made a major goof this week and leave it at that.