I’m fascinated. I’d imagine that lots of Navagear readers might feel the same way. Let’s dig in and see what’s up…

The NOAA BookletChart™ is an experimental product that you can print at home for free. They are made to help recreational boaters locate themselves on the water.

The Booklet Chart is reduced in scale and divided into pages for convenience, but otherwise contains all the information of the full-scale nautical chart. Bar scales are also reduced in scale, but are accurate when used to measure distances in a BookletChart. Excerpts from the United States Coast Pilot are included. Most chart notes are consolidated on a single page for easy reference. Emergency information for the charted area is printed on the back cover.

Booklet charts are updated weekly for all Notice to Mariners.

NOTE: During this experimental period, BookletCharts are not being updated every week with Notices to Mariners. Further, some known errors are known to exist, e.g. the "Approximate Page Index" might not match the chart inside. You can tell us about such errors by using the Coast Survey’s Inquiry Page.

[It’s a press release, folks. —Tim]

MERRIMACK, N.H. October 19^th 2011 – Raymarine, a world leader in marine electronics, announced today that its e7 multifunction display was selected for the prestigious IBEX Innovation award at the opening of the 2011 International Boat Builders Exhibition and Conference.   The IBEX Innovation Awards are organized by NMMA and judged by BWI (Boating Writers International).

When selecting winning products the BWI recognizes products for innovative distinction, benefits to the marine industry, practicality and benefits to consumer, and overall cost effectiveness.

“This compact navigation solution brings multiple features, including built-in   Wi-Fi connectivity to a marine multifunction device. Where Apple iPad integration, pop culture and intuitive operation meets useful maritime technology,” said BWI Judge Alan Wendt.

In addition to built-in Wi-Fi integration with iPads and iPhones, the e7 is equipped with Bluetooth wireless technology.  Bluetooth connectivity lets boaters control and reconfigure the e7 with the optional RCU-3 wheel-mounted or handheld remote control unit. The RCU-3 remote can also be used to control the audio playback on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod remotely so that these devices can be stowed safely out of the elements.

“Raymarine is honored to win this prestigious award,” said Jim Jones, Director of Southeastern Sales for Raymarine.  “With the e7, Raymarine is very excited to integrate navigation and wireless technologies for boaters.  Mobile computing has changed our everyday lives by providing us with anywhere access to information and now the e7 lets boaters access charts, sonar, radar and thermal night vision from anywhere on board.”

The affordable e7 multifunction display offers options for radar, AIS, marine weather, and thermal night vision.  The e7 is also available with a built in high definition digital sonar, making the e7 a highly affordable yet powerful chartplotter/fishfinder combo.

The e7 is remarkably easy to use, with Raymarine’s HybridTouch™ technology allowing boaters to choose touchscreen or keypad control, and the new LightHouse user interface, which makes customizing the MFD layout and display as easy as dragging and dropping on-screen elements where the user wants them.

I got a chance to sea-trial some newer Simrad tech last month aboard Mad Max, a 36-foot center-console fishing boat sporting 10 (ten) times the horsepower I carry on Two Lucky Fish. Captain Max Dennemeyer (http://pacificcoastcharters.us) was helping Simrad host this event, demonstrating a variety of gear for journalists and dealers. You know…marketing!

And in my case, it worked. Since the Simrad demo, I’ve been out cruising on my own boat for about two weeks, and I’m currently sitting in a coffeehouse in Coos Bay, Oregon, halfway through an offshore delivery from Seattle to San Diego. So with over 700 nautical miles under my keel since the demo, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to consider how Simrad’s gear might serve my needs.

First, let me clarify which Simrad gear I’m focusing on: I’m talking about the NSS Sport MFD with “touch sensible” interface, StructureScan Sonar, and Broadband Radar.

Each of these deserves a separate article, but I’m just going to hit the highlights today:

The “touch sensible” interface really is intuitive. It reminded me of using Rose Point Coastal Explorer on the PC: You virtually never need the manual. Just poke around and guess, and you’ll probably find the function you’re after on the first or second try. I don’t know how many times during the demo I asked a question like this: “Hey, how do you get to the screen where…Oh never mind, I found it.”

Furthermore, there are almost always two ways to accomplish any task: One using the touch screen and another using the knobs and buttons on the unit. After being tossed around in the Pacific Ocean the past few days, where violent motion sometimes precluded using the mouse and keyboard on my laptop at all, I am a firm believer in the necessity of physical buttons and knobs in any offshore navigation interface. That’s necessity, not mere preference. I had to abandon my beloved Rose Point Coastal Explorer the other night in heavy seas because I just wasn’t able to manipulate any of the controls. It sounds stupid, but offshore veterans will know what I’m talking about.

StructureScan Sonar rocks. On my own boat, I like to explore the many “nooks and crannies” in Puget Sound and the Salish Sea. I like poking my nose into spots that are poorly charted, with barely enough water to let me in and back out again. Several times I found myself wishing for more than the simple linear sequence of numbers available from my depthsounder. I wanted something like this:

Likewise, on the radar side, I want Broadband Radar! When I was feeling my way back from Port Townsend to Seattle in heavy fog (which had apparently not discouraged the salmon fishermen at all!), I was able to identify targets reasonably well with my old Raymarine radar, but the returns from some boats were very small, and could be lost for several scans in a row sometimes. I doubt I could have seen kayaks or large floating debris at all, had any been present.

Many veterans will respond to that last statement by saying “Radar won’t pick up kayaks and debris, ya dummy!” But those folks haven’t played with Simrad’s Broadband radar. This thing picks up birds, which is one reason fisherman like it: Birds feed on little fish; the same little fish that big fish feed on.

If I’m running in fog, I want to see anything large enough to carry a person, and it appears to me that Simrad’s Broadband radar is one of very few tools that will do this. Check out this screenshot:

That’s 1/8-mile range, with a custom guard zone set up from dead ahead and down the port side. That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout! Seriously, for my needs, this is the kind of detail and range I care about. I’m less concerned with targets five or ten miles away; I want to know about targets—large and small—that are near me, that I need to do something about. In fog, I would probably run the radar at about two miles range. At night, in clear visibility, I would rely on lights from other boats, and run the radar at 1/4 mile or less, with a narrow guard zone set up directly in front of the boat, scanning for junk in the water ahead.

Once again, there is a lot more to say about both of these imaging products, and obviously I haven’t gone into the details here at all. The technologies underlying Simrad’s Broadband Radar and StructureScan Sonar are fascinating in and of themselves, particularly if you’re a geek like me. Perhaps I’ll delve a bit deeper into those in a future article.

Are there any drawbacks? Yes: Range is probably the biggest one. Broadband Radar does not have the range of larger traditional pulse radar. If you want 25-mile+ radar, you’ll need to one of those. StructureScan Sonar won’t give you depth data at high speed or deeper than about 400 feet. But since the NSS MFD is packaged with the Broadband Sounder module anyway, you’ve got deep depth at high speed if you need it; we had Mad Max over 60 mph with a solid depth reading all the way.

Run these powerful imaging technologies through the intuitive hybrid touchscreen interface of the NSS MFDs, and you’ve got an awfully nice navigation package for either fishing or coastal cruising.

I’m out cruising in the San Juan Islands with my dad; it’s an annual ritual of ours, a nice way to catch up and bond in an area where we share a lot of fond memories.

It’s also a chance to test the brand new antenna I’ve just installed and connected to my Vesper Marine AIS WatchMat3 850. The old Shakespeare Galaxy four-footer served well since it was installed in 2004, first as a primary VHF antenna and later as an AIS antenna. Of course, it wasn’t designed for the 162-MHz frequencies AIS uses, so it always received a lot better than it transmitted. But when it failed at the worst possible moment, I decided to replace it with something designed specifically for AIS. Something from Morad Electronics.

Morad is an interesting company. Extremely well-known among commercial fishers, installed aboard vessels of both the US Navy and the US Coast Guard, and with an enviable reputation for longevity and performance, Morad antennas are virtually unknown among recreational boaters.

However, they’re fairly well-known among those of us who pay attention, particularly here in the Pacific Northwest, so it was natural for me to drive the two miles and spend some time down in Ballard, where Morad president Ken Holland showed me around the facility and introduced me to Bruno, the largest dog I have ever met. I don’t know how I managed to forget to take a picture of this magnificent, slobbery creature in all his splendor…my apologies.

So I asked Morad to build me a VHF antenna tuned specifically to 162 MHz, since AIS uses two frequencies on either side of that 161.975 MHz and 162.025 MHz. His team built the antenna and had it ready for me within a week.

You might think it would be expensive to have an antenna custom made in under a week, but since Morad makes all its antennas by hand—cutting length off the driven element a bit at a time until the final tuning is exactly right—it’s no problem at all to build one optimized for whatever frequency the customer wants.

So now I’ve got one on Two Lucky Fish, and I’m putting it to the test this week. I know it’s working, because tug Pacific confirmed she had me on AIS on Saturday in Rosario Strait. Not sure how far away anyone can receive me, and that’s somewhat difficult to test. The best easy assessment I can make is to see how the shore-based receivers networked at MarineTraffic.com receive my broadcasts on the way home.

Compared to what? Compared to the same vessel, with the same transponder, but a different antenna, as recorded a few days earlier. Here’s the plot for the trip up, when I had my AIS transponder connected to the eight-foot Shakespeare antenna I normally use for my VHF:

Stay tuned…after I take the boat home, we’ll see if the new antenna shows up a bit out. It’s about as close as I can come to a real-world A/B comparison.

The crew of s/v Eolian recently had an exciting experience in the fog here in Puget Sound. Reminds me of my experience a few weeks back. Just as we did aboard Two Lucky Fish, Eolian made use of AIS data available over the internet on a smart phone. Read on…

A while back, we were in a position that required us to traverse Puget Sound from Port Madison to Shilshole in heavy fog. […] Puget Sound has a lot of shipping traffic, and an active and professionally run VTS system.  And we have radar on Eolian.  So I was not particularly worried…  focused and intense, yes, but not really worried.

As we started across, I notified VTS giving our speed and that we were going to be crossing the lanes.  They, in turn notified us of shipping in the area.  It looked good for us – a northbound freighter would be past us before we got to the northbound side of the Sound, and a southbound freighter would pass behind us as we entered the northbound lanes.

But just for grins, I fired up my iPhone and ran the "Ship Finder" AIS app.  [Editor’s note: I use Marine Traffic on my Android phone. —Tim] This app does not actually have a receiver in it – it takes advantage of information on the Internet somehow (don’t ask me how it works).  Sure enough, there were our two freighters, with their courses and speed vectors shown.  And their names.

About the time we entered the separation zone (the "median" between the traffic lanes, if you will), a problem developed.  We heard Manolo (the southbound freighter) complaining of a whole bunch of fishing boats out in the traffic lanes a couple of miles to the north of us, and then he said that he might have to veer into the northbound lanes to clear them.

I watched as Manolo‘s vector on the AIS display swung until it pointed right at us!  Crap.

Keep reading, by all means.

BUT, then go over and read Captain Richard Rodriguez’s commentary on the inherent limitations of smart phone-based AIS:

Why your AIS app isn’t approved for navigation

To wit: It’s “historical”. Maybe by a minute or two. Maybe by fifteen minutes. Maybe by an hour, which in navigational terms is an eternity…

I love the little AIS app on my phone, but I have no illusions that it is either complete or current!

Captain Richard Rodriguez has some screen captures and a quick review of Aye Tides for iDevices over at his BitterEnd blog:

While in Seattle a few weeks ago, Capt. Doug Pine introduced me to Aye Tides.  I’m a fan and have dumped my other iPhone and iPad products in favor of this great product.

The program also works with iNavX which I also have a copy of on each machine.  You can save favorites and sort by location. The program is $9.99 and is well worth the cost.

The Aye Tides product page is here.   AyeTides and AyeTides XL show the tides and currents for over 9,914 locations around the world.

Read more

[It’s a press release. —Tim]

Survey Intended to Measure Boaters’ Awareness of Updates to Navigational Tools

St. Paul, Minn.—August 8, 2011—The Alliance for Safe Navigation, whose mission is to raise boater awareness about the importance of accurate navigational information, today announced its annual survey for recreational boaters. The survey’s purpose is to gauge boaters’ awareness of available updates to navigational tools and their concerns related to accuracy. This year’s survey also will gather data concerning groundings and whether they were related to a lack of accurate navigational tools.

While most boaters use aids such as GPS, electronic charts and paper charts, the 2010 survey of 7,570 boaters revealed that most respondents do not routinely purchase current charts that reflect weekly updates issued by the United States Coast Guard. These updates, called the Local Notice to Mariners, contain critical information about changes such as shifting shoals, moved buoys and newly submerged obstructions; boaters can easily access these updates.

“Changes happen every single day, and one seemingly small change can be very important when it comes to boater safety,” explains Ken Cirillo, business development executive for Jeppesen, a founding member of the alliance. “By using charts that are current, whether those charts are paper or electronic, boaters improve their odds of avoiding accidents and groundings.”

“Significant and frequent changes on—and under—the water happen, and boaters need to remain aware of these changes to ensure their safety,” says David Enabnit, technical director at NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey. “The Alliance for Safe Navigation strongly suggests that updated navigational tools are the best approach to safe navigation.”

To see the latest USCG Notice to Mariners for your location, visit Notice to Mariners. For more information or to find out how many changes have been made to your charts, go to www.allianceforsafenavigation.org.

About the Alliance for Safe Navigation

The Alliance for Safe Navigation www.allianceforsafenavigation.org) consists of industry leaders that all share a commitment to boating safety. The goal of the alliance is to raise the boating community’s understanding of and appreciation for up-to-date navigational information. The alliance encourages mariners to recognize the high number of changes made to their charts and to keep their electronic and paper charts accurate. Sponsored by NOAA, the alliance is made up of BoatU.S., Jeppesen, OceanGrafix, the Sea Tow Foundation for Boating Safety and Education, and the United States Power Squadrons.

[It’s a press release about an exciting new product from Raymarine. Wait, did I just say “exciting”? Well, yes, if only because it doesn’t look like every other Raymarine chartplotter produced in the last decade! It looks…different. Distinctive. Refreshing, even. Not only does it look new, though…it’s got some new features inside, as well. Like Wi-Fi.

Ben at Panbo discussed some of the distinctions yesterday. I look forward to playing with one of these in person. —Tim]

New e7 MFDs provide expanded networking, wireless connectivity, and all new user interface

MERRIMACK, N.H., July 28th, 2011 – Raymarine announced the launch of its e7 line of affordable, easy-to-use multifunction displays that are packed with powerful, cutting-edge features.   

The new e7 is the first 7” MFD to provide networking with up to six displays, as well as remote system control and music over Bluetooth. The e7’s Wi-Fi connectivity allows boaters to stream live video from the e7 to their iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch. This allows anyone on board to see whatever is on the e7’s display – thermal video, navigation charts, radar, sonar, anything that the e7 can display – on their mobile iOS device anywhere on board.

Its Bluetooth connectivity lets you control and reconfigure the e7 with the optional RCU-3 wheel-mounted or handheld remote control unit. You can also use the RCU-3 remote to control the audio playback from your iPad, iPhone, or iPod remotely so that your device is stowed safely out of the elements.

The e7 is remarkably easy to use, with Raymarine’s HybridTouch™ technology allowing boaters to choose touchscreen or keypad control, and the new LightHouse user interface, which makes customizing your MFD layout and display as easy as dragging and dropping on-screen elements where you want them.

But the first thing boaters will notice about the e7 is its all new sleek, low-profile design. Other MFDs can look like boxy appliances that are shoved clumsily into the console, but the e7’s sleek design makes it look like it was made for your vessel. With a low-profile bezel and bright LED backlit display, the e7 gives you excellent visibility from every angle.  The e7 display is also enhanced with a unique Sport Optic friendly coating that enables continuous visibility from virtually every angle while wearing polarized sunglasses. 

Boaters can choose the standard e7 or fisherman can choose e7D with built-in HD Digital sonar.  A 48 channel, high sensitivity internal GPS is also standard on both the e7 and e7D. e7 and e7D models are also available with Navionics ready-to-navigate coastal or inland charts supplied on a microSD cards.

For additional product information please visit www.raymarine.com.

[Hey, just like the headlights in the original Mazda Miata! It’s a press release, folks…enjoy. —Tim]

Navigational lights are essential to see other craft and discern their direction. Accon Marine offers a full line of sleek stainless steel lights, including the 205 series Pop-Up Port Lights, 206 Starboard and 207 Side Lights.

Accon’s unobtrusive lights fold down flush when not in use, keeping the deck free of hazardous protruding lights. All three models are US Coast Guard-approved for one nautical mile, are NMMA-accepted and meet 72 Colregs.

Made of marine grade 316 stainless steel, they are illuminated with a #78 bulb. A plastic waterproofing cup prevents water runoff below deck.

For easy and exact installation, each light comes with a cut-out template and fastens with three #10 screws.

[Here’s the instruction video. —Tim]

Accon Marine’s 205 Pop-Up Port and 206 Starboard Lights cost $156.49 each, while the 207 Pop-Up Side Lights are $312.98.

[It’s a press release… —Tim]

Merrimack, NH – July 27th, 2011 – Raymarine, the world leaders in marine electronics is proud to announce the new AIS650 Class B AIS Transceiver, and the AIS350 AIS Receiver. Engineered for seamless integration with Raymarine multifunction navigation systems, the AIS650 and AIS350 bring a new level of situational awareness and safety to sailing, cruising and fishing boats.

Operating in the VHF maritime band, the Automatic Identification System (AIS) enables the wireless exchange of navigation status between vessels and shore-side traffic monitoring centers. When interfaced to a compatible chartplotter or radar display, boaters immediately benefit from being able to see the surrounding vessel traffic plotted and updated automatically.

AIS650 is a Class B transceiver unit, meaning it allows full participation in the AIS network by receiving data from other vessels as well as transmitting data about its own navigational status to other AIS-equipped vessels. This “see and be seen” capability significantly improves navigational safety by making the boat visible on the chart and radar displays of much larger vessels. It also presents the captain with a comprehensive picture of the AIS-equipped vessel traffic around him right on his own chart and radar screens.

AIS650 also has a user selectable “Silent Mode” which can be enabled right from the Raymarine MFD interface, or by connecting an optional toggle switch to the unit’s silent mode circuit control. Silent Mode allows the captain to temporarily suspend broadcast of identifying information on occasions where privacy or security are desired. AIS650’s built-in Secure Digital memory card reader can be used for recording AIS data for later analysis, or for configuring the system’s vessel identification static data. The AIS650 includes a 50-channel GPS receiver with built-in integrity management software, which ensures the GPS positions reported by the system are of the highest accuracy possible.

The AIS350 is a receive-only product designed for small boats wanting the increased situational awareness benefit of AIS, but not wanting the Class B transmitting capability. This low-cost alternative brings many of the safety advantages of AIS to a wider range of vessels than ever before. AIS350 features a new dual-channel receiver design for fast acquisition and download of AIS traffic data.

Both new Raymarine AIS products are built on a new ultra-compact chassis that is at least 50% smaller than previous generation AIS products. Both models feature multiple data interfaces including NMEA0183, SeaTalk-NG and USB (universal serial bus) for easy integration with PC-based navigation solutions. Both AIS products also support the NMEA2000 interface standard making them compatible with a wide array of 3rd party navigation products.

The AIS650 will be available nationwide from Raymarine’s network of authorized dealers and OEM integrators beginning in July 2011 with the AIS350 arriving shortly thereafter. The AIS650 has an MSRP of $999 and the AIS350 has an MSRP of $549.