Three Fools

You, Me, and Lee

Equipment

What follows is some equipment highlights, as well as some comments about them.  It's divided up into:

Electronics

The boat came equipped with a Northstar 951X chartplotter, which I promptly pulled out, sold, and replaced with a Raymarine C80 chartplotter. It also came with B&G Hydra 2000 instruments and autopilot system.

The B&G autopilot seems to work great. The T2 ram is a little big for this size and weight boat, but it seems to have little trouble the few times I've had it in a largish following sea. The user interface is "OK" — not nearly as nice as the Robertson AP series with their very intuitive adjustment dial.

The Hydra 2000 instrument series is no longer made by B&G, having been replaced by the 3000 series.

I'm not a big fan of the B&G FFD displays. Too much information in one device. It can take a lot of button pushing to find what you want. Very British in its user interface (scroll-up to change the display type?). You can understand why Triumph never had a chance against the Japanese.

I'm very happy with the Raymarine stuff. The GPS locks onto the satellites superquick (maybe 15 seconds to get a fix from power-up) and the C80 display is bright and easy to read. I don't like entering waypoint names using a dial (rather than a minimal keypad like my old Simrad), but that's a minor quibble. Power consumption at 10W, including the GPS sensor, is very reasonable.

The SR162 dual channel AIS receiver works very well.

The E85001 bridge is necessary because, with the AIS, the C80 puts out NMEA signals at 38,400 baud, instead of the standard 4,800 baud, required by the B&G systems. So, rather than convert to the lower baud rate, I installed this bridge, getting the information I need from the Raymarine Seatalk network instead. If all this sounds confusing, drop me a line and I can explain!

Electrical

Comments:

The Link 2000R battery monitor includes an alternator regulator (the "R" part of the "2000R" nomenclature). Unfortunately, about a month after I bought the boat, the regulator just stopped working. It had a little corrosion, but nothing out of line. The way it's constructed, it's just a circuit board slid into an open metal box, without much protection. I suspect somebody sat on the navstation seat with wet foulies and salt water dripped down through the hinge and onto the regulator installed below. By contrast, the Balmar is potted in epoxy and much less likely to corrode. I've had good luck with them in the past.

Hopefully, the Freedom Marine inverter/charger will prove to be more reliable than the ProSine I had on Cats Paw. It's certainly a lot bulkier. It's just as noisy, but in a different way — more 60Hz buzz, less fan noise.

Dinghy

Comments

Mercury makes an inflatable? Yup! And it's pretty good. It seems to be ruggedly constructed, is reasonably light (80 lbs), and is easy (for an inflatable) to row. This is my first experience with an air floor.

I love the Honda 2HP. It is so light (27 lbs) that there is no need for a crane to put it on the dinghy. I just lift it with one hand and drop it onto the transom. The gas tank is integral, so there is no need to install a separate tank and hose, with its potential for leaks. It's a little "gay" at only 2HP, but gets us around at maybe 5 knots with no trouble. The biggest downside is it is loud. They get that light weight by using air cooling. You can hear us coming from a mile away.

The combination weighs just over 100 lbs, so Lee and I can easily carry the dinghy up a beach without needing any dinghy wheels. By comparison, the Achilles and Yamaha combination I had on Cats Paw could easily plane at 15 knots, but the total weight with fuel tanks, wheels, etc., was about 220 lbs!

Anchoring

Comments

I'm trying to get by with much less chain this time — only 150 feet. Before buying it, I studied my logs of the last five plus years and found that 80% of the time I had less than 150 feet of chain out of the total 300 feet carried by Cats Paw. So, I figured why carry the extra 150 pounds up in the bow 100% of the time for 20% of the anchorages? For the deeper anchorages, I've spliced some Samson "Deep Six" line to the chain. This is a new line, similar to Yale Cordage's "Brait", but I actually like it better. It's only six ply (instead of eight), so it's not quite as supple, but it doesn't lose diameter when under tension, so the anchor windlass can maintain a grip on it. To get the price down, I bought a 600' spool of it. The rest I'm using as a shore tie.

I would like to replace the Delta with a Rocna or Manson anchor, but their profile would foul the bowsprit. Besides, the Delta seems to be working fine.

Plumbing

Comments

The SeaFrost fridge actually has two independent cooling circuits: a very powerful one driven by the engine, and a much less powerful one, which is AC powered. The holding plate sprang a leak shortly after I got the boat, dripping glycol into the icebox. Repairing it required breaking both cooling circuits, pulling the plate out, repairing a fitting, then replacing and recharging the circuits. Expensive. But there are big advantages of this system, principally that it doesn't require a big battery bank. In trying to keep this boat light and simple, I like this fridge despite its complexity.

Engine

Comments:

The Yanmar engine and transmission are great.  Never miss a beat, always start up instantly, easy to bleed and service.

The boat came with a really lame Martec folding prop that barely worked in reverse. I liked the MaxProp on Cats Paw, so I put one on Velocity.

Safety

Comments

I bought the Zodiac because it fits nicely in the purpose-built life raft locker on the J/42 fantail. No need to wrestle it out of the lazarette!

The Switlik MOM-8 is an easy to deploy Man Overboard unit. Just pull a pin. While I like the old-fashioned fiberglass pylons for their stability and visibility, I've always been skeptical of how fast one could get one overboard in a hurry. The Switlik unit is a compact, easy solution, albeit at a price.

Navigation

Comments:

The SpeedTech handheld depth sounder is a great little gadget.  It looks similar to a flashlight.  Point it down into the water, pull a trigger, and Presto! it reads out the water depth.  Very handy in the dinghy for exploring water depths around an anchor site, or checking out  depths in a tight channel.

I love the Nikon binoculars, but the central focusing screw corroded out after three years.  I sent them in for repairs. [10/25/04.  Nikon repaired them at no charge!]

The Vion compass is easily the best handheld compass I've ever used. Very stable and accurate even in the wildest of seas. The first one I had developed an air bubble in the damping fluid. West Marine replaced it free of charge.

Sailing Gear

Comments:

View of bowsprit from the front

Front view of the bowsprit.

This is my first experience with electric sailing winches and I gotta say, I could get used to this. The powered mainsheet winch is unnecessary, but the powered halyard winch on the cabin top sure is nice!

The Garhauer snatch blocks work great! They are no longer the bargain they were a couple of years ago, but they are still much less expensive than comparable units from Harken, Lewmar, or others.

The ATN Spinnaker Sleeve is used to tame the big asymmetric spinnaker. It works extremely well.

The spinnaker is flown free on a really cool little bowsprit that is mounted on the port anchor roller.