Today, I got to see another Class B AIS installation on a small cruiser: Merv and Kathy Floyd’s Rosborough 25, Kingfisher II.

Perhaps you can tell from such clues as the dual VHF antennas aft, the dual GPS antennas and the dedicated AIS antenna just aft the radome that Merv and Kathy like to be prepared! The radar mast swings forward for trailering.

They had some help from Les at E.Q. Marine, the same talented fellow that commissioned Two Lucky Fish, my C-Dory 22. Here’s the port-side overhead console Les fabricated, with the ACR Nauticast B unit mounted where it’s not in the way, but where you can still see the status lamps. The power switch (”AIS”) and the silent mode switch (”stealth”) are visible on the right.

The windshield “wiper” switch on the left is there so that the passenger doesn’t have to ask the helmsman to “please run the wiper on my side.” In the Pacific Northwest, this feature is practically a must-have for cruising couples!

Also visible in the recessed “glove compartment” shown above is the serial cable for an auxiliary laptop, should one be brought on board. The AIS unit is connected to the boat’s Raymarine E120 chartplotter through an Actisense NDC-4-A NMEA multiplexer, which allows this extra NMEA output channel for a laptop.

Kingfisher II and Two Lucky Fish are hoping to do some on-the-water Class B testing this winter. Stay tuned!

By the way, it was just a little bit foggy today…all day, which is a little bit rare. Usually it burns off by noon or so. I took a lot of experimental pictures; here are a couple I liked. You can click to see the large version, suitable for desktop wallpaper, with all the foggy details!

For those just joining us, I accidentally broke a Zerk fitting off during my do-it-yourself oil change last weekend. See that little tiny spring, covered with blue grease? That’s part of the guts of the Zerk.

Well, I got it out of there, with the help of a bolt extractor bit, known to many as an “EZ Out”. In my case, it actually was pretty easy!

First, I removed the spring; it pulled right out of there. Here’s the E-Z-Out, held with a small pair of vice-grips, inserted into the Zerk. Then just turn it counter-clockwise…GENTLY.

And in a case like this, where the problem is NOT a frozen fitting, it comes loose easily.

Here’s the vice-grips, the extractor bit, and the threaded portion of the broken Zerk:

Here’s how the extractor bit works; it’s reverse-threaded, and it tapers, so it gets tighter and tighter as you twist it into the hole. Since you’re twisting counter-clockwise, at some magic moment the bit stops turning in the hole, and the broken fitting starts turning in its threaded hole. That’s the theory, anyway, and I’m just glad it worked in my case!

The replacement Zerk has been installed:

This was a highlight of the Pacific Marine Expo last year, and this year was no different. In fact, our excitement last year inspired my daughter and me to get our own remote-control model boat, which we brought to the show this year.

Kiera is in the background, running our little tug, which is made up on the hip of a small scrap-metal barge.

New this year were RC helicopters taking off and landing from RC boats. Sorry the picture below is a little blurry, but the helicopter kept moving! It’s the dark blue blur directly above the transom of the yacht.

You can see the rotor wash affecting the surface of the water, which apparently made the landing pretty difficult…it was powerful enough to shove the yacht around on the pond! But after several approaches and aborted attempts, this landing was successful. (Not all landings were!)

The Pacific Marine Expo is not the only place you can see these boats, by the way. A local club, the Northwest R/C Ship Modelers, host events year-round, ranging from informal “fun floats” to the prestigious Foss Cup.

I familiarized myself with a new set of gear and gadgets Sunday, when I changed the oil in my outboard. The weather was great, and I had online and telephone help from my friends the C-Brats.

If you’re interested in the details, the discussion there is pretty interesting. Otherwise, just enjoy these fine, fine pictures.

Here we are, warming up the old oil so it will flow out of the engine more easily.

Sometimes, the best gadgets are the gadgets you make yourself. This is a little bit of duct tape beneath the oil drain fitting.

And here’s what it’s for:

In addition to the C-Brats, I had some live, in-person help, as well.

And what’s this? Another home-made gadget. Sure, you can buy a funnel for this purpose, but why bother? The threads on the water bottle actually engage (imperfectly, but adequately) with the threads on the oil fill opening, holding the makeshift funnel in place.

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…And sometimes, that’s a GOOD THING!

The 23-foot Combo-Cruiser Amphibian, from 1970, was a unique design. At I guess, I’m thinking the product vision had the words “maximize cabin volume” somewhere near the top. Well above, say, “attractive, nautical appearance” or “seakindly hull form”.

Thanks to Telstar Logistics for alerting us to Google’s digitization of the vast photo archives of the former LIFE magazine.

Thanks to my friends at Shine Micro, I was able to visit the exhibition booths at the big eNavigation conference today.

This is not a “trade show”; rather, it’s a conference where various waterways management stakeholders, public and private, meet with one another, and with industry representatives, to share ideas and collect feedback.

In other words, I was way out of my league! But I learned a lot, I met some interesting (and influential) people, and I saw an enormous jar full of Runts.

Among other highlights, I learned about the future of radar from Marc Pos of Honeywell Aerospace. Ben Ellison over at Panbo has already kicked off a discussion of Honeywell’s solid-state, pulse-compression radar. It appears to be impressive technology, even though I barely understand what it means! Suffice to say that in the near future, commercially available radar units will use a lot less power, will generate almost no harmful radiation, and will provide much higher-resolution imaging, at longer ranges. Sign me up!

Mark D. Wiggins of Alion Science & Technology told me about the potential of “artificial” or “synthetic” or “virtual” AIS. I wrote about it back in March of 2007. I don’t claim to be any sort of authority on this, of course, but I asked him to read over my article and let me know if I was on the right track at all.

And I finally got to meet Stephanie Nevarez of Shine Micro in person. They make a whole range of interesting AIS and MURS products, and I was glad to hear that they’re still planning to release my favorite Class B AIS form-factor: the RadarPlus SM162B, shown at right.

The whole unit, including GPS and AIS antennae, is housed in an 18-inch tube that mounts on any standard marine base. In a boat as small as Two Lucky Fish, I’m interested in this kind of “outside the box” (or should I say “outside the cabin”) solution.

There was lots more, but it’s late, and I’ve got to get a five-year-old to bed!

People don’t always appreciate what I mean when I tell them the C-Dory has a flat bottom. Maybe this will help.

See, it’s actually flat, starting only about a third of the way aft from the bow. That’s why Two Lucky Fish planes so easily at 12 knots or so, but it’s also why she pounds so hard in a 2-foot chop.

Anyhoo, the fine folks at Seaview East Boatyard in Ballard have done a great job. The old antifouling bottom paint was applied four years ago, and the boat has been in saltwater for almost all of that time. It was definitely time for new paint.

I mentioned the trim tabs earlier, but take a look at the paint on the transom. Black = paint. White = gelcoat where the paint has ablated away completely. The pressure-washing certainly removed a bit more paint, but even so: This paint was done!

It’s tough to get good pictures of the bottom, because it’s mostly a dark surface in shadow. But this gives you an idea what it looked liked, after the pressure-washing. This is taken from beneath the bow, port-side, looking aft. The really nasty scrape and its twin on the starboard side are where the hull makes contact with the trailer bunks when retrieving on a ramp. I’m going to radius the bunks and add some slippery synthetic surface in hopes of mitigating this. (I’m open to suggestions about this, by the way.)

But beyond the scrapes, look at the rest; what a mess. No, it’s not nearly as bad as some boats you see tied up at marinas, but nevertheless, this is just…ugly.

But Not Anymore.

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Here it comes again. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, November 20, 21, and 22, at the Quest Field Event Center in Seattle, Washington. It’s the 2008 Pacific Marine Expo!

I went to this show for the first time last year, and I really enjoyed it. It’s not a “boat show”, and it isn’t oriented toward recreational boaters at all. So what’s it all about? Um…Alfie?

Let me quote myself from last year:

This show is oriented toward the commercial maritime industry, so it lacks a lot of the goodies you find at the Seattle Boat Show: No ski boats with 10,000-watt stereo systems. No 6-person jet-skis. No “new and improved” anchor designs you’ve never seen on an actual boat.

Instead, though, you can learn a lot about netting, about the latest in cutting-edge ice-makers, and about plumbing of every kind. If that’s not enough, there are really big engines, really big bilge pumps, and really big insurance policies! Honestly, it’s really fascinating…this is a different world.

And it’s FREE if you register online. It’s $20 at the door.

This is the show where my older daughter and I got bitten by the “remote control boats” bug. We’ll be at the show, running our little tugboat, on Friday.

I’ll be there Thursday, as well, sans child. I plan to be a little more serious that day.

She’s up on blocks at Seaview East Boatyard in Ballard. See, it’s time for new antifouling bottom paint. Four years is really longer than you can expect antifouling to last! She’s getting scrubbed and prepped, and will get a shiny new coat of Pettit Vivid.

And anybody who’s seen Two Lucky Fish in person recently will probably want to take this opportunity to remind me that the trim tabs look like an aquarium exhibit!

I’ve taken lots of pictures today, but luckily I FAILED to get any good “before” pictures of the trim tabs. You’ll have to be satisfied with this post-pressure-wash picture I took with my phone just now:

The folks at Seaview seem to have everything under control. They’re going to rough up these trim tabs, so the paint will stick, and add a little zinc slug to each one to minimize corrosion.

The weather’s great, and it should be done Wednesday.

Our neighbors at the FJM Security up in Lynnwood, WA, have a clever product designed for vehicle with typical 2″ trailer hitch receivers.

This looks like a great product for folks who need to leave a set of keys with a vehicle. It’s not impregnable, certainly, but I like the fact that the weather-resistant covers helps the HitchSafe “hide in plain sight”.

I can imagine lots of outdoor recreation scenarios—hiking, fishing, kayaking, surfing—where this could be a valuable tool, but would this be useful for boaters? I’m just not sure. How often, in a boating context, do you leave your tow vehicle someplace WITHOUT the trailer attached?

Tell us how you imagine using this in the comments!

Oh, and in case you’re having trouble visualizing how this unit is secured into your 2″ trailer hitch receiver, here’s the video: