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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

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