Tapped Out.

Okay, I have FINALLy finished the tap installation. Well, sort of, I just have some my gel coat to apply to fill in the hole left by the old tap.

But, I have running, pumped water. Not a mega-install, just a submersible pump in a water container under the sink, but the time it's taken shows how you have to do thing in little hourly bites and unfortunately the weather gets involved when you're on a half-tide mooring.

Here's how I started:

It's a manual pumped tap, that swivels over the sink. Sadly positioned such that when you step into the cabin, you can catch it with you foot. Which I've done a few times and had to glue the spout back on. 

There has to be a better way, so as in my last blog, I bought a used tap (£4.84 inc Postage), Some hose (£8.18 inc Postage) and a Submersible Pump (£12.95 inc Postage). So for just over £25 and a bit of work, I will have running (cold) water. 

First was to remove the old tap, and fit the new one. The old one came out easily because the wood it was on, just fell apart. I hate wood on boats. 

Then it was a case of positioning the new tap. I needed it under the companionway step out of the way, but needed to be in a position to pass the "Fill the kettle for a brew" test. Which it did. 

Here's the new tap fitted and the (huge) old hole filled with epoxy and fibreglass tape:

After that, I Connected the hose up to the pump and routed the electrics to join up with the supply to the other accessories behind the radio. I have a couple of spade junctions there, so adding power to an accessory is as easy as crimping a couple of insulated spade connectors on the ends of the wires and plugging them in.

Currently the gaping hole is on it's second layer of gel coat:

You can't see from the picture, but the gel is still lumpy and needs a smear to make it all level.

As you can see the tap is positioned well back under the companionway step, so it won't be crushed underfoot.

The neck of the tap swivels upwards out of the way:

So I now have electric water. It's a bit of a diversion from the windows that really, really need new seals now.

 

Onward...

 Okay, not much work done on the boat after being on Holiday, then up North and generally not being around at weekends.

But I have been busy boat-wise. A quick visit the other week shows that there is water in the bilges again. The nappies were overwhelmed. 

So I've dug out an old bilge pump from the shed and I've bought some wire and a length of hose. I'm going to use it as a portable powered bilge pump. 

I'm also electrifying the fresh water supply. I've bought a used tap, a pump and some hose. That's a step towards having a larger water tank (eventually).

I've also bough a cheap horn. No idea what it'll be like, but hey, as long as it makes a noise and I can finish the wiring... hopefully job done there soon too. 

At some point all the small jobs will be done and I'll have to attend to the big stuff... Windows and mast beam <gulp>.

UPDATE:

All the parts have arrived, ready for fitting. The Horn is huge. Sprite II will be punching above in the noise-making dept. :-)

Installed!

 Yep,

I spent a couple of hours this weekend finalising the installation of the electronics.

Success! Everything now talks to each other. 

I also got to use my new Birthday present: a rechargeable soldering iron! Not the most exciting of presents, but very, very handy. Straight away a lot better than the dodgy gas-powered things. Plus you can recharge it via USB, so it can be charged on the boat. 

Not cheap: it was about £70 for the boxed kit, but you get a selection of bits, a sponge, and a reel of solder. So a neat little kit. And the battery is supposed to last 40 minutes. Which is quite a long time considering it's only working when you press the button. When you put the soldering iron down, it switches off. But press the button and it's up to heat in 15 seconds.

Anyhoo, back to the case in hand: working electronics!

I connected port 1 of the chart plotter to the NMEA output of the Quark unit. I then changed the setting for high speed NMEA and also enabled the setting to show the AIS data on-screen.

And voila! Data appeared.

The icon for Laura J is red because it's closer than 500 Metres.

You can use the clunky left/right/up/down button to move the cursor over the AIS target to get more information:

Status: Dangerous! Only because it's within the 500m limit set on the Chartplotter.

You get the same info on Navionics:

No Dangerousness on Navionics. You get a red icon and it beeps instead.

That's page 1 of the info. 

I'm pretty happy now that everything is talking to everything else. It gives you a bit more security and more information is always useful. Of course on more advanced and integrated setups, the AIS information would be passed to the VHF and you'd be able to hail the danger vessel if it was getting a bit close. But that's a bit too advanced for an 18ft sailboat.

As an aside, I know that getting Navionincs to talk to the Quark unit was a bit of a mission. Mainly getting all the settings correct to get the two units talking.

So here's the settings screen for Navionics under "Paired Devices":

The Name of the item doesn't have to be the same as the WiFi device name for the Quark unit, but it does help for completeness. The important thing is that you connect your WiFi to the Quark unit and you have this entry under paired devices. 

Navionics on your phone or tablet should then automatically connect to the quark device. Once connected you'll start to see the AIS targets appear on the screen as they transmit data. 

And that's it. All done. 

All that is left is to tin the connections to keep the dreaded green copper oxidisation at bay on the connections. That's just a case of going round all the bare copper wire and tinning it with the soldering iron. 

I now have to take the boat out for a spin and see how it all works in practice. It's about time I hanked on the new-to-me mainsail and see how that performs. 

Almost Installed!

 So, I spent another couple of hours today running cables and fitting the rest of the boat electronics.

First in was the chartplotter, then running the multicore cable up to the vhf radio and back down to the GPS repeater.

The GPS repeater was next to be connected up.

Successful connection:

What that single picture doesn't show is the hour or so pulling wires up to the radio hutch, making up multiple power connections, etc. in order to get power to the Chartplotter and the data line back down to the GPS repeater.

The next step was refitting the VHF and connecting the NMEA Data line to the chartplotter. Surprisingly the data showed up on the screen almost immediately. I'm used to a bit of a delay.

Sorry for the blur, the boat was rocking a bit thanks to wake from another boat.

So that now leaves the NMEA data from the AIS/WiFi unit to the Chartplotter to connect up and get working. I know the AIS data is being received, as it's still being displayed on Navionics on my phone. In fact it works so good the proximity warning went off when a boat pulled into the moorings close by. That threw me for a second as I couldn't figure out where the noise was coming from at first. 

Nice to know it works!

So, for now feeding AIS date back to the chartplotter will have to wait: I'm grandkid-sitting tomorrow.

But I'm feeling pretty happy. The chartplotter came home with me as I need to clean it up a bit. 

Hopefully more next week.

 

I Did a Thing!

 Finally did something new on the boat, rather than reacting to stuff.

I've started fitting the electronics that I had on the conservatory table. 

Yesterday I fitted this little doohickey:

It's a Quark QK-A024 AIS receiver. But it doesn't just receive AIS signals and output the data using NMEA0183, it also takes any data input by NMEA0183 and broadcasts it in WiFi. So you can receive NMEA data on a mobile device.

It can also be used stand-alone, it doesn't need anything else other than an antenna to receive AIS signals. That's the mode I'm running in at the moment. It receives AIS data via WiFi. 

I log onto the unit's WiFi hotspot and then Navionics on my phone gets access to AIS data and displays AIS-equipped vessels on the Navionics map screen, including a pointer showing their current course:

You can interrogate the vessel data by putting the Navionics crosshairs over the vessel, as you can see here:

Hovering over the vessel will show their name, but in this case their MMSI was displayed.

Tapping the questionmark then shows more detail as it does with navigation marks.

Pretty neat.

One major downside of the Quark unit is the inability to run off a 12v supply directly. It is normally powered from the USB port you use to change software settings. Of course I wasn't happy buying Quark's special low-noise USB power supply (dodgy mobile phone supplies can create Radio Frequency noise and drown out the AIS signal). 

Instead I did a bit of electronic bodgery and fitted a 5V voltage regulator into the case of the Quark and fitted a power plug to the outside, hence the handwritten sticker on the case. NOW it runs directly from 12V! 

So, step one done. I now need to look at routing the multicore wiring for the Garmin Chart Plotter up to the radio and Quark unit. I think the trunking for the current wiring needs to be replaced for something bigger when i do that, so I need to get the trunking from Toolstation first.

Off-Water Skills.

This boating lark isn't just about sailing, there are other things you get to learn along that way, especially if you're lacking in the funds dept. 

The electronicy stuff in the previous blog illustrates one element of this. Although I'm lucky in that I've always been handy electrically and electronically, my first job at 16 was as an electronics test assistant. 

I then moved from electronics and analogue "computers" (anyone remember those: lovely feedback loops and servos) to digital electronics, networks and computing. Around the same time I did a Ham Radio course, so I know a bit about Radio too. 

I've always been handy with engines too, from an early age with 2-stroke mopeds as a teenager which then translated to 2-stroke outboards.

Fibreglassing is another skill I've picked up, although I'm still a bit reticent about repairs under the waterline. They've held up, but I still worry. :-)

Of course there's the usual woodworking and metalworking skills learned in school <gulp> 40 years ago.

So along the way I've picked up a few skills. Pretty necessary when you're a bit skint. 

Last weekend I was sewing. I learned that skill when I was about five or six, taught to me by my Mother. Albeit with a machine, but I re-stitched the spray hood for the boat. The old stitching had degraded and the panels were coming apart.

I know more about using that sewing machine than the Missus! All the different stiches, tensions and stich sizes. I've used the lot!

But looking back, it seems I've picked up the skillset required to do most things on a boat. Being skint has had a bit to do with it and because mechanics charge a lot more than I earn I also started out fixing cars once the family outgrew the bikes. I well remember I but my car into a garage for fixing, charging a substantial amount for something I thought I could do myself. After that first encounter I vowed to do as much as I could myself. 

When I had my powerboat I did all the work to make it CE compliant for the RCD. All I needed was a company to verify the work was compliant and issue the necessary paperwork. It's probably one of the few American powerboats out there in the UK that is fully RCD compliant. 

But I look back and think of all the things I've accomplished when I rolled up my sleeves and got stuck in and it does fill me with a warm sense of satisfaction that I could do them. I guess most boaty people that do their own work get the same feeling too. 

But I do wonder at the generations coming up after us. There seems to be no instinct to repair or replace. I know over in America at the moment there is a battle over the right to repair various bits of equipment. Manufacturers seems ever more hostile when it comes to customers who have bought (and supposedly own) their products to have the ability or even the right to open them up and delve in to repair the fault. 

Just think if it applied to boats and you had a leaky hull fitting: "Sorry sir, you can't fix that even though your boat is at risk of sinking".  Well what about the Marina mechanic? "Sorry sir, he's not accredited with the manufacturer of your boat: he can't touch it either". "I'm afraid you are going to have to either get the manufacturer's mechanic out to you, or haul the boat out and transport it by road to the nearest registered repair facility, none of which are located on the coast". 

Yeah, I'll stay thankful that we are able to repair our old boats ourselves as long as we are able. 

I'll revel in the thought of using a lifetime of self-taught skills just as much as the use of a decades-old, familiar tool. 

Rats Nest - Indoor Boaty Stuff.

 I had originally intended to work on the window of the boat the weekend just gone. In fact I booked the following Monday and Tuesday off. But as usual events conspired against me....

So the first problem was that I had my second Covid jab on the Previous Friday which knocked me out on Saturday. Plus the booking for my car I had on Friday was also moved to the Saturday. So Neptune or the Almighty obviously didn't want me to work on the boat on Saturday. 

Sunday dawned miserable and wet. So no window-replacing action that day either. Okay, I get the hint.

So,, the plan was to indoorsy stuff for the boat instead. The electronics need to be rigged out and sorted so they can talk to each other. Yes, I delved into the intricacies of NMEA 0183. Considering I've had all the bits on hand for nearly a year, it's about time I did something with it all!

So, lets explain what I was about to do. I wanted to expand the existing basic setup to incorporate my freebie chartplotter along with my freebie GPS repeater and as a bonus add the Quark AIS unit with WiFi capability, which should pass AIS data to the chartplotter and also get NMEA info including AIS data on the Navionics app on my phone. A bit of an upgrade!

So lets explore each element in turn.

First is my old faithful Midland DSC VHF transceiver. This is the one I changed the MMSI on years ago.

Currently it's connected to a small GPS receiver to provide position information to the DSC side of things. It receives NMEA data at 4800 baud. 

Second is My Freebie Garmin Chartplotter. It receives GPS directly with an internal antenna. It also has the ability to input and output NMEA 0183 data on two ports at either 4800 or 38400 baud (fast or slow). 

So navigation data can be sent out from the chartplotter to other devices and it can receive other data from other devices.

Third is the NASA Clipper GPS repeater. It receives NMEA 0183 navigation data at 4800 baud. 

The Fourth and final unit is the Quark QK-A024 AIS receiver and BNMEA WiFi bridge. This unit receives AIS data and transmits it to the NMEA network. It also receives NMEA data from the network. It broadcasts the combined input and output NMEA data out via WiFi.  It receives and transmits data from the NMEA network at the faster 38400 baud. It does not support 4800 baud.

There are a couple of downsides to the Quark unit.  The first is that it only runs off a USB connection. You have to buy a unit to drop 12v down to the 5v the unit needs for it's USB connection. The second is it adheres to a "proper" implementation of the NMEA 0183 standard, which the other NMEA devices I have don't do. More about that as we go on. 

So, the first issue was the VHF wasn't talking to it's GPS receiver. I thought I'd keep that as a backup just in case, so I needed it to work to confirm the NMEA input worked before it started to get complicated.

Here's a little taste of how complicated it got:

Not quite Superyacht levels of tidiness and professionalism, but I'm the Skint Sailor and no-one's paying me so I don't care. 

So a bit of prodding with the multimeter showed a break in the power supply from the VHF to the GPS receiver. A bit of soldering later and the two were talking together. NMEA input on the VHF confirmed. Now it should receive NMEA data from another device.

So, fire up the chartplotter. Having two NMEA ports, this becomes the hub of the network. I set the first port as high speed (38400) and the second port to slow (4800 baud). The VHF only has a single wire input for NMEA. The second wire is connected to earth. So the 4800 baud TX output of the chartplotter was connected to the 4800 baud RX input of the VHF. The VHF then displayed NMEA data from the chartplotter. That was relatively easy, the only hard bit was soldering the wire to a new plug to connect to the back of the VHF.

Now the GPS repeater. That also just requires a single wire input, so it was connected to the same output wire from the chartplotter wire as the VHF. Another success! Position data appeared on the LCD screen. I'm sure course data will be displayed once the chartplotter has course info to broadcast on the network.

Next the biggie (although physically it's the smallest unit): the Quark AIS/WiFi unit. Now there are a few issues. The first is that the Garmin uses a different spec of NMEA interface to the Quark unit. The Quark uses a proper implementation of the physical or electrical properties of the standard requiring 4 wires to transmit and receive, whereas the Garmin unit only uses 2 to do the same thing. 

Being technical the Quark unit uses a differential or balanced interface, so you have IN +ve and IN -ve for the input and OUT +ve and OUT-ve for the output. The Garmin unit just has one TX wire for the output and one RX wire for the input. The other two wires are effectively connected to earth.

The difference requires an interface of some sort. Enter the QUARK QK-AS03 Protocol interface. 

The interface requires a 12v supply (easy). It has two input wires TX/RX. So the output (TX) wire of the chartplotter goes to the RX input of the interface. Similarly the input (RX) wire of the chartplotter goes to the TX output of the interface unit.

Now the four wires on the other side of the interface. The OUT +ve and -ve wires of the interface go to the IN -ve and +ve wires on the AIS unit. 

And obviously the IN -ve and +ve wire on the interface go to the OUT -ve and +ve wires on the AIS unit. 

The bad new is there is no display on the unit, so how do you know it's receiving and transmitting data? If you're close to the sea, then you hook up an AIS antenna to the unit and it should start pumping AIS data onto the NMEA network. The chartplotter, if it's set up for it should start displaying AIS targets on it's screen.

I'm situated a couple of miles away from the sea in a built up area. The Quark unit is only set up to receive very local AIS transmissions. It's pretty deaf as receivers go I assume deliberately because you're normally only interested in AIS signals within a mile or two.

The way I checked the functionality was over the wifi. The Quark unit acts like a WiFi router you have at home. You log onto it (no internet available). If you already have a WiFi router on board, you can change the setup to suit. 

Once logged onto the router, to see the raw NMEA data I use an app on the phone called NavMonitor. You tell the app the Quark unit's IP details (Host 192.168.1.100 Port 2000 and TCP protocol). You should then be able to select the log option and see NMEA data scrolling up the screen. Which, thankfully I did. 

So finally all the units were talking to each other. Success! All that was need was to start tidying the wiring a bit and in the case of the Quark WiFi unit, devise a way of powering it from 12v instead of USB 5v.

That was another days job.

The above is an over-simplification of all the steps. There was a bit of head scratching, lots of instruction reading and a few notes written out once I'd got things working. All told it was a couple of days work to get everything set up, solder up plugs where necessary and tinker until it all worked. 

Then I left it for a day to see if it could all interact reliably and repeatedly with a few switches off and losses of power to check how robust it all was. It seems it's all pretty solid - on the bench/conservatory table at least!

 So, that was most of my weekend, including Fathers day. Happily tinkering.

The next step is doing it all again whilst installing it all on the boat.....

 

Scrub a Dub Dub... Barnacles and now Oysters??

 Hello everyone (delusions of grandeur there, I know there's probably only one person reading.. Hi Mum!).

 To be honest the issues over the past year have not only been physical (recovering from the Heart attack last year, then Covid back in February) but mental as well. I'm not quite "feeling" the boat yet. 

All I've manged to do over the past few months when I've been able to get on board is pump the bilges out. Storms, rodents chewing holes in my dinghy amongst other things has conspired to stop me doing much of anything to the boat over the past few months.

However, this weekend I finally stopped faffing around with the boat and got some proper stuff done.

In preparation towards getting the ol' tub out of the water and into a yard for some TLC and a bunch of anti-foul, I scraped the bottom last Saturday. 

It certainly needed it:

Plenty of weed and probably a double layer of Barnacles living on there and for the first time ever... Oysters! Yep, about a dozen of them tucked up under the keels, about a couple of inches across. So I don't know how old they were but it's obviously a sign I haven't scrubbed the bottom for a couple of years.

Oysters (I think, I'm no shellfish expert!):

First things first: Breakfast:

Then the scraping commenced.

Don't let anyone tell you sailing is glamorous; not at this end of the scale anyway. Lying on your back in the mud scraping barnacles off the hull and chiselling oysters off there as well (tenacious little blighters they are!) isn't pulling into a posh Marina in Monaco.

Anyway, mission accomplished although I had to pace myself lest I bring on the chest pain again.

This is what it looked like after an hour or two:

Not as thorough a job as previous years, but the amount of work to get a pristine white hull wasn't in me on Saturday.

Anyway, scrub done, I did a bit of modification to the solar charging circuit, adding a charge controller to moderate the charging current and moving the plug for the solar panel. No pictures of that yet as it's not complete, There are other things being done in the electric/electronic side of things that I've been wanting to get done for months, but not been able to do.

There will be more posts in the coming weeks. I'm now well, plus the Mrs is back working every other weekend like she used to so the weekends she's working will be boat weekends!

I really, really, really need to get the window rubbers replaced. It's been on the to-do list since I got Sprite 2! They are on their last legs and will not last more than a couple of months now. One of the font window rubbers now has a visible hole. So that will be the first to get sorted. I have enough rubber for one window. If I've bought the correct size and it works with the first window I'll get more ordered and get the whole lot sorted. 

I've booked the Monday 21st and Tuesday 22nd of June off work, which including the Weekend should give me four days to get the boat on the beach and do the dodgy window and some other jobs.

Other jobs include the mast beam. The oak sleeper has been drying out in our outhouse now for a year, so it really should be dry enough to use. I roughly measured up the beam and I should be able to make a hash of it at least once and still have spare wood to make another couple of beams if I have to. 

But to do that I need to drop the mast and if I've dropped the mast then I might as well replace the lights for LED units and their wiring. And change the coax cable for the VHF antenna while I'm at it. So the mast beam becomes a big job.

But for now getting the electronics sorted would be an easy job so that's what I'll try to get sorted in the meantime.

Cost for 2020 and Annual Review

Here's the yearly roundup of costs, which this time are pretty pathetic. I can count the number of time I visited the boat to less than double figures. Covid, Tiers, lockdowns, restrictions on transport and the rest put paid to the Sailing Season.

As usual first are the basic expenses.

£145      Mooring Fee

£160      Insurance.

Now the expenses for 2020:

£17.76    Tarpaulin 

£4.39       Plastic Project Box

£21.00     Clipper Duet

£13.14    Stainless Nuts

£10.99    Twin Wire

£18.50    Connector for Rear Nav Light

£30.00    Oak Sleeper (including Delivery)

£25.00    Dinghy Trolley

£2.29    Cable P-Clips

£0.99    Faulty Clipper Duet Number 2

£0.00    Garmin Chartplotter. (Gifted).

£0.00    (Birthday Present) AIS Wireless Receiver (Quark QK-A024)

£20.00    Quark QK-AS03 NMEA Bridge

£65.00     Mainsail

£20.15    AIS antenna

Total for the Year: £554.21 or thereabouts.

2020 Review:

A bit more than last year, but considering the amount of stuff bought, it's pretty bloody good.

This year was of course dominated by the pandemic. I had to visit the boat a couple of times to bail out, but that was it over the original lockdown. All that good weather over the lockdown period was a real kick in the teeth to most boaters. 

Once the lockdown had ended, we sadly saw a sinking in Langstone Harbour.

New Stuff included a few electronics, mainly to integrate with the Garmin Chart Plotter I was given earlier in the year. Thanks Mick!

So the Year started off with the Tarp to cover the cockpit, that I didn't get round to fitting until this winter. Then I noticed the Battery wasn't being charged by the Solar Panel: the connections on the back had corroded, so I bought a Box to seal the connections. 

I noticed someone had removed a couple of Nuts from the Outboard bracket and I needed a few more fastenings on the boat, so I spent a bit on Stainless nuts and bolts. But not a lot. 

I had to buy a couple of Clipper Duets to make a working one. Still worked out cheaper than most working ones on eBay. 

I also finally got round to fitting the LED Nav Light to the stern of the boat. I had to buy a new connector as part of the fitting as well as some more twin core wire and p-clips to support the wire.

With good intentions to do major stuff on the boat this year, I found a cheap source of Oak. I found Oak sleepers available on eBay for delivery. Only £30 delivered and the wood has spent most of the year  drying out in my outhouse.

I saw some cheap dinghy wheels going on eBay. I've yet to use them in anger as all of the visits to the boat have happened close to high tide and it's just easier to drag the dinghy up the few feet to tie up. Maybe once I start going on the boat at lower tides and I have to drag it further, I'll sort out and use the wheels.

Towards the end of the year I spent quite a bit of money of a replacement mainsail. The dimensions are good and it's in decent condition. More hopefully about that when I fit it to the boat. The old mainsail is baggy, dragging and is stretched so much I can't haul it tight on the mast even at full height on the main sheet and with the downhaul pulled tight as can be. The new sail is a little shorter, newer, stiffer... just hopefully it will drive the boat better.

The big news of the year was electronics. The Clipper Duet was one thing, but then one of the guys that works in the unit next door and has a yacht gifted a Garmin Chartplotter to me. He knows I'm always short of cash and I've helped him with some engine issues. So when another chap in his Marina was asking if he wanted a chartplotter, he grabbed it and passed it on to me. Thanks Mick.

Then I wanted the GPS data to be used by the VHF and also by my Mobile phone. I bought the Quark AIS unit to do two jobs. The first was to transmit the NMEA information on WiFi, and also to receive AIS information and promote it on the network(s). That way the Chartplotter gets AIS info and the GPS and AIS info get transmitted on WiFi so my tablet or phone can grab the data an display it on the Navionics Software. 

The Quark AIS unit was a Birthday Present. But I bought the unit to convert it's NMEA output to the Garmin NMEA standard. Finally I bought an antenna for receiving AIS over the Christmas period. 

The start of the year should hopefully see me wiring all the bits together and getting them to talk to each other. I have all the units at home to try it out before wiring it all up in the boat. Expect a post with pictures of boat electronics strewn over the dining table.

So, lots of changes in store for the Good Ship Sprite 2. If Covid and the weather allow visits for long enough.

If everything eases, I even have enough money now to put her on the hard for a week so I can scrape the bottom and get a coat of antifoul on her. I'd love to get the mast beam and the windows sorted at the same time too. But the antifoul has been waiting 4 years, so who knows!