I am a geek. I love technology and especially when bits-o-tech talk to other bits-o-tech.
But I am also a cheap bastard. I don't like spending money on things that don't directly benefit my life... So as part of the spring refit, I am installing some new instruments on the boat.
The "normal" instrument package for a boat in my size range is the Raymarine ST60+ package that includes depth, speed and wind sensors as well as their respective displays. Each display is a roughly 4"x4" square bezel that mounts in the bulkhead of my cockpit. These displays are essentially waterproof, backlit, large character, 3-digit, seven segment LCD displays capable of showing water depth, speed of water under the hull and wind speed/direction. Meh.
What I did last season for my first season out was to use an old laptop and LCD screen on a flexible arm that could be seen from the cockpit. The laptop ran GPSNavX, a chartplotting package for the Mac. Charts were in BSB4 format, provided by the Canadian Hydrographic Service. And the GPS was a small USB/bluetooth GPS data logger. this worked great but was frankly a bit fidgety and rather power hungry. See a previous post about a dead battery preventing me from pulling my mast for the winter. I also used the existing instruments (depth/speed) to compare with the depths marked on the charts. These instruments have bright orange incandescent bulbs for each segment of the 7-segment display of each digit. The instrument cluster has a control box down below for setting depth alarms, brightness, etc. It's all very 70s and very retro and very much not my style.
My new instruments are as follows:
- Airmar DST800 combination depth/speed/temperature sensor (Furuno 235DST-MSE)
- Technologic Systems TS-TPC-7390 touch panel computer.
- generic usb/bluetooth GPS
- next season, I will get the Airmar PB150 weather station.
The DST800 gives me speed temperature and depth in one unit, meaning one hole in the boat. The old instruments each required their own sensor and subsequent hole. Also, the new transducer is a "smart sensor" which means it outputs its data in NMEA-0183 format. This is a basic serial line protocol that runs at 4800 baud, 8-N-1. I can connect the two data wires directly to an RS232 header on the TS-TPC-7390...
The TS-TPC-7390 is the heart of my instruments. It is a 7" touch panel computer with a 200MHz ARM9 cpu and 128MB of RAM. It runs an embedded Debian OS off of 512MB internal flash and an SD card slot. It boots to a shell in under 2 seconds and a usable X Windows desktop in 17 seconds. It has an aluminum bezel and gaskets to make it splash-proof, although it lacks IP67 or NEMA4 certification. But at $509, it's also 25% the cost of so-certified devices... Now, it doesn't have any navigation instrumentation software out of the box so I have some development work ahead of me. But here is where the magic of open software shines. I am building on top of gpsd and nmead and will be using perl/Tk or wxPython for the user interface. My goal for this season is to just have a 4-way split window showing water depth, speed through water, speed over ground (from GPS), and direction (from GPS). Ultimately, I plan to build a gui that will let me select the screen layout and what information to display in each panel.
The advantage of using these new instruments is that should I decide that the touch panel computer just doesn't cut it in the real world, I only have to add in some Raymarine or Furuno or whoever display units and the DST800 transducer as well as the PB150 weather station will work just fine with them.
Chartplotting will continue to be done on my laptop for now, but instead of an old iBook laptop and external monitor, I am using an Acer Aspire One netbook with SeaFarer/LX which is chartplotting software for Linux. This will have to connect to its NMEA data source from the touch panel. Also, at present SeaFarer does not support BSB4 charts which are encrypted. So I will have to scan the paper charts for my area into tiff format and geo-reference them. However, the developer of SeaFarer did mention that he has BSB4 working and it will soon be ready for beta testing. He has also produced a software package in the past for the Sharp Zaurus called zNav which does very basic chartplotting functions on that ARM-based mobile platform. Perhaps it could be revived and I could run the chartplotting directly on my touch panel. Endless possibilities, but extremely finite time.
Stay tuned...
2009-03-11
The best laid plans...
We are in Montreal, Quebec so obviously, the boats come out for the winter. Fugu is sitting on her cradle under some tarps and a wood frame I quickly erected late last fall. There are many lessons learned about how to build a frame and how to prepare a boat for winter storage. It does not need to be expensive but I do need to arrange for non-wife-based assistance. Perhaps an assistance exchange with other club members.
This season, I left the stanchions and lifelines in and the mast up. I had planned to drop the mast for the winter but had some motor trouble at the end of the season and couldn't get the boat over to the crane when I had helpers. The problem turned out to be a dead battery, which in turn was due to something I am ashamed to admit. Lessons learned here are:
- more a-frames along the ridge-poles.
- remove stanchions and lifelines so that tarps can hang over the hull better.
- with mast up, 3 tarps are required:
- over cockpit from backstay to mast
- forward of mast to babystay
- between babystay and forestay
- need to prevent water from pooling on tarps and forming big heavy blocks of ice. This means a high-pitch, taut tarp which is best accomplished by raising the ridge pole and running the tarps over the edge of the deck.
The winter is grudgingly retreating and I am anxious to start the spring commissioning process:
- removing the covers and frame
- cleaning the hull
- cleaning the deck
- removing EVERYTHING possible from the interior
- cleaning the interior with nasty chemicals
- removing the falling-down headliner and grinding off residual foam/glue stuck to the ceiling.
- painting the newly exposed fiberglass in the interior
- cleaning up and assessing all interior movable items before bringing them back to the boat
And... the fun task that I am learning every boater looks forward to in the spring
- installing new toys. But this deserves its own post
This season, I left the stanchions and lifelines in and the mast up. I had planned to drop the mast for the winter but had some motor trouble at the end of the season and couldn't get the boat over to the crane when I had helpers. The problem turned out to be a dead battery, which in turn was due to something I am ashamed to admit. Lessons learned here are:
- more a-frames along the ridge-poles.
- remove stanchions and lifelines so that tarps can hang over the hull better.
- with mast up, 3 tarps are required:
- over cockpit from backstay to mast
- forward of mast to babystay
- between babystay and forestay
- need to prevent water from pooling on tarps and forming big heavy blocks of ice. This means a high-pitch, taut tarp which is best accomplished by raising the ridge pole and running the tarps over the edge of the deck.
The winter is grudgingly retreating and I am anxious to start the spring commissioning process:
- removing the covers and frame
- cleaning the hull
- cleaning the deck
- removing EVERYTHING possible from the interior
- cleaning the interior with nasty chemicals
- removing the falling-down headliner and grinding off residual foam/glue stuck to the ceiling.
- painting the newly exposed fiberglass in the interior
- cleaning up and assessing all interior movable items before bringing them back to the boat
And... the fun task that I am learning every boater looks forward to in the spring
- installing new toys. But this deserves its own post
It's a good ship
So this is my opening blog post about the good ship Fugu and the fun I intend to have bringing her into the 21st century. Fugu is a 30 year old 30' sloop - a Beneteau First 30 with a lead keel to be precise.
I bought this boat in the summer of 2008, right in the midst of moving and renovating my house. I firmly recommend against doing this. One thing at a time.
Being an older boat, she has her problems... The plexiglas ports are cracked on port and starboard. The motor mounts are completely compressed and desperately need replacement, the exhaust box is rusting out and this past season developed a pinhole leak. There are stress cracks around many of the stanchion posts which will need to be dealt with. The exterior wood needs mostly to be replaced. The entire starboard side of the coach roof has delaminated so I will need to open that up and replace the core which is undoubtedly soaked and rotten. And the instruments are pretty much original.
On the good side, she floats and the bits that keep the water on the outside of the hull seem to be in good shape. The hull is sound and drawing 5'6" and carrying 45% ballast, she is stiff and points well. I am told new sails will help that even more but there is a lot more I want to get done before I invest in new sails. I consider making the boat more comfortable on weekend cruises a priority.
Stay tuned for my progress...
I bought this boat in the summer of 2008, right in the midst of moving and renovating my house. I firmly recommend against doing this. One thing at a time.
Being an older boat, she has her problems... The plexiglas ports are cracked on port and starboard. The motor mounts are completely compressed and desperately need replacement, the exhaust box is rusting out and this past season developed a pinhole leak. There are stress cracks around many of the stanchion posts which will need to be dealt with. The exterior wood needs mostly to be replaced. The entire starboard side of the coach roof has delaminated so I will need to open that up and replace the core which is undoubtedly soaked and rotten. And the instruments are pretty much original.
On the good side, she floats and the bits that keep the water on the outside of the hull seem to be in good shape. The hull is sound and drawing 5'6" and carrying 45% ballast, she is stiff and points well. I am told new sails will help that even more but there is a lot more I want to get done before I invest in new sails. I consider making the boat more comfortable on weekend cruises a priority.
Stay tuned for my progress...
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