Today I finished installing a Raymarine SmartController. Over recent months I have installed a number of critical items, notably safety gear for when we are ocean passaging. This isn't one of them, it's really just fun.
The SmartController is a wireless remote for the autopilot. In other words, we can control the boat's steering from anywhere on board, while sitting on the bow with our legs hanging over the water as an example. It also includes a repeater of all the ship's instruments: heading, course over ground, speed over ground, windspeed and direction, water temperature, depth, waypoint, VMG, ETA, etc. I can come up with a safety angle if you'd like!
Now that the instruments are all linked together through a SeaTalk network, it's amazing what the pilot is capable of. Here's an example: Imagine we're offshore sailing, heading for Bermuda. We can trim the boat to the wind so it's fast and on course, hit a button and have the boat steer not to a heading or waypoint (although you can do that too), but to the current wind angle. Thus the boat should remain fast even as the wind clocks and veers. It may, however, follow the wind off course - if the wind did a 180 the pilot would follow it around. So you set an alarm to alert you if you deviate from your correct heading by more than, say, 15 degrees, of if the cross-track error is more than 0.5nm.
The radar is great but power hungry, and we have to run our 55HP engine to top up the batteries; a nuisance. So the radar can be set to do 20 sweeps every fifteen minutes (roughly how long it will take for a fast-moving tanker to appear on the radar while providing some time to react) and fire off an alarm if it gets a target. Once it hits a target, it can track it and alert you if there's a risk of collision.
Not a replacement for frequent cross-checking and careful navigation, but fun. I'm really trying hard to keep things simple (everything breaks on boats) but I figured that given most of the kit was there already, stand alone, it's a small step but big improvement to network it all and get the full benefit.
Heading to Block Island tomorrow, and on Sunday to New York's Shelter Island. Shelter is adjacent to Sag Harbor, and one of my favourite destinations. Patrick Nihan, an old mate from when we were kids in Hong Kong and Malaysia, is coming up to Newport tonight, with his girlfriend Vikky. They'll catch the Long Island Railroad back to NYC on Sunday night.
Greg Larson is permanent crew. He comes back Monday, and we're sailing through Plum Gut then back down Long Island Sound, waters we both know well, to Mamaroneck, from where I have sailed for the last 7 years. We'll haul the boat out of the water, strip the bottom paint, wax the hull and apply two coats of Micron Extra. This is ablative bottom paint (it 'sloughs' off as you sail revealing new anti-barnacle chemical) and I hope it will last 18 months. It's an unpleasant job. I find there's lots of people who would like to come sailing, but most people seem to be 'away' that weekend!
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