Mike wrote:
"jeff" wrote in message ...
Mike wrote:
Sounds like a Bobsprit review of his entertainment system (home theater).

At least he would be jelious of your set up.


I doubt he's jealous. My total cost for the AM/FM and HDTV upgrades was
under $400, and the TV will go back to our house in a few weeks. Bobsprit
spends more than that for speaker wire. Actually I mentioned it here
because I'm sure there are some people who are wondering how the change to
digital TV will affect a boat TV. The answer is it will be nice if you
have a good signal, but even within 20 miles of a city, we would fall back
to analog (which won't be there come Feb) a lot. Hopefully, enough
broadcasters will get powerful enough transmitters so that it will work.


What kind of antenna are you using for the HDTV?

The tv antennas are sometimes directional in the azimuth so it may be they
don't want to transmit tv out over the ocean.


The antenna is the 21" Shakespeare (or is a Winnegard? same item, I
think) omnidirectional powered disk that I mounted on the mast 9 years
ago. I can get 3 of the Boston stations here in Wellfleet, which is
about 60 miles from the city, maybe 70 from the transmitters. Portland
however was pretty wimpy because Freeport is boonies from there - I
would think they'd want to go to Brunswick and Bath which is the same
direction. Most of the Providence stations didn't even have DTV last
month!


Bobsprit will never see his tv signal fade and it's not because of his
equipment.

He doesn't even have to unplug the cable!

Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:51:59 -0400, jeff wrote:
....

Thumbs up to the EnGenius 362 EXT USB WiFi with 7 dB antenna (about $65
from Keenan Systems) which has been able to connect up with the 'net
almost wherever we are. Thumbs down for not providing a native Linux
driver. (And I suppose a thumbs up to those who neglect to turn on
security on their routers!)

I still use my 362 once in a while but our real workhorse is now a
Engenius EOC-3610S-EXT from www.wlanparts.com It is not quite as
easy to configure as the 362 but it requires no driver at all, has
minimal co-ax losses and gives a more stable conection. The 3610 can
be mounted at the top of the mast if you wish, with a POE ethernet
down feed.

Yes, maybe I'll go with the POE next year. This was my first year of
WiFi connection, and all and all it was pretty nice, though always an
adventure.

Thumbs up to the CPP bottom paint I put on 16 months ago - we got some
slime, but were still able to sail at 8.5 knots. Detractors said going
down from Micron Extra (twice the price!) would have a big penalty but
it doesn't seem to be that bad.

Exactly what paint is CPP and where do you get it?


West Marine ablative, like Micron. I believe that the year I bought it,
Interlux was the supplier, but it probably goes to the lowest bidder
each year!

On Aug 24, 5:17*pm, "Roger Long" wrote:
...
*The speed differences, for equal horsepower and displacement,
between power cats and monos are significant but much less dramatic. *At low
speeds, a cat may even require more.
...

I think you're being generous. At low speeds a cat will very likely
require more power to attain the same speed as a mono of the same
displacement. As Ted Hood was fond of pointing out, at very low
speeds fat and heavy may have less resistance than slim and light. Of
course, once a boat gets above a very modest speed to length ratio (Fn
if you must) a long skinny hull offers less drag than than a short fat
one. At some point a really skinny hull will have a tendency to roll
over and one solution to that is to split it in two. Another might be
to add outriggers. If we're talking fuel consumption at speeds that
we're willing to put up with the graph in this paper of fuel/speed for
three hull types is interesting:
http://www.hiswasymposium.com/pdf/20...el%20Irens.pdf .

-- Tom.

On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:13:10 -0400, jeff wrote:

nice if you have a good signal, but even within 20 miles of a city, we
would fall back to analog (which won't be there come Feb) a lot.

Its funny but the most distant of the local stations, thirty to forty
miles, has a miserable picture on analog, and is perfect with digital.

Casady

On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 16:28:24 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

Rodger
says he used 35 gallons of fuel to travel less than 500 miles on his
monohull. On my catamaran I used about the same amount of fuel
traveling from Honolulu to San Francisco and I thought that was
excessive.

500/35 is 14 MPG, which is not bad at all by powerboat standards.
Both my tow vehicles, a F-150 and a Navigator, get just over 14,
unloaded.
A logical comparison is a motor home or travel trailer with the same
accomodations. Mileage is not good with either of those.

Casady

On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 18:14:11 -0600, "Mike"
wrote:


"jeff" wrote in message ...
I knew this would bring you out!

At the height of the storm, a visual would have been impossible, and the
radar was useless, also. I could tell by the feel I was still holding,
but it would have been impossible to know if it was dragging slowly.


If you put a stethoscope on your anchor line you could hear it dragging. A
tension gauge will also tell if you are dragging. The tension signal will
be discontinuous whenver the anchor drags, very similar to the force
required to break static friction.

All that is true. A hand on the line can maybe feel the same thing as
a tension gauge. An electronic dodad, however, can, potentially, call
you on the cell phone while you are in town. Fancy electronic alarms
of every type are generally a good idea if you go offshore, or even if
not. A single hander need all the help he can get. So do most of the
rest of us, whether we admit it or not.

Casady

On Aug 25, 12:50*pm, (Richard Casady)
wrote:
...
500/35 is 14 MPG, which is not bad at all by powerboat standards.
Both my tow vehicles, a F-150 and a Navigator, get just over 14,
unloaded.
A logical comparison is a motor home or travel trailer with the same
accomodations. Mileage is not good with either of those. ...

FWIW (and I don't think IW much), HNL-SF is greater than 2.2k naut
miles as sailed/motored. That puts the mpg of our house on its least
efficient passage into typical Prius numbers, but, of course, we go
very slowly by Prius standards... I don't think it signifies much
when you get right down to it as the services involved aren't
comparable.

-- Tom.

On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 17:13:14 -0400, jeff wrote:

Funny! I didn't think your boat had sails big enough to require winches.

The fastest sailboats of all are the one ton, thirty eight foot, A
scows. They do better than 25. They don't have winches, with a crew of
four young and beefy guys. They daycruise eight, there is room. What
the daysailers mostly have are winch drums that have a rachet, one way
only, but no crank. We used to call them rachet winches. Of course,
winches have a horizontal drum, containing the anchor rode, or a
towing wire, sometimes thousands of feet long. Capstans are what
sailboats have, although nobody calls them that. Trailers have
winches, often multispeed. We use winches to haul boats up the beach.
Some have an three speed automobile transmission.

Casady

On Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:10:33 GMT, (Richard
Casady) wrote:

nice if you have a good signal, but even within 20 miles of a city, we
would fall back to analog (which won't be there come Feb) a lot.

Its funny but the most distant of the local stations, thirty to forty
miles, has a miserable picture on analog, and is perfect with digital.

With digital it's pretty much all or nothing, no middle ground.

"Richard Casady" wrote

500/35 is 14 MPG, which is not bad at all by powerboat standards.

I wish it was that good. Strider has nice lines but she is fairly heavy. I
get 8 mpg at max continuous RPM and 5.71 at cruising speed. I tend to run
near the top end.

One thing I forgot to mention: I checked fuel usage a few hours after the
first fill up and a long power leg and it was significantly more than I
expected. When boarding after a walk on Roque Island beach, I noticed a
flash of blue color on the prop. Got out the hook knife and discovered a
ball of poly rope around the hub and blade roots. It doesn't take much to
really cut into prop effeciency. I heard it wrap on the first day but the
engine was so smooth that I didn't think it had stayed.

Zigging and zagging through the lobster pots also doesn't show up on the GPS
track and must have added 5% - 15% to the distance in some areas. I've
never seen them so thick and close together. I think fuel prices are making
the lobstermen concentrate the traps on the best ground.

Fuel consumption graphs for the boat, taken from engine data and careful sea
trials can be found he

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/StriderSpeedRange.gif

--
Roger Long