Tag: AIS

Where is Jennifer’s Car and When are we leaving?

Lee’s Landing, Lake Union, Seattle, WA, 14-Aug-2019 – A fast status as we’re finishing up getting ready to leave.

There is a heavy and unrelenting feeling of pressure to get everything done, but as I sit to write this fast and hurried post, I realize that there are five days to go and there is no need to feel this pressure. Everything on critical path is easily accomplished. Yes, the list is unending, but that it is because it is a boat, just like a house, there is always more to do.

Continue reading “Where is Jennifer’s Car and When are we leaving?”

Glacier Bay

South Bight of North Fingers Bay, Glacier Bay, AK, 30-JUL-2018 — We’re in Glacier Bay! With good weather no less.

The Glacier Bay web information says that e-mails are given precedence over phone calls when trying to get a short notice reservation. On the advice of Megan, who works in the Glacier Bay Office, we sent an email and called. When Emily answered the phone, she told me that she didn’t have our email, unless my name was Brian, but why didn’t she just process a permit for us. Seven days would be fine.

The NOAA weather said 20 knots and three-foot seas. The PredictWind grib doesn’t give inside waters weather. A second grib said ten knots and a third said five knots. Five knots was the winner, more or less. We motored.

The weather has not been the Alaska we know. It has been sunny and warm with highs climbing into the 70s. There is a drought.
Continue reading “Glacier Bay”

I can see your house from here…

28-MAR-2018, SEATAC Airport – …and other views from up high.

The items highest in my mind are three:

  • I haven’t found the leak in the aft cabin starboard locker. Mogens Winther in the Maxi 95 group has suggested that the water is getting in through the cubby on the starboard side of the cockpit. I can’t see anything there, but I haven’t looked as hard as I might. This could be the entry point.

    The leaky locker. Water is visible, lower left. Despite all the caulking water rain water still enters.
  • The fuel line still seems to be getting air in it despite having replaced everything from the injection pump to the tank including the filters, filter holders, all lines and the valve at the tank. The engine started fine several times in a row over a few days, but on the sail to Port Hadlock, starting was difficult with all the earmarks of air in the lines. The next stop is an electrical pump to push the fuel forward. I’ve resisted, but I’ve run out of ideas.
  • OpenCPN for Android is no longer speaking to the Vesper AIS. We’ve upgraded everything in one go, so it is difficult to pin point what the problem is. I suspect it is the new OpenCPN for Android release, since OpenCPN on my mac works fine. John Register, the author of the port to Android, has been providing fast, intelligent support.

Continue reading “I can see your house from here…”

An Unending Month

Feb 1, 2018, Port Townsend, WA – January was the longest month I remember in my entire life. Longer than months when I was a small child slogging through the school year waiting for summer vacation.

It was a month of unexpected travel, traversing the country and working on non-boat projects. It was also a month full of activities and friends: an unexpected sailor on his way to pickup replacement boat parts and a medieval music performance in a Victorian church in a Victorian Seaport. Continue reading “An Unending Month”

Many a slip ’twixt the dock and the ship

5-JAN-2018, Lake Union, Seattle, Wa – Standing fully clothed, soaking wet in the cockpit of CaroBabbo at the dock in Lake Union, Jennifer said, “Would you like to take a picture of me?”

Jennifer always has more sense than I have, but I merely said, “no.”

Instead, a few hours later I took this picture:


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Mac comes back to life, 12-Volt Adapter dies, Depth Sounder Packs up

22-JUL-2017 Echo Cove, AK – Electronics on a boat oftentimes act differently than ashore.

We’ll be in Auke Bay, which is part of Juneau, tomorrow so I can pick up the shipping container to send my Mac back to Apple for repair – except that I am writing this on my Mac. Continue reading “Mac comes back to life, 12-Volt Adapter dies, Depth Sounder Packs up”

Some electronic issues

The AIS has been signaling errors. I noticed this yesterday. The light on the unit is moving between red (possibly orange) and green.

We’re seeing the RSSI numbers move from high -90s to -60s on both channels (A and B) but generally it is B that has the problem. We receive oaky, but may be having trouble transmitting.

This could be an antenna problem, or a unit problem. I lean towards the unit because nothing that a I know of physically has changed and the unit has worked well the entire trip so far.
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Status, statistics, and did anything not break?

1-OCT-2016 – It’s easiest to answer the last item first. Yes, a number of things did not break. None of the standing rigging had any sort of failure (the standing rigging is what holds up the mast). After that it becomes a little more difficult to think of something, None of us, personally, were injured or became ill, nor did any of our guests, so the human factor held up well. Continue reading “Status, statistics, and did anything not break?”