Aft companionway.......??????????????

TIH is a center cockpit boat and as per the tradition of her era she has a forward and aft companionway.  I can be corrected on this but it seems that modern (i.e. post 1990) center cockpit boats seem to tend towards a single companionway.

To date I have tended to ignore the upper-deck elements of TIH(with the exception of the ports and hatches) but the looming rainy season has gotten me motivated.

TIH companionway hatches are the traditional type, teak on aluminum "U" shaped channels, with a front drop board.  The drop board is held in place by two vertical retaining boards, screwed onto the fiberglass.  All in all this is a functional system, but is prone to leaking.  I don't like having an open hatch facing forward in any type of sea.  I would like to keep the access but am looking for a more elegant and robust solution. 

Aluminum "U" shaped channel

 

Settee continued....

This shows the removable back strip to allow access to the drawers behind. 

Getting a bit better at the wood butchery.

Epoxy fillet.

SSB receivers.

A fellow Whitby owner asked a question about SSB receivers. While my ultimate choice for long distance cruising communications is an Icom M802, I have to accept that this is a $2K+ investment which may be overkill for the US East Coast and the Bahamas. 

My short term solution, and one that I had on my last boat, is a Sitex Nav-Fax 200 SSB receiver. (Search around as prices vary a lot). 

This worked very well for listening to Chris Parker and his predecessor David Jones. I also used it to download weather faxes onto a laptop with varying degrees of success. An interesting development is the availability of iPad apps to download weather faxes from the SSB receiver. I have not used this yet but it looks promising;

Blackcatsystems.com 

BEP CZone distributed power and digital switching systems

Check out this article by Ben Ellison on his excellent blog PANBO.com. 

PANBO

As you might know I have Mastervolt not BEP on TIH, but the good news is that they are both owned by the same parent company.  Mastervolt (BEP) has designed a connect switch to allow its systems to be controlled/monitored by the BEP system, this includes the Simrad MFDs'.

Check this out;  CZone Digital Switching on Simrad NSE

It looks like they will be working with other MFD companies (Garmin?) in the near future.

What does this mean?  I can monitor my MV DC system from the GPS (MFD) screen, switch on and off Nav lights, pumps etc. and other good stuff that I will probably never use.I believe that an iPad app is on the cards.

More PANBO

I like KISS solutions......

Keep it Simple Stupid has pride of place on any boat, IMHO.  It might not always seem so from some of my projects but I do try. 

The lenses of most deck hatches will eventually craze in the tropical sun.  In an effort to slow the process we tend to cover them with canvas covers.  I have never found these to be long lasting (even with sunbrella) or particularly user friendly.  Then along came the Outland Brothers;

http://outlandhatchcovers.com/index.htm

KISS

The little black dots on the top of each are twist lock fasteners which allow easy removal of the covers.


I have no link with the company but I like stuff that does what it says on the tin.

I'm an iPad fan.....

I'm a big fan of iPads on sailboats.  They have a multitude of uses.  I will always have a dedicated GPS Plotter at the wheel because they are more robust / waterproof  but for planning etc. the new iPad stuff is hard to beat.

My original Mk1 iPad has now been replaced with a Mk4 for my daily use and the Mk1 has been donated to the boat.  It has been mounted on the Nav Station panel using the WALLEE iPad mount

The cable connection will be tidied up any year now.

Eventually I will have a WiFi system onboard transmitting navigation instrument data.  The technology is improving every year.  This is DMK app displaying wind speed, boat speed, wind angle and depth.   Nice...... 

Navionics charts of Biscayne Bay on the Navionics App.

Vessel lights on the COLREGS app.

And the list goes on....................................................

First post from onboard TIH

Christmas brought me the The Wirie^AP:  Long Distance WiFi and Access Point.

Now installed onboard TIH, works great.