On Board with Mark Corke

Zeus touch - wow

Chart plotters or more correctly called multi function displays are great. You get an electronic chart along with tons of other information, providing you have the transducers of course such as a radar, depth sounder, wind and even engine data etc.

But to me the most useful feature is the chart, you can see where you are at any time even in thick fog which is comfort and you can put in way points, make up a route and judge with some degree of accuracy at what time you will make your final destination albeit across the bay or across the ocean.

However the one downfall of chart plotters especially for sailing vessels is that they do not take into account that unless the destination is downwind you will have to tack and thus cannot steer straight to your destination. This is the marine equivalent of the GPS in your car telling you to drive in straight line when in reality you have to drive on roads so I was very excited to spend a couple of days with the folks from B and G trying out the new Zeus touch which is a multi function display with a twist.

Brookes and Gatehouse have been around for a long time and have for many years held the market in high end instruments for sailing displays. Now part of the Navico group they have benefited from the cross platform R and D with the Zeus unit looking identical to the Simrad NSS and indeed sharing many of the same features such as wireless networking which allows the user to access all the functions apart from auto pilot controls from a smart phone or tablet. What sets the Zeus apart for the sail boater is that it has some innovative features that would be of little interest to a power boater but make a huge difference when out sailing. To my mind the biggest innovation is lay line feature which shows the helmsman where he should tack in order to make an upwind mark. Very useful for racers but also a boon to cruisers. I am sure that I have not been the only one keen to get around a headland for calmer water only to have tacked too soon and thus requiring additional tacks to make my way point successfully. Added to this the display can be configured in a number of ways but I do like that you can display heading, true wind speed, VMG and such like along the top of the display. One useful feature is the histogram display of wind direction and speed so the user is available to go back over the wind shifts and speed over the last 90 minutes or so and thus he or she should be able to predict with some certainty what the wind is up to, a great feature. Depending on what is connected to the interface bus you also get radar as already mentioned, rudder angle indicator when connected to a suitable pilot and a bunch of other useful features.

The Zeus really is an innovation and will prove to be a boon for recreational and competitive sailors alike. The learning curve is quick and everything is pretty intuitive and I am sure it will if used in the way it is intended, as a sailing diagnostic tool and not just as a chart plotter will make almost anyone a better sailor. Available with 12, 8 or 7 inch screens they have suggested retail prices of US $3,999, $2,745 and $1,599, respectively

Highly recommended.

 

Fix a wobbly prop

I was changing the propeller on a boat today and I thought that this tip might come in handy for some readers. Inboard powered boats have a prop that sits on a tapered shaft and the the prop is then held on my a nut and lock nut. To prevent the prop slipping on the shaft there is a key and key way on the shaft. The shaft in nearly every case is stainless steel although there are some bronze shaft about but these are increasingly rare. The key is a square piece of bronze that sits into a machined slot on the tapered section of the shaft and then this in turn slides into a slot called a key way on the prop and it is this that makes sure that the prop turns when the shaft does and thus will not slip.  A fairly common problem is that if the key is a little too high for the key way the prop may not seat all the way onto the shaft and will therefore be eccentric to the shaft and although it may feel as though everything is OK problems will arise when the boat is launched and the boat is put in gear. A prop that is not seated onto the taper correctly will be out of balance and this will lead to vibration that can be felt through the whole boat, increased and rapid cutless bearing wear and a whole plethora of other problems. To avoid having these problems slide the prop onto the shaft so that it is snug onto the taper then using a sharpie pen or piece of masking tape mark the limit of where the prop comes to on the shaft; I used black sharpie pen and you can see that in the picture. Remove the prop put the key into place and slide the prop back on once more. If the prop does not go all the way to the mark there is a good chance that the key is too large and may need to be gently filed down to allow the prop to slide all the way home. Make sure however that you have the key the correct way round as they often appear square in section but in fact are not. You want to remove just enough and no more until the prop slides up to the mark. When this has been done put on and tighten the nut and lock-nut to complete the prop installation.

Ted Hood RIP

 

I had the pleasure of meeting Ted Hood on several occasions and was always struck by his humble attitude. Ted did it all from building up what has probably become the biggest sail making business in the world, to winning the 1974 America's cup aboard Courageous, designing and making the very successful range of Little Harbor yachts and power boats. He seemed to be good at it all and so it was with sadness that I learned of his passing last week at the age of 83.

Marblehead, Massachusetts has often been called the sailing capital of America and Ted probably had a large and in making that so, although born in neighboring Beverly he attended school in Marblehead when his family moved there when he was a a young child. He started making boats at very young age found out what worked and what did not and constantly strove to improve on a boat performance. That quest for performance lead to him setting up Hood sails where he started weaving his own sailcloth which revolutionized sailing by making sails vastly superior to other products available at that time.  He rose to become an almost household name when he sailed Courageous to victory in the 1974 America's cup and at about this time he started to move away from sail making and concentrate on boat design which he proved gifted at and apparently he was still marking up drawings just a few days before his death. So long Ted you will be missed.

The video is taken from the internet and is from Boating Today TV. The quality is rather poor and it seems to finish rather abruptly but even here Ted charm shines through.