Well, it certainly doesn’t feel like summer yet, but we’ve finally gotten BoB back in for the season. It’s been a terriblally busy spring, touring season, and year end at school this year and that has made it impossible to get the boat in any earlier. If fact it was a push just to get it in, but I was starting to worry about even being able to get a slip at this point!
We actually only went for a short run on Sunday. We spent Saturday launching, rigging, and prepping, so rather than trying to race out to somewhere (and it was not very warm out to begin with), we opted just to stay onboard in our slip, plug in the heater, and just relax for a few hours. Our big upgrades this spring were the VHF and adding all the remaining sections to complete our canvas cockpit enclosure. Everyone I’ve spoken with has said it’s the best add on they’ve done, and I think I agree. Although the black canvas gets hot pretty quick on a sunny day, it sure makes the mornings out in the cockpit much more enjoyable. The VHF was a necessary addition. Knowing we would always want a back up/handheld, we made due with a Icom M34 floating handheld VHF. It’s a great little radio and it allowed me time to figure out what fixed mount radio would best serve our needs. I ended up going with a Icom M504 Class D, along with a HM 162 handheld controller mic for at the helm. This gives me full radio control in the palm of my hand at the helm, as well as in the cabin. I was really pleased with how the install turned out at home.
Anyway, back at home I quickly checked to make sure that the GPS & VHF were wired together correctly and that the radio was indeed receiving Lat/Long info from the plotter. However down at the boat, there was a real problem with the GPS locking up after a few screen refreshes. Okay, we can still have our charts onboard... right? Wrong. Having not actually gone into our original destination of Blaine before, we decided to not make the first attempt without charts, so we just went out and puttered around and enjoyed being out on the boat. In spite of everything else, it was great just to be out once again.
We actually only went for a short run on Sunday. We spent Saturday launching, rigging, and prepping, so rather than trying to race out to somewhere (and it was not very warm out to begin with), we opted just to stay onboard in our slip, plug in the heater, and just relax for a few hours. Our big upgrades this spring were the VHF and adding all the remaining sections to complete our canvas cockpit enclosure. Everyone I’ve spoken with has said it’s the best add on they’ve done, and I think I agree. Although the black canvas gets hot pretty quick on a sunny day, it sure makes the mornings out in the cockpit much more enjoyable. The VHF was a necessary addition. Knowing we would always want a back up/handheld, we made due with a Icom M34 floating handheld VHF. It’s a great little radio and it allowed me time to figure out what fixed mount radio would best serve our needs. I ended up going with a Icom M504 Class D, along with a HM 162 handheld controller mic for at the helm. This gives me full radio control in the palm of my hand at the helm, as well as in the cabin. I was really pleased with how the install turned out at home.
Anyway, back at home I quickly checked to make sure that the GPS & VHF were wired together correctly and that the radio was indeed receiving Lat/Long info from the plotter. However down at the boat, there was a real problem with the GPS locking up after a few screen refreshes. Okay, we can still have our charts onboard... right? Wrong. Having not actually gone into our original destination of Blaine before, we decided to not make the first attempt without charts, so we just went out and puttered around and enjoyed being out on the boat. In spite of everything else, it was great just to be out once again.