Transcript is auto-generated.
a 20/20 look at electronics for your
boat or on your boat
so I'm Jeff Cote by the way with Pacific
John systems owner operator of that
business and and my core I'm a voter
right and I hope that's going to come
through today in the presentation
boating is not a hobby it's a lifestyle
and as part of that livestock lifestyle
is getting places safely or being
willing to go further to places that
otherwise without a navigation system
you wouldn't have gone I can flashback
to 2007 when I went around Vancouver
Island and I went to certain Anchorage's
that I otherwise would have never been
or gone to without a radar overlay or a
good sharp water yes I have charts on my
boat I remember buying all the charts
for Vancouver Island the time was over
$2,000 worth of charts paper charts and
they're beautiful but what we're gonna
be talking about today is not just
navigation with paper charts or you know
we're gonna be talking with electronics
some of you are gonna get a sense a
little bit we write a column every month
about these topics on Pacific yachting
and also in a magazine in the call
Northwest yachting in Seattle and
Washington State and Oregon also
California so if you feel like geeking
out all those articles actually you
don't even have to be a subscriber you
can actually find all those articles on
our website as PDFs and HTML they're all
there for free so even if you don't have
a Pacific yachting article and you want
to read about char plotters or anything
that we write would have written about
on those topics you can find them on our
website there's a big take away and
we're not gonna be talking about too
much about NMEA today in terms of safety
but when you are doing electronics for
your boat I would encourage all of us
right as a boater to take the time to do
the install properly I can't tell you
how frustrating is going to be in it's
almost like Murphy's Law right the day
that you're going to need radar
is the day that it won't work and if
it's because you didn't install it
properly or sort of did the electrical
not-so-great when you were doing it take
the time to do the installation of your
electronics or a navigation system for
your boat to do it sort of well and
there's standards to follow and with
regards to electronics it's the National
Marine Electronics Association a byc is
another Association and that's more
related to electrical but there's a good
way of doing it and there's a I hope
things are gonna work out for me
way of doing things and I really think
that we should all take the safety Road
do it properly make sure that it's as
reliable as possible so that we don't
have frustration or frustrations later
down later down the road so our business
specific yacht systems and what I'm
going to be sharing with you today is we
get invited and I think this as an honor
we did a thousand build projects last
year that is both scary as a business
owner that used to know everything about
every single client that I used to work
on or do work for now it's way bigger
than one person we're a team of 15 and I
just want to say that that experience of
helping other boaters make the right
navigation equipment choices for their
boat is what I'm going to be sharing
with you today the other thing some of
you might know we're a really big
proponent of YouTube and sharing our
knowledge so if you ever want to revisit
this presentation or we're about a
hundred and sixty-five videos on YouTube
right now and there's another about 30
that have actually been done but yet to
be published so by within three four
months we'll probably be at about 225
250 videos on YouTube I'll do it
yourself
I don't think there salesy pretty
educational and just show about sharing
our knowledge and educating boaters like
ourselves making the right choice I was
talking in the booth this morning and I
was saying it's way it's better to spend
time today educating yourself and doing
the installation once then purchasing a
bunch of equipment installing it and
then coming to the realization that it
was the wrong choice for your
the good news is a lot of choice the bad
news is there's a lot of choice right so
educate yourself so the next thing we're
gonna be this sort of a rough agenda
where we're gonna be talking about we're
gonna make sense of all the options that
you have because there's a lot of choice
out there right with regards to the
navigation and then we're gonna go
through round-robin chartplotter we're
gonna look a little bit at apps at the
end actually depth sounder radar AIS
autopilot cameras and we're gonna go
through different sort of categories as
an engineer I like lists I like sort of
folders and so all this presentation is
done per category group okay so the
first thing that you've got to realize
as a boater and I think this is sort of
both good news and bad news is that when
you're deciding on what's gonna work for
your boat please don't be tempted to
simply look at what your neighbors doing
you know you could have another fellow
owner that has the identical same boat
as you do
that's a boater just down the dock from
your boat but it doesn't mean that
they're using the boat the same way you
are right and all of us have different
budgets it's not so much to say the
money you have but it's the money you
want to invest in that part of your boat
right now as we all know boats can be
sort of humbling financially so we might
all start with a different
prioritization list right like there's
multiple buckets on your boat of what
you're gonna spend money on one of them
is maybe electronics and navigation and
within that realm of choices that we're
going to talk about remember every one
of us there's not really two of us that
are the same when we're boating like I
have a lot of boaters that have let's
say Grand Banks 42 I've done literally
probably 50 different Grand Banks 42
projects none of them are the same every
one of us are using our boats
differently so it's important to not
just copy but think it's not what they
have it's what do I need on my boat so
the first criteria and selecting that is
deciding what sort of boating
preferences are you doing are you for
example add a boater simply going out
for a day and then coming back are you
going dock to dock are you going further
in further afield are you going to be
going off a three-month journey up there
Scot on the outside of Vancouver Island
are you going offshore or are you always
going to the same spots maybe the Gulf
Islands here locally and you're only
doing a weekend trip those are going to
be factors that going to influence your
decision so don't forget that the other
really important takeaway is I rarely
and I mean rarely ever start or do an
electronics project on a boat and I rip
everything that was on the boat honestly
there's some projects we do that are two
hundred thousand dollars in navigation
equipment crazy bridges and trust me
there's stuff on that bridge that state
they don't need to rip it all out
sometimes it's the autopilot the
autopilot still works my autopilot is
working great I don't need to change it
or it might be I have a VHF radio it's
DSC so it means distress signal call I
can have it integrated with NMEA I can
do a 911 call with it
don't need to change it so it's not
about saying I'm changing my electronics
and I'm gonna rip it all of it out there
are generally some things on our boat
most of the time that can still be kept
and that's a way to reduce your costs
right so you don't have to do everything
there's a trend and in the past
certainly there used to be where boaters
used to have a display for radar a
display for a sounder a display for
chartplotter
right nowadays boaters are maybe going
to do redundancy but they're gonna do
redundancy and still have maybe two
displays and they're gonna both displays
are gonna do radar chart plotter sounder
a is target's so we're not necessarily
separating things and having dedicated
devices for dedicated purposes right as
a boater now we're saying okay well
maybe I'll have a display up on the
flybridge a display on the lower helm or
a sailboat I'm gonna have a display
inside the helm at the outside helm and
one of the chart table so some boaters
are saying you know what yeah I'm not
going with a dedicated display per
purpose I'm going for maybe redundancies
in displays but most displays do
multiple purposes yes I've been on a
boat where we ended up putting eight
chart plotters on a bridge on one bridge
and yes every single display was doing
one thing like locking your TV to just
watch fox or CNN or CBC
but you can if you wanted see radar on
another display right it's a portal
remember that's what it is nowadays most
of these displays are a portal to pretty
much endless information whatever is on
the network is going to be able to be
seen on that display and then the
consideration that I brought about is
you know do you have one or two hounds
are you gonna have a chart plotter at
your chart table if you have a sailboat
depending on the type of boater you're
gonna have two displays for helm again a
lot of choice and obviously cost is a
factor right and where you go I can't
stress that enough you know there's a
big difference between a boater that
does a day-trip or one overnight and
someone that's gonna go on the outside
of Vancouver Island or gonna go up north
where literally the first service call
is at least a day or two days away right
so if the further afield you go the more
you want to start considering redundancy
right you don't want to have all your
eggs in one basket it's worth is you've
got to contemplate because things do
break down they just do so you got to
sort of plan for it and then consider
how what are you going to be the
redundancies for the navigation system
on your boat
another big sort of selection criteria
that's important to consider nowadays is
am I going to go touchscreen am I gonna
go buttons or am I gonna do a device
that does both right so for example
Raymarine was the first that came up
come out with a device that does both
touchscreen and buttons right still to
this day Garmin doesn't do that well
maybe I'm the smaller stuff but they're
big char plotters are either touchscreen
or they're not right so you choose so
that's one factor for who knows the same
thing so you got to decide do I really
you know is this gonna be an inside hell
my mom's gonna have warm dry hands or in
my Assael border and I'm gonna be
outside and now I'm gonna I'm a racer
for example you know some people do
racing at night well if they're doing
that then it might make sense to get a
display that you could maybe touch with
your hands but also with buttons because
in heavy seas it's hard to touch the
middle of a screen if it's a touchscreen
so another big factor and I was talking
about that again this morning is don't
get too caught up in all these features
that these devices offer over time what
I've noticed including myself and I'm a
geek is that we end up using a very
small fraction of all the features that
are available on our chart water right
at the end of the day what probably
happens is you don't want to get too
distracted this is not a video game
you're not interfacing your char plotter
and you're home on the couch you're
going to be navigating you have to be a
pilot
meaning you have to look at the screen
and around you right you can't be so
obsessed about this device so people end
up doing sort of the basics so don't get
too caught up about all the bells and
whistles focus on what really works with
the chartplotter and yes you can get
carried away doing those things but
generally you do that away from shore
right when you're sort of navigating and
there's a lot of open water there's not
a lot of traffic and then you might
start going in the menu and really
getting curious and doing all the cool
things you can do but generally most
voters will end up doing you know the
basics a char plaughter they're gonna
decide their heading is it going to be
course on ground heading is it gonna be
where the boat is pointing radar overlay
maybe a is target's
right some cameras but all the big
features that are all possible most of
us most of the time are not going to be
using those features the other thing
that's really nice today now is that a
lot of the chart plotters come with this
Wi-Fi capability onboard and remember
Wi-Fi is a local area network meaning
you could have Wi-Fi working on the Dark
Side of the Moon if you had a Wi-Fi
router installed Wi-Fi is used a lot and
mistakenly confused with the internet
Wi-Fi has nothing to do with the
Internet it's just a way to distribute
the Internet locally so you could
literally be in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean
and you could have a Wi-Fi network on
your boat and that Wi-Fi network would
be just to interconnect a bunch of
devices on your boat but there would be
no internet connectivity
okay so that's an important distinction
to remember and that's useful here for
you know the Pacific Northwest because
there are certain places where we go
there is no internet even if you had a
satellite connection if you go in a
place like princess luisa where it's six
thousand feet of vertical cliffs there's
no satellite connection in princess
luisa you're it's a dark it's simply you
just can't get it which is good and bad
always good and bad and the other thing
too is especially for some of us that
have older boats like my boat is
definitely older when I decided to
change my electronics on my boat and I
had the simple instrument in my helm
I couldn't just assume or I use this
expression a lot hope that my single
depth instrument at my help was wired in
a way to sufficiently now power a radar
or chartplotter and AIS at my helm
right so when you're actually doing all
these upgrades on your boat or
contemplating doing these upgrades
worried about the fact that the power
wires at that helm 20 years ago we're
not thinking about powering everything
humanly possible that you're now going
to be doing at the helm so that means
you have to worry you've got to ask
yourself is this little tiny gate 18
wire gonna be enough to power all the
electronics on my helmet and the likely
answer is no and if you choose to ignore
that advice then welcome to a world of
hurt where your chartplotter works at
the dock when you're connected to a
battery charger working when you have
the alternator running and I get service
calls all summer people telling me I'm
motoring when my I'm sailing now and my
instruments stop working they work at
the dock but they don't work while I'm
underway sailing and that's because the
alternator is not working there's too
much voltage drop and the electronics
are dying when they need them I mean how
scary
so trying something when you're
chartplotter is powered by a battery
charger at the dock
right not really of any use because
you're using them out there alright so I
put the list alphabetically I mean
honestly this is where people get sort
of really how shall I say that they're
very brand loyal sort of like someone
that has a BMW might hate a Mercedes or
hate someone who has a naughty or hates
someone who has a Toyota at the end of
the day the players that are left in the
market are pretty much real players
right there was other brands before but
nowadays those are pretty established
players yes you can have a preference
absolutely most of us do but I would say
here that one of them is bad and the
other one is great okay
they're all offering their there's a
piece of the pie and they're all
offering a different sort of niche or
target audience right because remember
what I said none of us are the same
they're trying to figure out okay I'm
trying to hit as much of the market as
possible but they also know that not
every every motor is kind of different
and they use their boat differently so
they're all divine defining and creating
products that are trying to capture a
portion of the market there is no single
chart water that is everything for
everyone if you're looking about that
sharp water you're going to keep looking
you'll never find it that's why there's
a chart plotter for everyone all of us
but it depends what line within each
manufacturer so BMG is for sale motors
right it's predominantly designed for
sale borders we did a bunch of B and G
systems in the fall and right now and
yeah it's always going to go on a
sailboat
you know the software is tailored for
that it's part of the Navigo family so
Navigo is sort of a big company that
owns both Simrad both three simrad B and
G and Lawrence Lorentz being fishing B
and G being sailing simrad being sort of
yachting right so power boats so they've
got sort of one big company owns common
engineering has three sub brands for
different markets it totally makes sense
not crazy at all
right and that's how if you're going to
divide the world in three three
different parts fishing sailboating
power boating is not a bad
look at it furuto is comes back from you
see this and we end up doing a lot of
runo and generally it's people that
really want is sort of that commercials
level of reliability you're gonna pay a
somewhat a little bit of a premium for
it
I have motors that choose for who know
for the simple fact that they want their
boat to look like a ship I mean as
you'll see Celine owners north oven
owners it's gonna be for runo it's not
even an option you can't even have that
discussion
you know those boats they want to look
like a real boat and so real boats in
the harbor have Faru know and so they're
like the big boats have for uno my big
boats got four room and some people just
want for uno because that's what they
want it's part of what you'd expect on a
big trawler furuto makes this product
we'll talk a little bit about TZ touch
pretty awesome and again maybe not well
now it's certainly getting easier to use
but very reliable I'd say that's
probably the biggest thing would forego
its commercial great in the marine
recreational market there's nothing that
beats for uno for reliably justice is it
Garmin super easy to use Garmin a lot of
people that have maybe an aviation
background really like Garmin
I think Garmin's selling feature is
definitely usability right and not too
feature-rich
a little bit maybe like an iphone right
not having it too hard to use
Lawrence phishing big-time Raymarine
it's got a big Suites been around for a
long time they've got three big product
lines right now on the axiom different
sort of products for different users and
they're also big a big proponents of
sort of an iOS like user experience
they've come a long way and they're also
owned by a company called FLIR which
does the thermal imaging cameras and so
they've got really good integration with
FLIR cameras and lastly Simrad we've
done a bunch of Simrad as well more for
yachting not the novice sail boaters and
we'll be looking at some of their
displays as well they all Simrad and B
and G ended up following our a Marines
lead of doing displays that are both
touchscreen which is nice intuitive and
also having everything doable by the
side with buttons so you don't have to
pick and
if you want touchscreen or buttons
they'll actually have a device that does
both so you can interface everything on
the screen or you can interface
everything via the buttons so for sale
borders especially with wet Helms that's
something to consider about like I have
some cell borders and only sale you know
July and August and if it's raining
they're not really going out and they're
not in big sea so a touchscreen doesn't
matter but if you're going offshore or
you're sailing in the middle of the
night and you're a racer and you're
actually got spray in the cockpit using
a touchscreen with wet hands can be a
little bit frustrating okay especially
also cold hands so this is a four rules
got all these big displays and they also
have this thing BB means black box MFD
means multifunctional display okay
meaning it's a portal to multiple things
so the good thing to consider is that a
lot of these new displays from all
manufacturers now have what's called an
enemy a mm port at the back this is sort
of like a USB okay for computers meaning
it's a can bus port and that can bus
port which is nmea 2000 allows the
integration of multiple things on one
display so for example if you have a
recently a new outboard or engine you
can actually interconnect your engine
and show all those gauges and
information on the screen you could same
thing would do a weather station you
could do engine monitoring we converted
a hundred footer had old engines and we
converted the three generators and the
two engines to enemy a 2000 the the
gauges stayed the same the analog gauges
there's analog gauges in the engine room
there's analog gauges upper helm and
lower helm we didn't touch those but we
digitized all that information and now
they can see that information on their
Faru no screens and on top of it then
they can Wi-Fi in and see those gauges
anywhere on the boat so this whole
digitization sort of track is possible
with any of those displays nowadays
enemy in 2000 came out in the late 2000s
and it's full full full throttle at this
point
Raymarine it's got a whole suite this is
sort of the accent Pro you'll see that
there's actually buttons on the side in
the Pacific Northwest where the water is
colder and with our hands because it's
not always beautiful and sunny outside
as we know we're doing a lot of the
axiom pros but there's three lines of
axioms you can see them Marine Marine
has a booth here at the Boat Show and
you can see the whole product line of a
Marine you'll notice in the middle there
showing icons sort of you can press on
the icon a little bit like the apps
right on an iOS same thing with other
phones as well this concept of I want to
go see radar I want to go see char
plotter I want to see my ass targets
right because like I said remember
there's a lot of things that are
possible on a char plaughter by the end
of the day most of us are gonna not do
all of it all the time right you're
gonna go down to the basics right you're
not gonna get out too much while you're
navigating you got to look up right look
at the horizon scan constantly be on the
alert right especially around here for
dead heads other boaters paddle boarders
fishing boats that do sort of these
tracks that you wouldn't expect right
because they're not going anywhere
they're fishing so you got to be on the
lookout so you want to look at your
device but you want to kind of pan the
horizon and behind you an example of a
Garmin when you're doing displays and I
wanted to show this image there's
multiple ways of obviously mounting
displays a lot of them are being flush
mounted but nowadays you can even do on
a lot of the bigger displays even 16
inches on actually a you bracket right
on some boats it makes sense we got to
remember like in the 1980s and early 90s
nobody was actually creating these huge
display mounts they never expected that
you'd have these displays that could be
mounted they were used to be CRTs there
were this deep right so like you think
about our Grand Banks things were all
mounted on trunnion brackets everything
was a you bracket it's only now that the
boats are actually coming with flat
surface areas where we can actually do a
cutout and the displays only maybe an
inch
fake or two inch or three inch thick in
depth right so on a lot of boats we end
up still using new brackets because
there's no other place there's not a
single surface area where I can just do
a cut out and put a 16 inch screen in
there I'm trying to emphasize here all
these different sort of screen sizes
that you can buy there's a 7 inch 9 inch
12 inch 16 inch right and you can
actually I can tell you this note no
joke I've never ever ever heard a boater
tell me Jeff I only wish I did a smaller
screen you know in hindsight god damn it
you know if I could have only done
something smaller yeah you know what at
that time I wish I did it never happened
now I'm not saying you're gonna go from
a 7 to a 16 but look at the one size up
and what happens is people tell me oh
I'm gonna zoom in and zoom out you know
what humans are efficient with their
energy is another way of saying they're
lazy and you're not going to be zooming
in zooming out as much as you think
you're gonna set it to the scale that
you're thinking and you're gonna leave
it there
and then what you're gonna do is like I
got this you're gonna tell yourself I
know all of this stuff you I don't need
to see around because I've been there
because it's too far away you're holding
the helm
you're it's not comfortable you're like
yeah I've been there so it's not the
right chart scale but I'm okay and it
reminds me of a client of mine who
shared that story with me and it was an
amazing humbling story and it's there's
no point of laughing because it's a
lesson for all of us this owner had sail
around the world twice 12 years and
guess where he he literally hit a rock
coming back from Stanley Park from
watching the fireworks one night had
done the route hundreds of times but was
overly confident right and that's this
that's the risk when we're boaters is to
be overly confident and if you've got a
chart plotter that you're zooming in
zooming out all the time because it
displays too small you're gonna be ended
up not and then you want to start
panning right because you're not looking
at the right scale in the right place
you want to look forward and now you're
using the d-pad and you're moving
forward or you're flickering this
sweetie like oh where am I now you got
to get back out so if you're considering
a nine-inch look at 1/12
because then what I end up doing is I
recommend doing two side by side screens
chart to chart one zoomed in is one
zoomed out and then that way you're
looking at the right scale at the right
time at the same time very neat so when
we're boating on our boat we have a 12
inch screen and we literally have a mode
where we're like literally having a 300
range on one and then a point 8 nautical
mile on the other so I'm looking right
close to everything around my boat and
I've got everything sort of far enough
away so that I have a perspective a big
Simrad screen same night I mean
everyone's sort of following the the
common sense approach which is the iOS
or icons right trying to make it easy to
go I want to see radar I want to see a
chart plotter okay so what we're going
to look at so first of all you can still
buy char plotters only and I had that
happen a few times where people didn't
do their homework bought a chart plotter
and then later on it was a great price
point amazing price boring like seven
thousand five hundred seven hundred and
like now I'm ready for radar and they
install the radar and they go to plug it
in the back and they're like there's no
place for the radar port there's no
network port and I know that's a sharp
flawed or sounder only it's not
compatible for a radar right so again
think and even though you might not do a
radar today if you decide that you're
not going to do a radar ever make sure
that you look forward enough and say oh
I'm not gonna do a radar ever okay
but if you're going to do a radar later
make sure that your chart plotter has
also a radar compatibility so that you
can plug in a radar later on we're gonna
talk about a little bit the difference
between a vector and raster chart I've
got two images but in a nutshell what
that means is a vector chart is a
digitized digitization of a paper-based
chart it means that they're actually you
can add and remove elements when you
zoom in or zoom out there's different
information you can make the water red
you can make it purple you can do
whatever you want all the data is
completely you can manipulate it however
you want a raster chart is an image you
can't really
you're not photoshopping the image yours
either zooming in zooming out and that's
so we'll talk a little bit about that we
mentioned screen size how important it
is to make a decision now to consider
that price point and might not be much
more money
and here's another take away the horizon
for all of us for navigation equipment
is honestly minimum 10 years minimum 10
probably 15 maybe 20 that's a long time
zone like I have no one that says to me
I spent a bunch of money five years ago
I'm refreshing my electronics I don't
care how much money they've got in their
pocket they're spending on something
else
five year old electronics is brand new
electronics no one it's never happened
never not a single time ten years is
sort of the minimum 15 is average and 20
happens so remember that's a long
decision that's a 20 year commitment
because there's a lot of money upfront
to put it all in so whatever you decide
think about it you're not gonna be so
like our iPhones or smartphones where
we're changing them every couple years
every three years or four years this is
a 15 year sort of commitment the other
thing depending on the type of boat you
have you might end up going with a black
box a black boxes sort of it's a
computer and it sits somewhere else and
then you sort of have these monitors
like at home and you might have a Hatlen
display which obviously is gonna have
really good low-light because that night
you want to have really low light
touchscreen but you might decide to
break up and have a black box that does
sort of to displace and we talked about
the difference between buttons touch and
hybrid so here's what a vector chart
looks like right it sort of looks
cartoonish it was digitized and so there
was a literally probably an army of
people that were digitizing these paper
charts and making raster chart vector
charts companies that do that or
Navionics and then also Garmin did that
right see map did that and Ray Marines
even doing it as well in the States
they're digitizing sort of what's free
information from NOAA or here in Canada
CHS and do digitizing this paper-based
charts to a vector chart here's what it
looks a raster chart
I mean I find that beautiful I mean I
that could be a frame on a wall I'll uh
I'm always gonna love raster it's sort
of have that feeling it's common we know
what it looks like but it's a
paper-based chart and you're just
zooming in zooming out
so as you're zooming out they can't
remove elements you're just seeing
further and further away like looking at
a chart farther and farther away all
right with that we're gonna start on
sounder sonars fishfinders different
words meanings sort of the same thing
besides propulsion steering right two
separate things
obviously halt integrity is another one
halt integrity propulsion steering VHF
radio depth sounder it's gotta be top
fifth five thing in your boat depth
sounder you cannot go boating without
one you need to know what the depth is
charts don't always tell you the truth
that's a reality the soundings might be
off they thought it was that they told
you it was that but it isn't that so you
better it might as well know what it is
what's the depth underneath your boat so
everyone needs a depth sounder and
beyond a depth sounder now you we have
transducers that have the ability and
will see images that you could actually
see literally a ship underwater you can
see a tree underwater it's not just
showing you depth
it's literally imaging the bottom under
your boat sweeping to the side
sweeping forward there's all these
different possibilities with transducers
nowadays by the very least you need a
depth sounder that shows you bottom
depth okay
when you're buying a transducer you've
got different choices one of them is a
through-hole transducer which
through-hole and a transom mount off
because the transducers are in the water
offer you by far the best quality and
you can also do what's called an in hull
transducer that means it's glued on the
inside of the hall but it's like talking
through a wall someone on the other side
might hear you but there's obviously
gonna be a lot of signal loss talking
through a solid wall you can't have air
gaps so it has to be fiberglass right
solid fiberglass and we'll do that
sometimes for a boater that says Jeff
I've spent up here we were doing my nap
but I'm not hauling out until a year
later or in eight months let's put in a
really inexpensive in Hall transducer
short term because it's a couple hundred
bucks 150 bucks 250 let's put it in and
then next time I haul out then we'll put
in the through-hole transducer and we're
gonna do it properly I would never ever
recommend a through-hole are in Hull
transducer as a primary transducer for
someone that's going really far afield
you know we need depth depth is not a
gadget you don't want to lose your
bottom your bottom be sort of flaky
because remember the water column what's
beneath your boat also affects like if
you're in a river for example that has a
lot of sand or coming out of around a
you're in the ocean but for example here
we have a large river the Fraser or if
you're up north and all these huge
rivers that have lots of silt coming out
sand that's suspended you're gonna lose
your bottom a lot sooner than you would
when the bots when the ocean is clear
water right so you could actually have a
lot of debris suspended in the water
column and that's gonna affect the
ability of your transducer to read the
bottom so they're stronger the
transducer if the transducers actually
in the water means that you're not gonna
have any sort of power loss by going
through a hall here's an example of a
through hall with a faring block pretty
common here's an example of a pretty big
transom mount transducer so that's
really popular on obviously not sail
boats fishing boats power boats up to
about probably thirty five ish right but
you need an ability to kick it back down
so if you don't have a way to sometimes
you'll hit a debris and it's gonna pop
up you won't know it popped up you're
just gonna get a funny reading right so
that transducer because there's a lot of
debris in the water around here you
could actually have it kicked up while
you're underway so sometimes you need a
way to actually push it back so it's
parallel right with the water so
straight down you don't want it to be
shooting down like this because you're
reading it completely do all your
reading behind your boat which is not
good and that distance is much longer
than the distance straight down so Julie
you're gonna see those in the twenty
thirty foot range thirty is sort of the
end maybe you've got a big Grady white
we might see that but generally if at
one point you might find it an annoyance
to actually have to worry about if my
transducer constantly parallel so you're
gonna say screw it I just want it
mounted in the hall always looking down
because I'm pretty sure my boat is
always level right and so then you end
up leaving the transom mount transducer
here's an example of an image of a in
Hall transducer and it can actually I'll
even be mounted for the offset because
most of our halls are not flat right so
you might have a hall that's like this
and so you can actually adjust the
degrees to off make for the offset you
even now have literally it true Hall
transducers that the element your
transducer might be installed like this
the halls like here but the transducer
has a tilted element inside and it's
shooting down like here so your
transducer is actually you think
shooting off to the side but it actually
isn't inside the element is actually
tilted to offset for your dead rise of
your Hall and that's a way to avoid
fairing blocks so we do these sort of
mushroom transducers that are coming in
I don't have an image that are coming in
and they're offset by 12 degrees 20
degrees you know air Ameri makes all
these different types of offset
transducers so you don't have to have a
faring block to offset for the dead rise
of your Hall now
in the past you know you think about
these instruments we had simple
instruments that would show a depth
number right the transducer would be
plugged directly into that instrument
pretty straightforward and then
fishfinders came out and then we need a
black box something needed to understand
what was going on there need to be a
brain to translate all this information
and send it to the char plotter
so the chart plotter would have
something that we humans could
understand nowadays you can actually buy
a lot of char plotters and have that
intelligence right into the chart
plotter itself so that means you can
connect literally a transducer port
directly into the back of the chart
plotter multiple multifunction display
and have the device translate all that
information and show you a sounding
image with bottom profile and fish now
some of you might have a char plotter
that doesn't have that capability
it wasn't bought with it right Garmin
sells char plotters with transducer
ports and with it without but now you're
saying oh now I want a depth sounder I
want a fish finder well then what you're
going to end up doing is you're going to
end up buying a black box
sounder to be network to your charcoal
otter so you can always do it later okay
here's the sort of simple instrument
showing depth even on big boats we do
this all the time on trawlers I'll have
a huge suite of navigation electronics
at the Maine helm and then add the brow
I'm gonna start having sort of like get
me home electronics things that are
simple like a GPS depth you know like
some redundancy you know because you can
always go home if you've got a you know
a GPS and a depth sounder it's nice to
have sharp plotters and all but if
something ever goes r-ray you want to
get home you have redundancy even though
my sailboat I've got a chart plotter and
I have a fish finder but I also have
another breaker on my panel that just
lights up my instruments and my
instruments are wind and depth and I
leave that on 24/7 even an anchor I want
to know what the wind speed is and I our
alarm for wind speed because you're in
joined-up dragging at high wind speed
and I want to know what my depth is
because I've always worried about
hitting bottom that's something I
never stop worrying about I'm constantly
because you're swinging in an anchorage
right
you never know what the bottom could be
like and I'm constantly looking at my
depth like I'm obsessed and I do that
throughout the day with my dad what's my
depth did I give my enough room for the
tide some places like here the tides are
pretty huge 12 15 foot tides are not
uncommon further north 25 foot tides I
mean those are extreme some places only
2 3 feet right in the Caribbean but here
in the Pacific Northwest a 10-foot tide
12 foot tide pretty commonplace some
days it's 18 feet times right so you can
have a lot of water when you came in but
six hours from now it could be 18 feet
lower so having a depth sounder as a
backup somewhere or something that you
leave on all the time depending on what
type of boating you do if you're at the
dock you won't have to worry as much
dr. dock to dock is easy right but if
you're anchoring a depth sounder and
always on is nice to consider this is a
traditional sounder that means 50 and
250 goes deeper 200 is wider so you
imagine a cone right coming from an
element it's sort of like a cone goes in
all directions 50 allows you to go
deeper and 200 allows you to see wider
chirp that's compressed high-intensity
irradiated pulse I mean forget about the
name
you just chirp at the end of the day a
lot of boaters are going with chirp
because not only they're able to see
it's sort of like a sweeping beam of
frequencies right so it doesn't just
output one frequency it does a sweep and
it's constantly going through that sweep
so they're looking for multiple sort of
echoes so that's where you can start
literally seeing a tree like they have
these cool pictures of places where they
filled up a reservoir or a dam they
dammed an area you can see a bridge
house that got you know literally
flooded you can see trees that were
again flooded you can see all of that on
the side of your boat
so that's kind of the side view right
and then you can also see some of them
are forward-looking now
so it's a little bit like having radar
it's a be able to see underneath your
boat and it's really popular obviously
with the fishing crowds right or I have
forward-looking people are going really
further ashore outside of Vancouver
Island Queen Charlotte's Alaska and
they're going in sort of sketchy
Anchorage's right and that's sort of
their thrill right they could do the
easy one but they want to get in the one
that it's hard to get into and so
they'll install a forward scan
transducer right and they'll even do
side sweeps to figure out where are the
ledges around their boat when they're
anchoring right so they can see that it
gets shallower because sometimes it
might be 40 feet underneath your boat
here but 20 feet to the side it's only
10 feet all right it's not a rock it's
just a ledge so that's why some of these
different types of transducers are
useful not only for fish finding but
also for gun coaling right going away
from the bead and track and that's where
that's the pleasure I find as a boater I
mean it's easy to go to certain places
that are huge holes right tons of boats
it'll be 300 both in the summer and it's
easy you drop the hook you're done but
if you're willing to be a little bit
more courageous and go into more
technical Anchorage then there's only
another boat there or you're the only
boat there so if you like you know if
you want to be surrounded with a lot of
people generally those are the easy
Anchorage's languages that are less
demanding technically and if you want to
be alone the way to be alone is by being
willing to take on a little bit more
complicated anchoring locations and that
or deeper water or whatnot and you can
be in a amazing place and there's 300
boats a nautical mile away and you're by
yourself so close
you didn't go far but you're just
willing to take on a harder Anchorage ok
so the next thing we're going to talk
about is why radar as a boater I can
tell you that I have never left the dock
with fog that's never happened I've
never intentionally said I can't see
further than the bow of my boat let's go
boating
never done that some people do I'm not
laughing some people don't care I've
never done that but I can tell you as a
boater
I've been countless times enveloped
surrounded by fog that was not predicted
to be foggy and I saw a fog bank of the
horizon later when you're underway I'm a
sailboat I can't outrun it I'm not doing
40 knots and literally you can see it
under horizon and it's coming and you
see it it's a white wall and you're like
it's coming and sure enough it happened
underway in the summer month in August
it's not supposed to be foggy there's
generally no fog there but sure enough
as a boater it's 99 days of bliss and
the one day of sheer terror and if you
haven't lived the day of sheer terror
just wait it will happen and that's why
radar is very it's comforting to have
because when you're surrounded by fog
it's like being sentenced less it means
that your hearing is not the same you
can't see it just feels that you're
without your senses it's terrifying
it literally is terrifying what radar
gives you is it gives you the ability
because you know where you are obviously
with your GPS the challenge is the other
boats around you right those boats are
not on your chart plotter there are not
only there if they're transmitting their
position via AIS we'll talk about that a
little bit later or you're picking them
up with your radar so I have motors that
say to me well I don't need our radar
because when I'm motoring I know where I
am because I have my GPS I'm like you're
absolutely right if there is thing not a
single boat out there you'll get home
with a sharp lure only in radar in fog
no problem but you're assuming that
there's not an idiot out there that's
decided to go full throttle like it
actually happened to me no joke that fog
back that came up full radar everything
radar overlay there is a power boat that
missed our bow by about 200 we actually
use the foghorn full throttle
about 35 knots they were screaming
Russian roulette style let's see what
happens
no joke we actually stopped our boat we
would have been on a collision course
so I'm ARPA acquire them I actually
acquired the target they were coming
super fast who does 35 knots in fog I
mean you got to be you're living in the
moment you know life is good now and
tomorrow we'll see but right now it's
pretty damn good so right now for them
they were a happy happy place 35 knots
I'm like what the hell is going on who's
going 35 in fog target target we're like
collision course stop the boat
I have time to go down the stairs pull a
foghorn I've never used my foghorn
before pull out and they pass about 200
feet in front of her about screaming Oh
doing 35 knots can you imagine not
having my radar it would be crazy
you're blind without radar so radar is
one of those things where once you live
that fog sort of being around you and
flopping you you go I need a radar
generally you don't need a radar until
you do and when that happens you come
back you're like yeah so we're doing the
radar up great otherwise the missus is
never coming out voting again so it's
gonna be a couple seasons where she's
not gonna be coming because she likes
the grandkids and this whole voting
thing is pleasure boating not like we've
got a good life here right like so we're
doing the radar like oh yeah good yeah
so consider radar up front rather than
after you need it so here's an example
of what's amazing about a radar overlay
and what makes radar so easy nowadays is
that you're literally putting all the
radar image on top of your chart right
so you're lining up your chart is this
and your radar is lining up like that
and what that tells you right away is
anything that's not on land is something
of interest right so it tells you right
away what are the things that you don't
need to worry about and what are the
things you should worry about so
anything that's not charted is an object
of interest why is that object on the
water it's probably a boat is it moving
is it a fishing boat practically not
moving is it moving off the bottom some
fishing boats don't move they're just
there
mooching off the bottom some fishing
boats barely move they're moving a knot
fairies are coming in at 20 knots
freighters are 25 knots
you've got people they've got nothing to
live for they're coming at 35 knots okay
so you've got all these different
boaters out there and as a radar what it
does with the overlay it tells you right
away what are the targets you should be
worried about
so radars come in two different sort of
flavors one is a radar radio radar so
I've got four examples here from Faru no
Raymarine BMG Garmin simra it's the same
thing like B and G it looks the same so
that's sort of an array that is
generally about 18 inches this big or 24
inches and there's an Iranian side and
it's about this high and you'll see them
on radar poles you'll see them on radar
towers on massive sailboats right
they're not too heavy and yeah probably
about 250 feet probably you're going to
end up seeing them and the array
remember is only NT 8 18 inches and the
wider the array right
the longer that's why the big ships it's
think about it the more they have depth
of vision right the wider or eyes are
the better your depth perception is if
you cover one eye you're your world is
not 3d anymore right everything becomes
simply 2d there's no depth perception so
the bigger the array the better depth
perception you're gonna have and then
you can start separating targets that
would otherwise be seen as one cluster
that's why the big boats have really big
erase right really really big arrays
because they can see things that
otherwise would be obstructed in front
of another right so that's what a open
array looks like they start about this
size all right and then they go as big
as you want as big as you want 12 feet
but you never see that on a pleasure
boat but 6 feet array 8 feet array is
not uncommon for feet are a definitely
not uncommon
so when you're thinking about nowadays
what's amazing about this new technology
there's these sort of solid-state radars
so I think one of the challenges that we
all had as pleasure voters is that it's
hard to understand a radar screen
honestly if you don't use it it's pretty
hard so one piece of advice that I have
for motors is always use radar when you
don't need them like I use radar every
day that I'm boating and I use it to
anchor literally I what's the distance
between my boat and other boats what's
the distance between my boat and shore
I'm using it all the time I want to
start estimating distances and I want to
know what boats look like when I turn on
radar what is it
act like what's sort of what am I
getting back because remember I'm gonna
need it one day when I'm blind when it's
either pitch dark outside or I'm again
full fog and now what these solid state
radars are doing is they're actually
doing sort of auto marpa they're
actually looking at targets coming
towards you and putting them in red and
targets that are moving away from you or
going in green so they're actually
trying to make understanding radar
easier now commercial operators only
operate a boat with radar that's it
there's nothing else charts all I mean
it's radar radar radar radar and
practice makes perfect if you end up
using radar only when that sheer day of
Terror and use once every second or
third year you're gonna use it but
you're not gonna know how to use it so
one thing to consider is for sure
radar overlay makes it easier modern
radars that start acquiring targets
automatically color coding the ones that
are moving the ones that are moving
towards you that are on a collision
course and also using it all the time
using it every day that you're out
boating I use it to look at the ferries
look at the freighters I'm like I'm
curious have to read our overlay on oh
yeah look at that boat oh yeah that's a
big that's a pretty big image yeah yeah
yeah oh yeah there look at them I light
it up in English Bank where there's so
many freighters anchored yeah we're all
the boats yeah that makes sense that
boat that boat that boat
when I pass close to one what does it
look like when I'm close to a big
freighter you know it's one thing when
the freighter is that you know a
thousand meters a mile away but what
happens when the freighters literally
300 foot to your side that's just simply
anchored what does that look on the
chart with our radar overlay practice or
good practice makes perfect
all right a is a is stands for automatic
identification system and it's a way for
boats to boats to trans mate not only
their location but also their speed on
ground their course on ground which is
where they're going how fast they're
going somewhere their boat name the
width of the boat the length of the boat
they can even on Stern transport they'll
tell you their destination when they
expect to be to port and so you can
actually know a big boat over there who
are you you know here's me you can
actually call the boat they're your Lear
Lisi their boat name and say by the way
I'm navigating I'm letting you through
you know you can start calling someone
by their name and saying hey you right
because now it's showing up on your
chart plotter and you have sort of like
a business card an identification card
for every boat that is transmitting a is
now as a boater you might not be
transmitting but you can also be
receiving at least you see them they
don't see you right it's a first step of
having a is is having a receiver only
and the next step is being a transponder
so you transmit your position and they
receive
I have motors that say Jeff on Friday
I'd rather my transmitter not be
transmitting I don't want people in my
office my staff to know that I'm voting
can I be on silent mode I'm like
absolutely you can go silent on Friday
Saturday suddenly you're gonna show up
at an anchorage but on friday you were
nowhere to be seen so yes you can go
silent the other thing too is I have
voters that have maybe both partners
they're you know two partners three
partners four partners on a boat and
they they're meeting they're exchanging
the boat in different places but
sometimes you can't communicate with the
boat partner are they on their way are
they making progress you can actually go
on a phone have an app literally look at
the any boat in the world
and see them on your phone and they
could be in the Browns and like well I
haven't been able to reach Mike but yeah
he's underway and he's going to port and
everything's on schedule or your partner
might be looking and simply your wife or
her husband's you might be looking to
say I wonder if they made it to anchor
last night yeah I didn't hear from them
but I wonder did they make it to anchor
they forgot to call me I haven't spoken
to them you can literally look on your
app see they're like yeah they're
anchored and such and such Bay they told
me they were wrong they're things must
be pretty good if they're anchored and
they're in where they intend it to be so
it's a way for boaters to stay in touch
you might be looking for a friend
we're going up to desolation sound where
are they oh yeah they're in Monte
they're in I don't know a preeto Haven
oh they're in Cortes bank okay perfect
Oh we'll reach out to channel maybe 66
when we get closer again if you want to
go silent you can no problem
but if you want to share your
information with other voters you can do
that as well now it's obviously vessel
to vessel and vessel to shore that's how
the shore gets the information and then
they upload it via the internet and then
you download via the internet it's not
real time so I don't recommend people to
navigate a is with a phone this is not a
navigation tool it's there's a delay
there okay
it's imagine you walking around and
having your site telling you information
around you 10 15 20 seconds later
there'd be a lot of bumping into people
if the delay there was a 10 seconds or
even five second delay between what you
see and what you're processing you
cannot make any sort of navigation
decisions without having instantaneous
information of where boats are and where
boats are going here's an example of the
boat right here and then you see an AIS
target right over here there show up as
a triangle you got another triangle over
here another triangle over here another
triangle over here and so they're trying
to avoid each other right now right
they're coming in sort of a congested
navigable waterway and you'll see that a
lot like around here in the Pacific
we've got a lot of boats happening in
the Strait of Georgia there's boats that
are going to English Harbor they're
anchoring they're supposed to are
leaving
you can actually light up at Rene is far
away from even under like I know you
could be 5 miles 10 miles 20 miles and
you'll have all those a is target's show
up on your chart plotter which is really
nice to figure out sometimes there's
places around here where we have really
tighten passes and you'll see big bolts
on the other side I would remember just
recently we were coming through a pass
and I was telling my partner we've gotta
wait there's two tugboats on the other
side it's their turn and sure enough we
stopped and we could have gone through
that pass it's called dogs narrows but
it's a really tight pass you can't see
the other side sure enough I waited I
looked like crazy why am i waiting but
they came in with their log booms one
two and then we took our turn and then
we went through the pass so those are
basically some of the you can see local
commercial traffic you can plan narrow
passages under bridge right constriction
of areas because here in the Pacific
Northwest there's a lot of that and you
can have collision alerts and with that
I think it's going to be my last slide
so here's a big takeaway when you buy an
A is you can buy them as a receiver and
you can buy it as transponder and
receiver if you buy an AIS transponder
it's going to come with a GPS why
because everything needs to be
time-stamped they need to know that you
are where you are when you are so every
single AIS transponder doesn't matter if
it's M track Vesper could be for uno to
be Simrad it could be Raymarine could be
Garmin all come with their own dedicated
GPS antenna so that everything is
time-stamped so they know where you are
when you say you are okay we've got a
couple minutes just for questions before
we go on to the next presentation
anybody here have questions on
navigation equipment or what we talked
about yes
yeah so the question upfront was
dedicated VHF antenna or AIS antenna or
a splitter it really depends because as
a sail border the advantages you have
tall masts so a sail border would
generally go with a splitter because
about range if you've got a big
powerboat and you could put an intent on
portside and for reasons of symmetry
you've got room on the starboard side
you might end up putting an AIS antenna
on starboard and a VHF antenna on port
but some big power boats already have a
VHF for lower helm and a VHF for upper
helm on Rd port and starboard so that's
where you might end up doing a splitter
and there an active splitter digital
splitters so there's no real like line
loss it depends there's no easy way of
ideally dedicated antenna ideally if you
had a boat with two masts at opposite
ends of the boat not in the same plane
you'd have two antennas but then the
problem is are you do you have the
ability or the time to route a second
antenna right and how many boats have
two masks not in the same level
separated away from each other not that
many yes another question
yeah so good question how do you end up
inputting VIS information about the boat
named MMSI the width of your boat the
length of your boat all that has to be
done either through an app literally
like vesper for example you actually go
in via an app that you download from the
internet log in via blue - I Phi and
then you do that or you'll do it through
a computer okay with that I'm going to
let I'm upstairs at the booth there of
the whole weekend so if you've got more
questions about electronics you can meet
me up there and also at the end of the
next presentation anybody's got
questions I'll take questions as well so
thank you everyone for being here today
I appreciate it
English (auto-generated)
How To: Marine Electrical Seminar
How To: Marine Electrical Seminar - Electrical Fundamentals - Episode 18
Understand and Wire Your Boat’s Electrical System
How To: Marine Electrical Seminar - Charging Sources - Episode 5 of 12
2020 Boat Show Presentations
2020 Boat Show Presentations
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