Backup paper Charts.

CB 27 July, 2012
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Paper charts.

Everyone says they have them, or plan on getting them. I’d be willing to bet that half of those people don’t really have them, and/or never get them. Or, if they actually do have them they are horribly out of date.

I’m solidly in the out of date category myself. But to be honest, computer navigation systems are getting so friggin reliable, robust, AND cheap. Paper charts are becoming more and more backups for your backups.

You could go with a dedicated navigation system like Garmin, or Simrad (Installing this on our boat now), or anyone of the other options available. You could save a bunch of money and go the iPad route and install Navionics. Or do like we did for years and run some version of Navigation software on your laptop, plugged into a handheld GPS. The possibilities are almost endless.

All that being said, stuff on boats get wet. Electrical stuff getting wet, does not equal awesome. So back-up paper charts are still a good idea. One of the major drawbacks to paper charts though is the freakin’ cost. Which probably contributes to why a lot of boaters either don’t have paper charts or “plan” on getting them someday. It sucks paying a few hundred dollars for something you will most likely never use, or are out of date, or you don’t even know how to use properly.

Which brings us to the reason for this post. I was poking around NOAA’s website the other day and found they have an experimental program going on. Check it out here. The booklet format is experimental, not the charts. :)

Quote from the website:

The NOAA BookletChartâ„¢ is an experimental product that you can print at home for free. They are made to help recreational boaters locate themselves on the water.
The Booklet Chart is reduced in scale and divided into pages for convenience, but otherwise contains all the information of the full-scale nautical chart. Bar scales are also reduced in scale, but are accurate when used to measure distances in a BookletChart. Excerpts from the United States Coast Pilot are included. Most chart notes are consolidated on a single page for easy reference. Emergency information for the charted area is printed on the back cover.

Printable charts from NOAA are not a new thing. What is new is the booklet format. Click the region and sub regions you want, download them as .pdfs and print them out at home or work. Or go to something like Fedex.com’s online printing have it printed out and bound for around $30 per booklet. Which is a lot cheaper than than buying all those charts the old school way. And they will be up to date.

The really nice bit, is that in this format, each edge of the map is marked so you know which page to flip to.

Being a bit of map geek. I prefer to plot/navigate on the old school, large charts. But having these booklets on board as a back up is great/cheap alternative to spending tons of cash on charts for regions you are just passing through.

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Moving

CB 21 July, 2012
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Moving to a new webhost and domian registrar. Site may be down for a bit over this weekend.

It’s done and moved. All should be back to normal…

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It’s a small world after all.

CB 21 July, 2012
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This is a story all about how, my life got flipped, turned upside down….No, no wait. It’s not, this post has nothing to do with that. This post is about me, crewing on a 37 foot sailboat from San Franciso to Seattle.

Actually, that is not going to turn out to be the case either. I did crew on a sailboat from San Francisco back up here to Seattle, and could write about that. But we all know how that post would go.

I’d start with something about my flight down, and some boring stuff about meeting up with some friends in SF. (Friends I love, who did not bore me at all and always buy me delicious burritos when I visit). Or about meeting the boat and crew, and us doing some touristy stuff in town while we waited for a good weather in which to head north in.

I’m sure I would include some stuff about how cool it was sailng under the Golden Gate Bridge (it was), and getting a little queasy as soon as the swell of the Pacific hit us. Probably a quick blurb about some sort of hangover too.

I’d try to convey the feeling and power of sailing on a small boat in a huge ocean. I’d fail…..miserably. Same goes for trying to describe sailing at night, alone in the cockpit. Actually steering by a star, feeling the huge unseen swells lift the boat up and set it back down as it rolls by underneath. Seeing blue streaks approaching the boat on a pitch black night, and freaking out trying to figure out what they were, until I realized it’s dolphins swimming along side the boat and leaving bio-luminescence trails behind them as they swam.

I’m not gonna do that. I’m gonna tell you the story of how/why I came to be on that boat in the first place. It’s gonna be one of those “It’s a small world” kinda stories.

Like most some sailors, I want to sail on the open ocean. And, plan to do so on my own boat one of these days, but really wanted to do it on someone else’s boat first. So, one rainy day back in March I decided that instead of taking our usual summer vacation to the San Juan Islands, I would see if I could find a boat to crew on going down the coast from Seattle to somewhere south, San Francisco or further.

I started looking in all the usual places you look to do this sort of thing. What and where those “usual places” are, I honestly could not tell you. Because literally, the first web forum I went to that day (http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f30/) I found a listing for crew entitled “Crew Wanted – La Paz Mexico to Seattle – Early April 2012”.

I was like “What. the. WHUT”? I immediately responded to the post and sent the guy an email. He writes back a couple days later. After a few emails back and forth, we decide to meet for a few beers and a burger at a bar up the hill from my office.

Quick Flash back
Over Thanksgiving 2011, Me and Tawn flew down to La Paz, Mexico (Do you see where this is going?) to visit/hangout with our friends Dawn and Pea on their boat Deep Playa. One night hanging out Dawn and Pea, and some other friends Aaron & Nicole on Bella Star, we were introduced to the owners, Craig & Cindy, of a boat named Cool Breez’n, and had a few cocktails with them on their boat.(Now you REALLY have to know where this is going!).

Flash forward five months. I’ve sorta forgotten about that particular night in La Paz, and getting ready to head up the hill to the bar to meet the Owners/Skipper of the boat I’m asking to crew on. And at this point, I am still under the impression this is just some random, internet guy.

The morning before I’m to meet this guy, I decide to do a quick internet search on the boat name Cool Breez’n. A few googles later and I’m checking out Cool Breez’n’s website and reading a story about them in La Paz, Mexico with some of their friends Aaron and Nicole.

And once again I’m all, “What. THE. WHUT. It’s a small fuckin’ world”

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Big summer project

CB 16 July, 2012
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Last month we pulled the mast off the boat. We did this for a number of reasons. One of those reasons according to random passerby/dock neighbor is we; and I quote “Hate sailing”. Thanks person I hardly know for rubbing that little turd in my face. :)

The other reasons for pulling the mast was to replace a lot of old and aging equipment and hardware.

Specifics? You want them? You got them:

Replaced the old spreader lights with nice super bright LEDs from Dr. LED. More specifically, these: Kevin Spreader lights

Replaced the old VHF antenna with a new Shakespeare Low-Profile AIS Whip Antenna

It claims to be AIS enhanced…..not sure if that matters, but I guess it cannot hurt.

We are also replacing all the Halyards and standing rigging.

But the main, number one reason we pulled the mast was to replace our aging radar and navigation system. Up until now we had a Furuno radar and the Nav system was one of my old laptops connected to a hand held Garmin eTrex GPS.

We will still have a laptop as a back up, and paper charts as well. But, our main Nav solution is a Simrad NSE8

And this is the super sexy radar:
Pretty sure the 3G is just some marketing bullshit, but it is instant on. Low power usage, and the broadband radar is super freakin detailed. I might actually use my radar now for something other than sizzling my nuts with radiation….i’m pretty sure that’s how radar works….sorta.

We also put a Maretron WSO100 for wind and temp mounted on top of the mast:
Best part about this wind indicator is NO moving parts. So the birds will have to actually put in some effort into trashing it.

We have not have a reliable working wind indicator or knot meter on Palarran for 2 or 3 years now. I am stoked.

I’m also rebuilding/modifing my tri-light/anchor light. And installing a mount so I can install a wifi antenna on the spreaders. But those two will be separate post.

That is not all we are doing. We also redid how our windlass was (incorrectly) mounted. And pulling the compression post so we can tear out an old leaking fresh water tank. That little side project resulted in us finding out the compression post may be compromised and need to be replaced.

In short, the entire post could be boiled down to: $$$KAFUCKINGCHING$$$ and a kick to the bank account.

Posted in Installations, Palarran | Tagged , , | Leave a comment