An iPad Experience

   I wrote in January 2012 about using iNavX and an iPad as an affordable chart plotter. I have yet to procure mine and install. Till I do check out this other bloggers experience.           
  Andrew from the yacht Arabella has written a blog about his experience of using the iPad as his charting display of choice He starts out by saying........

"The loss of my trusty, semi-retired MacBook Pro, as a result of its impromptu shower on the Round The Island Race, had forced me to consider alternative methods of chartplotting. "

His blog is quite jnformative and is aimed more to those whose boating is in Europe; even so, well worth the read for his comment around 5 charting solutions listed here.

• iChart (Solent)
• Marine Imray Charts: English Channel
• Navionics HD UK & Holland
• Memory Map (Free version)
• iNavX

Andrew covers such topics as which iPad to choose; waterproofing and mounting; tides and wind vectors. Overall, lots of photo's, discussion and practical examples given through out. Hop on over to his blog to read more. 

Rebuilt Hydraulic Linear Drive

Repaired HLD upon receiving. Oil included.

At the start of  this cruising season, I checked out my autopilot and after some discussion with the experts, came to the conclusion that my Hydraulic Linear Drive was faulty. The prior year we had had all sorts of issues arise with the Furuno and intended this year to get them sorted. I had a spare, so fitted that and still had no success. Both failed the rudder test, in the dockside setup menu, of the Furuno autopilot.
So, I sent both of them out to be repaired, and soon learnt that both HLD's had "bad"(worn) gear pumps and needed to be replaced. Unfortunately you can only receive the motor and gear pump as one unit.
I told my repair guy to go ahead and repair one HLD and see if that will fix my issues, before committing to to both being repaired. At that time, we were about to leave for the Whtisunday Islands in Queensland, Australia, so arranged for him to post the HLD up to us. We would continue our journey with our CPT autopilot.
Cutting a long story short, it took nearly five months for the HLD to be repaired and sent back to us; and we received it just before we were getting ready to leave the Whitsunday Islands and head south again. It mostly revolved around the issue of poor supply from the dealers in Australia. Simrad would not allow the repairer to source directly from the company.

Fitted HLD

The HLD was fitted to the quadrant again, and everything worked well. What a relief. We have now given the guy the OK to go ahead and fix the second HLD. This should be ready for us to pick up when I return to the boat next March. We have a long journey next year; heading to Thailand.

You will notice perhaps in the photo to the above, two rudder reference units. (one is disconnected) This is because we also have our Robertson Autopilot available in case we need to change from the Furuno at some time. For the season we used our newly purchased CPT autopilot; a great autopilot that drives the wheel instead. But the Furuno is our favourite, and all our issues with the Furuno seemed to have disappeared with the rebuilt  HLD.
Cost; Australian $1300. about $300 more than quoted; but all in all, half the cost of a new unit. All the seals etc were replaced and the ram unit hardly ever wears. Finally some peace of mind.

A Wifi Booster Installation

Internet access can come from various sources, but popular amongst boaters is wifi. The people on Sea Trek have an article, in three stages, about installing the Bullet wifi booster, replacing their Engenius system. Click on over to their site for a run down on their installation, and  it all ends with a review of the two systems. Part one here. Part two here. Part three here
 The Ubiquiti Bullet linked here to their web site has the specs and details about the wifi booster. This is what Sea Trek used for their latest installation.

I have taken a different approach. What do we use on our boat? We use a broadband (3G) wireless ( through cell towers) wifi, which can connect up to five devices on the boat. Most phone companies now sell these devices, but you can always put another (cell phone) companies sim card in if the device is unlocked.
 This is good for where ever there is cell phone coverage, although we carry two different provider devices, because we have come to realize that some cell phones coverage can vary depending where we are. Usually if we can't get service from one, the other will pick up. To complement this and increase our range, we use a cell phone booster, which can give us coverage up to 50 miles off shore. Take a look here for what a cell booster can do for you. 
Finally, when we go to a different country, we go and buy their data sim and put it in our device, or buy their device depending how the country has set up their cellular data network. What do you use for internet?

Project Creep; an insight

Captain Pauley has an interesting example of "Project Creep" that we are sometimes faced with, with work on our own boats.
Hop on over to his blog site to read his blog, and come away with a smile; yeah, I've been there.
He starts out by giving us a definition
"Project creep is when you start out to build a Mini-Cooper and end up with a bus. It’s endemic in a boat restoration project and Daydream is no exception. If you remember back to the first Project Daydream article, my daughter and I were going to restore Daydream on a budget and to a time frame. We’ve resisted project creep as best we could, but it’s time for me to admit a certain amount of defeat on that subject."

LED refit

We wrote about a LED light upgrade and can be read here We continue to upgrade our lights with the same LED strips but if your contemplating doing this type of project, we recommend an excellent article that svOcelot has on LED lighting. They start by saying "Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are rapidly becoming the preferred way to illuminate your boat.  They're much more energy efficient than incandescent lighting, they last much longer, and they are now available in a range of eye‑pleasing colors, like warm‑white.  They're even bright enough now for foredeck lighting.  Several manufacturers are producing replacement bulbs, so switching over from incandescent lighting is easy....." 
Before you refit with LED's, hop over to their blog site and get some information which will help you make some proper choices. Pro's and Con's; how they work; etc.