I brought the boat down from the yard today. The rig wasn't set up so it was
fifteen miles as a power boat. As soon as I got out of the river, I set up
the newly installed ST1000 driving the Cape Horn windvane.

Wow. I never had so much fun not doing something I used to think of as fun.
I know most of you take this for granted but I've always been a "keep it
simple", minimalist sailor. There's something about a boat that steers
itself that makes you feel like an adult.

I spent a good part of the leg down the bay sorting out lines and making the
boat a bit more presentable after the hasty mast stepping and departure. The
remote was close at hand and what luxury to just reach down and push the
buttons when a floating log or pot buoy came up.

It was a cold, raw day (an inch of snow in the northern part of the state)
and would have been a long cold trick at the wheel single handed. Another
nice thing I've discovered about autopilots is that being able to move
around and do things makes you feel a lot warmer.

I don't know how I ever got along without this thing. I may never steer
again. What's next? Radar? (Now that I can leave the wheel, I could even go
and look at it.)

--

Roger Long

"Roger Long" wrote in message
...
I brought the boat down from the yard today. The rig wasn't set up so it
was fifteen miles as a power boat. As soon as I got out of the river, I set
up the newly installed ST1000 driving the Cape Horn windvane.

Wow. I never had so much fun not doing something I used to think of as
fun. I know most of you take this for granted but I've always been a "keep
it simple", minimalist sailor. There's something about a boat that steers
itself that makes you feel like an adult.

I spent a good part of the leg down the bay sorting out lines and making
the boat a bit more presentable after the hasty mast stepping and
departure. The remote was close at hand and what luxury to just reach down
and push the buttons when a floating log or pot buoy came up.

It was a cold, raw day (an inch of snow in the northern part of the state)
and would have been a long cold trick at the wheel single handed. Another
nice thing I've discovered about autopilots is that being able to move
around and do things makes you feel a lot warmer.

I don't know how I ever got along without this thing. I may never steer
again. What's next? Radar? (Now that I can leave the wheel, I could even
go and look at it.)



Yep... my ST4000 is truly great. The remote makes it greater.

--
"j" ganz @@
www.sailnow.com

On May 17, 8:17 pm, "Roger Long" wrote:
I brought the boat down from the yard today. The rig wasn't set up so it was


Roger Long

F@#king amazing. Isn't that some modern stuff? Too bad it took you so
long to get on the same page.

On Thu, 17 May 2007 20:17:02 -0400, "Roger Long"
wrote:

I don't know how I ever got along without this thing. I may never steer
again.

Yep, absolutely right. You will helm the boat, but only when you want
to. That's a big difference.

What's next? Radar? (Now that I can leave the wheel, I could even go
and look at it.)

I sailed for years in Maine without RADAR but no more. It's just as
addictive as an autopilot. Do it right - get the ARPA functions and
the ability to do a chart overlay. I had never seen ARPA functions in
action until about 3 or 4 years ago when I was looking over the
captain's shoulder on the Monhegan Island ferry. We went home and
bought a comparable Furuno system for our trawler. Even my wife loves
it, and she is not easily impressed by marine electronics.

Roger Long wrote:

I don't know how I ever got along without this thing. I may never steer
again. What's next? Radar? (Now that I can leave the wheel, I could even
go and look at it.)

--

Roger Long

Next thing you know you're going to have a video
camera mounted on the masthead to help with
docking ;-)

Me... I want an underwater video camera to help
spot the coral heads before I hit em.

Don W.

"Don W" wrote in message
t...
Roger Long wrote:

I don't know how I ever got along without this thing. I may never steer
again. What's next? Radar? (Now that I can leave the wheel, I could even
go and look at it.)

--

Roger Long

Next thing you know you're going to have a video camera mounted on the
masthead to help with docking ;-)

Me... I want an underwater video camera to help spot the coral heads
before I hit em.

Don W.


If you are still planning your trip to New Brunswick you may want to
seriously look at having a radar. The Bay of Fundy is famous for it's fog.
If you do get caught in the fog without radar, you will need a good radar
deflector to help Fundy Traffic guide you around the tankers.

Sterling

Silver K wrote:
If you are still planning your trip to New Brunswick you may want to
seriously look at having a radar.

Nice to hear from you. I have my fingers crossed on the Saint John trip.
Still waiting to see how the shipyard construction schedule for the next
research vessel shapes up.

Working as I do primarily for academic institutions, I'd gotten used to
having summers mostly free. Wouldn't you know that, when I finally decided
to take advantage of that fact and spend much of the summer cruising, the
pattern would change. It looks like I could be spending more of this summer
in airports and motels than on the boat.

I've spent way too much on the boat this winter to consider radar. I'll
have to deal with traffic the way I have for the last 40 plus years, using
my shallow draft and willingness to navigate close in to stay out of the
high traffice lanes.

I hope to see you this fall.

--
Roger Long

"
I've spent way too much on the boat this winter to consider radar. I'll
have to deal with traffic the way I have for the last 40 plus years, using
my shallow draft and willingness to navigate close in to stay out of the
high traffice lanes.

I hope to see you this fall.

--
Roger Long

I will send you the lineup for the Harvest Jazz & Blues festival when it is
released in June. The best deal is daily passes which will get you into all
shows that day. The water in the Saint John River refuses to go down this
year, we still havn't put our docks and expect that it might be another
week. We had several cm of snow yesterday and it is below freezing today.
When you decide that you are actually going to do the trip, it might be
possible to meet in Grand Manan or Cutler. I could probably use a little
holiday that time of year.

In article ,
"Roger Long" wrote:

Silver K wrote:
If you are still planning your trip to New Brunswick you may want to
seriously look at having a radar.

Nice to hear from you. I have my fingers crossed on the Saint John trip.
Still waiting to see how the shipyard construction schedule for the next
research vessel shapes up.

Working as I do primarily for academic institutions, I'd gotten used to
having summers mostly free. Wouldn't you know that, when I finally decided
to take advantage of that fact and spend much of the summer cruising, the
pattern would change. It looks like I could be spending more of this summer
in airports and motels than on the boat.

I've spent way too much on the boat this winter to consider radar. I'll
have to deal with traffic the way I have for the last 40 plus years, using
my shallow draft and willingness to navigate close in to stay out of the
high traffice lanes.

I hope to see you this fall.

Roger, I don't remember who it was who responded to me, but his point,
expressed more succinctly and powerfully than my summation was that it
was irresponsible to boat off the coast of Maine in a fog and hope
others spent the money and developed the expertise to prevent accidents.

Regardless of staying out of high traffic or not, if one is on the water
in the heaviest soup and moving at any sort of speed at all, one
endangers himself and others by not using best available technology.

I found the original post sufficiently compelling to change my opinion.

Harlan

--
To respond, obviously drop the "nospan"?

"Harlan Lachman" wrote

Roger, I don't remember who it was who responded to me, but his point,
expressed more succinctly and powerfully than my summation was that it
was irresponsible to boat off the coast of Maine in a fog and hope
others spent the money and developed the expertise to prevent accidents.

Actually, what is irresponsible, according to the rules of the road and
centuries of common law, is proceeding at a speed that will not allow you to
stop in half of your visibility. Radar, which is only an aid to navigation,
lets people do this at a lower level of anxiety so they do. It has not yet
been established that radar is a substitute for visibility but law and
reality diverge as is usually the case.

Even in Maine, I have seldom seen it so thick that I could not do a complete
U turn at normal speed in half my visibility. I'm out in the open cockpit
where my vision and hearing are not attenuated by a pilothouse. Operating
without radar, I'm actually technically responsible whereas the guy in his
trawler yacht with all the bells and whistles over running his stopping and
maneuvering distance by three or four times is not. GPS, of course, has
made the situation much worse. Lots of people out there following the
little cursor around and full speed. How many of them do you think actually
know how to use the radar in a way that would let them correctly analyze and
respond to a crossing situation? Paradoxically, as vessels get larger and
safer for their occupants, they become more of a hazard to others.

I'd certainly agree with you from the vantage point of a larger, faster,
heavier, and less maneuverable boat but I don't present much of a hazard to
other boats likely to be out there. Any irresponsibility issue arises out
of hazard to my passengers and possibility of needing rescue from the many
who are being technically and actually irresponsible by using navigational
aids to proceed with too much speed and too little look out. I have a radar
reflector, they should see me.

Practically, radar is of much more limited use on a sailboat than a
powerboat. Proper use requires constant plotting and tracking. That would
put me down below relying on a generally inexperienced guest to take the
helm and lookout. Sure, it would tell me that other boats are out there but
I generally know that because I hear them.

There are fogs and there are fogs. Visibility is usually a lot better than
it seems. There are days, times, and places, where I wouldn't go; just as
there are weather conditions that would keep me anchored or tied up. The
mere operation of a boat in restricted visibility is not, by itself,
irresponsible.

Sure, there is a level of risk, and that level of risk would be lower if in
installed radar. The argument that someone is irresponsible simply because
there is a an available way to lessen risk is spurious. At any level of
vessel size and complexity there will always be more equipment and more
safety that you can build in. The ocean is a dangerous place and yachting
is optional so, by that standard, just being a cruiser is irresponsible.

--
Roger Long