This is a blog featuring my personal stories of food, gardening, yachting, photography, travel and life.

Friday, June 13, 2014

The AIS, Dinghy Lettering & Lifesling2

Just when I thought I had everything set with our new Chart Plotter, RADAR and AIS navigation system, for some reason no AIS signals were visible on the chart plotter display. I was assured by friends with AIS systems that I should be receiving signals from several vessels in the harbor area. Hmmmm . . .

I rechecked my connections. Reread the owner's manual. Hmmmm . . .

Finally, I contacted West Marine, the source of all this gear, to ask who they recommended as a technician to troubleshoot the problem. They and my general electrician Mike Heintz both recommended Pacific Marine Electric. Owners Shawn and Jason offered some suggestions by phone. The suggestion that held the most promise required my configuring the chart plotter to acquire the AIS signals by changing the baud rate to a higher speed. Try as I might I could not find the source in the chart plotter that would make this change.
Note the orange AIS lettering on the screen.

Next day, I called Shawn back and arranged for him to meet me at the boat at 9 the next morning. He arrived on time and, after a few pleasantries, cranked up the chart plotter and AIS to take a look. He did note that the power wire connection I had made was not a real good connection and fixed that, though it was not the real problem (I was getting power to the unit).

Shawn began poking the touchscreen buttons allowing him to go to deeper levels of the software until he found the button he was looking for. BEEP! And on screen appeared a half dozen targets all with the familiar AIS coded symbols. He was done.

"Seriously? That's it?" Says I.
"Yep," says he.

I'm feeling pretty embarrassed until Shawn points out that the numerical baud rate button he had asked me to look for a couple of days before wasn't actually labeled that way.

My sheepish look may have had some influence but Shawn decided he just couldn't charge me for just pushing a button.

YES! We visited a little longer and he headed on to his next job.  I sat marveling at the little
The RAM mount behind the chart plotter.
orange vessel symbols moving across the display. My new nav system works!

Oh, I didn't mention that the RAM mount I ordered for the new Garmin 740s chart plotter had arrived. Mounting the Garmin using its standard mount leaves it well above my head and difficult to reach. The Ram mount allows me to adjust the entire unit in any direction. Really cool!

________________________________

The 3"X 24" strips of 3M stenciling paper had been sitting aboard The Key of Sea for a couple of weeks. The folks at Special-T created the series of letters and numbers that make up the registration "lettering" that must appear on both the starboard and port bow of  the boat along with the annual registration tag. The sheet of instructions I was given by Specialty-T were impossible to read and the verbal instructions were of little help. Fortunately the internet had great video instructions. A quick stop at the auto body parts store to pick up a soft squeegee and off I went to the boat.
 
Today was the day. I pulled out the blue masking tape in the parts locker, a pair of scissors and my squeegee.  I applied a piece of blue masking tape along each end of the lettering and one piece down the mid point.

The lettering is carefully adjusted and taped to the side of the dinghy. Pulling away the lower layer of paper towards the middle, I exposed the underlying stencil. Applying the squeegee to the lettering, each black letter stuck to the rubbery hull of the dinghy. Gently pulling back the top layer of paper, the pristine,shiny lettering stood out. All of about 10 minutes and half the job was done.

It was easy! I really thought it would be a bigger deal than it turned out.
____________________________________

We're heading off soon on a month-long adventure into Canada aboard the Key of Sea. I'll share more about that in a later blog entry. But we've spent a lot of time gearing up for this cruise. New, upgraded nav gear. Registering the dinghy so it can be used for more than just running from ship to shore, adding a stern tie system and so much more.

We've decided to add a  Man Over Board (MOB) rescue system. We have long considered what the outcome would be should one of us fall overboard and it isn't good. The water here stays around 50 degrees. Being in water at that temperature for only a short time will cause the victim to loose the function of their limbs making self-rescue nearly impossible.

The Lifesling2 with 5 to 1 tackle would enable either of us to lift the other out of the water should it become necessary. All that is required is to get the yellow U-shaped flotation collar to the victim. For that there is a technique which must be practiced to work. The collar is tossed overboard in the general direction of the victim. A long 125' polypropylene line follows the collar out of the storage bag. The bitter end is kept tied off to the boat. 


5 to 1 Tackle System
The skipper circles the victim with the boat which drags the line and collar closer in until it reaches the victim who must then put the collar under their arms. The skipper shuts down the engines and begins pulling in the victim until they are alongside the boat. The 5 to 1 tackle system is used to lift the victim up out of the water and onto the deck.

The question is where to locate the contact points for the 5 to 1 tackle system to be attached to the boat when it is deployed. I have a buddy who has the system on his boat and has done a lot of practicing using it on the water. He gave me a lot of suggestions for where to install the hardware. Now I'll need to explore the best places on my own boat so the system works most efficiently.

The system arrives in about a week, just in time for us to get it installed and ready for the trip north. I'll write more regarding the system, its installation and practicing its use in a later blog.
________________________________

No comments: