What would you get for $10,000?

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by shawnkillam

once a week I am reading of another boat that hit a container and was holed.

I can't remember reading many at all, if any at all. I don't believe containers are a problem.

30 have gone off a ship near the coast of Australia last week in a cyclone and thus far there hasnt been carnage.

An article said shipping containers are designed to sink after a period of time a seal opens up and water comes in...

uploads.containerownersassociation.org/public/FloatingContainers.pdf

The chance of being clobbered by a container is so very remote that other things are much more vital for safety.. hittting stoms, reefs and other vessels.....


Mark

[shawnkillam]

Mark,
not that I don't believe every word that the container owners association says but... The problem is anything that is shipped in styrofoam packing. For example the coffee maker we just bought was contained in at least two cubic feet of styrofoam packing. Even if everything flooded except the styrofoam that is at least 60 lbs of lift. You only need 120 coffee makers to support a forty foot container. The average container has 3200 cubic feet so that is a lot of coffee makers or vcr's or whatever.
I will see if I can find a few articles about container collissions and post them. I do however do not discount the possibility that I have read different accounts of the same accident several times and just let my paranoia run wild.

However all that being said I must agree that storms, reefs and other vessels are more likely to be a problem, but at least in the case of the reefs most of them stay in one place.

thanks Sk

[Hampus]

Also have a look at the new A-seris from Raymarine. it comes with preloaded charts of USA or Europe or Asia, with some limitation like no 3d view, no depths over 10 meters and no photographs. You can still buy additional navionics charts to get those features. I have tried to find out if the preloaded charts are useful or if you get what you pay for But they are still too new.

There will be a representative from raymarine at the local chandlery tomorrow (25 March) though and he'll show their new stuff. If the charts are indeed useful, we'll most likely get the new A50 (smallest one)
Raymarine Marine Electronics - A50 5" Chartplotter with U.S Coastal charts

I'll let you know tomorrow

[Jim Cate]

FWIW,

I've posted similar thoughts before, but will try again:

We've had a Probe (Interphase FLS) on our last two boats (13 years now), and find them very useful... not for seeing floating containters, but for inshore navigation, especially in strange (to us) waters. It is all very well to say that a pair of Mk I eyeballs on the bow are better than FLS, but in the real world, we find that despite our serious efforts, we sometimes need to navigate in conditions of poor visibity. When the sky is leaden and the sea a mirror (and this DOES happen) the eyeball is defeated, and the FLS will see coral heads, reefs and mudbanks at distances adequate for avoidance. Yep, you do have to go a bit slower than you might wish, but I reckon that this is a normal practice in strange waters.

And yes, it does reqire some skill to interpret the display, just as it does with radar. This seems like a reasonable requirement to me, considering the advantages earned by the effort.

On the downside, the alarm system incorporated is pretty useless. If one reduces the gain enough to avoid frequent false alarms then the sensitivity is inadequate.
So, you pay attention. Big deal...

If one sails in familiar waters, and only in nice conditions, then FLS is probably a low priority. But for the person who explores distant and often poorly charted areas (whch description fits LOTS of desireable cruising grounds) FLS can relieve a great deal of anxiety, and maybe save your butt and your boat. I know that we've been damn glad to have ours, and that it has in practice discovered unseen hazards lurking in our path!

Cheers,

[Hampus]

Originally Posted by Hampus

Also have a look at the new A-seris from Raymarine. it comes with preloaded charts of USA or Europe or Asia, with some limitation like no 3d view, no depths over 10 meters and no photographs. You can still buy additional navionics charts to get those features. I have tried to find out if the preloaded charts are useful or if you get what you pay for But they are still too new.

There will be a representative from raymarine at the local chandlery tomorrow (25 March) though and he'll show their new stuff. If the charts are indeed useful, we'll most likely get the new A50 (smallest one)
Raymarine Marine Electronics - A50 5" Chartplotter with U.S Coastal charts

I'll let you know tomorrow

It's excellent, we bought it!

[Cheechako]

GPS, Radar, Autopilot (does that count as electronics?), VHf, depth sounder.

[shawnkillam]

I stumbled across this link discussing FLS. I don't know who or what Ben Ellison is but the article does seem to address many of the faq re the devices.
http://www.interphase-tech.com/art/P...BenEllison.PDF

[shawnkillam]

1. Does anyone know if any of the electronics manufacturers are using passive or reflective displays such as those being used in the Kendel (amazons electronic book gizmo - in case I am not spelling it correctly).
2. I was recently on a beautiful high end cat that had a large LCD television mounted on a swinging arm that allowed it to be viewed from the cockput. All the monitors and GPS output could be displayed on it. This was very nice both from the point of view of those of us lounging - we could all say oh-ah when we topped 12 knots and to the skipper who didn't need his reading glasses to see the guages. Does anyone know anything about this kind of thing. Could you use it on a boat that costs less than a million dollars?

[Beausoleil]

Originally Posted by shawnkillam

1. Does anyone know if any of the electronics manufacturers are using passive or reflective displays such as those being used in the Kendel (amazons electronic book gizmo - in case I am not spelling it correctly).

Shawn,

It's "Kindle".

The problem as I see it is that these devices (chartplotters, not e-books such as the Kindle) are slow to market, so they're basically obsolete by the time we can get our salty hands on them. Even Raymarine's newest sailing instrument line, the ST-70 series, is using TFT with LED backlighting, which has been available in cell phones for years. Cell phones (hundreds of millions produced per year) are moving to OLED technology (organic light emitting diode - no need for separate backlighting).

The problem with e-ink displays like those used in the Kindle is that they're monochrome. Even though they are very power miserly, most boaters wouldn equate black/white with 1st-generation chartplotters - a step backwords. And while they're fine for static displays like an e-book, I don't think their slow refresh rate would look good on a chartplotter with a radar image overlay...

Marine manufacturers have no where near the R&D budget of cell phone and consumer electronics manufacturers, so they decide on an existing technology (display, CPU, I/O, etc.) very early in the product specification stage. Hence putting "obsolete" new products onto the market. At least that's how I see it - having never worked in consumer electronics or marine electronics. I did do a stint at Ericsson, but on the central office switching side, not the handset side. So take what I say with a grain of salt...

[shawnkillam]

Cap'n John (Beausoleil)
Thanks for the input. Personally I wouldn't know and organic diode from a organic avacado so information from someone who does is great. My only interest is that I saw a kendel last week and it is the first electronic gadget that I could actually see in the sunshine. Which given that a substantial amount of sailing is done in sunny regions of the planet (British Columbia sailors excepted) it would be nice to be able to see the readout without all the gyrations, cupping of hands, towels over head etc.
I know I can't read my cell phone in sunshine. Personally I would take a monochrome display that I can see over a multi-hue that I can't but I'm funny that way. Hopefully something will come along to solve all these issues.
thanks again for your imput.
regards sk

[Mule]

You should be able to get lots of bling for 10k. The one thing I would think would be wise, wisdom from another life would be to stick with one manufacturer for all of it. Radar, chart, displays and so forth. That way if something does not go right you have one point of accountability. I would not mix Garmon, Ray and Lorance for instance.

[Just a Tinch]

The very first item I would purchase for the boat would be a 406 EPIRB. The very first item...... You may remember the 4 guys that went into the Gulf of Mexico recently? Not a one of them would have been lost....except that they did not have an EPIRB! Second thing you do is "register it".... Buy it first....then you don't have to worry about whether or not you can get one. It to me is the absolute most important item if you are going out of sight of land.

Forward looking sonar? I looked into those, and frankly while they might seem to be a good idea, they are not really intended for "shallow use". They are more intended for use in deeper water.... Beyond that, given the shape of the "puck"...at what speed will it cease to give reliable readings? I decided against them....and my boat is a trawler. I'm going to mount a couple of depth finder pucks forward...and achieve something close to the same thing.

(Hmmm...just got an idea: Mount the pucks looking forward, in the same fashion that you would mount "underwater docking lights"....and voila' forward looking "sonar"....set the depth alarm to whatever, and there you go!)

Next thing I would buy would be a good SSB.

Next "things" two hardwired GPS units with cartography. (I have twin stations...but I also like "redundancy". I have three on the boat....

Next "things" two VHFs with RAM mikes. DSC capable.

Next...a good radar.... I'm a fan of "standalone's".

A good set up of up to date charts....because when the lights go out.... no charts....and you're in trouble....or worse.

The list goes on and on.....

[Rhosyn Mor]

Alpha marine auto pilot
I think installed that would take up just about 10K

[Curmudgeon]

Don't forget the laptop with good navigation software and a plug-in GPS receiver for the nav station. Or just use a Garmin handheld, with a second as backup. Also get a USB to serial adapter to hook the laptop into your autopilot or cockpit GPS.

A Sony VAIO with the 16 inch screen and Rose Point costs less than half of what the Raymarine E-120 costs. And the charts are free from NOAA (and updatable).

Then I would get a less expensive cockpit GPS with a smaller screen. When you are in the cockpit you want to watch the water, the sails, etc., not a huge screen.

Plus, the laptop has your music, can play movies, gets you to the internet whenever a network is available (which means both email and FREE skype voice or teleconferencing with anyone in the world), can be used to keep the ship's log, the maintenance log and other records, can have pdfs of all your operating manuals for the on-board equipment... etc. etc.

Now all we need is inexpensive high speed satellite internet connectivity when we are offshore. It's coming, but I don't know when. Certainly military and big commercial ships have it now.