Time to upgrade and expand our electronics on board.
Yes, races can be won with basic instruments. And my philosophy is often “less is more”.
Yet, measuring improvements over time, assessing performance and taking decisions onboard with aid of accurate data, do accelerate the learning curve tremendously.
The keywords being “aid” and “accurate”. Instruments augment, don’t substitute. And the expression “crap-in crap-out” never had a better application than here.
Veloce sports an all-Raymarine system (except for the GPS antenna). The overall capabilities are comprehensive and relatively modern, with a few buts… which brings me to why we are upgrading.
Why upgrade
- ITC5 converter. This is a great piece of equipment that allows converting analogue signals from wind and speed/depth/temperature transducers without a dedicated instrument for each transducer doing the converting. It can be used to put analogue signals on a N2K bus. Unfortunately, it constitutes a physical component with exposed cables terminations prone to oxidation, damages, and loosening. Newer transducers are able to convert their signals directly to N2K putting the ITC5 out of business.
- Speed transducer position. It can’t be mounted on the centreline of a J/80 without compromising the afore watertight compartment. Veloce mounts a flush through-hull just starboard of the centreline. We noticed huge differences in speed reading on each tack.
- Fun. I like technology and trying gadgets out.
- Lack of data visibility aboard. So far, we relied on a simple i70 screen and several key information overlayed on the plotter. It is difficult to see (sometimes, ageing is a good excuse) and often simply not enough data.
Upgrades
The first headache is also an eternal conundrum in system architectures. Mix and match vs one platform?
I adopted a mix and match approach on the Sun Fast, a few years back. When it worked, it worked well. But it was always a very fragile affair with converters/adaptors/bridges/something extra to make stuff from different vendors and era talk to each other.
Veloce, on the other hand, mounts a modern all-Raymarine system.
When Raymarine launched Alpha displays, Lighthouse 4.5 with new sail racing functions and Raymarine Smart Wind early last fall, keep building and expanding the Raymarine platform felt like the natural choice.
Display
I looked at all stand-alone options for a while. Each option was great at something, yet each option had a big drawback. Either lack of integration with transducers onboard, or lack of backlighting, or poor battery. More advanced systems would simply break the bank and I couldn’t see the value for the bucks.
When Raymarine released Alpha it ticked all the boxes.
I went for one 7” portrait oriented display at the mast. Yes, it is small, but so is the J/80. I am confident it will be a great addition! The cable only comes with mounted connectors, which are very large. I couldn’t bring myself to drill such huge holes through the mast just below the boom and went through the deck instead. Pros: uncompromised mast strength; easier to step/unstep the mast. Cons: will it leak?; another object to kick and damage accidentally.
Stay tuned for coming feedback.
Speed transducer
The Raymarine/Airmar DST810 Gen2 , like its predecessor is a triducer, reading depth, speed and water temperature. It does improve its predecessor in several ways, though.
Firstly, it allows to calibrate on different tacks, at different heel and trim angles, thanks to its attitude sensors. Hopefully, this feature will solve our problem with the paddle-wheel off centre.
Secondly, the DST810 Gen2 comes with a new paddle-wheel which is way larger and less susceptible to turbulence close to the hull.
Thirdly, it starts providing good speed readings at very low speeds.
There’s more. It puts its reading directly on the N2K, bypassing the ITC5 converter.
Last but not least, Raymarine Lighthouse 4.5 (and after) includes a new calibrating procedure for sailboats which makes it possible to recalibrate under sail in “normal” conditions. This may eb a less than perfect approach, but its one you’ve got no excuse to skip over on a regular basis.
Disappointingly, the DST810 does not come with a notch that ensures that the paddle-wheel always faces forward in the same exact position. I am working on a small modification to solve this problem.
Wind
Raymarine announced its new Smart Wind transducer at the same time as it released Alpha. Because of a slight delay, it will not be available on time for our kick off of the season. Something to look forward to next year.
Besides promising greater accuracy, it comes with an attitude sensor like the pit log. The idea is to measure pitch, roll and yawl with dedicated accelerometers and adjust wind speed/angle readings accordingly. Once again, it will directly connect to N2K or SeatalkNg, putting the last nail in the ITC5 converter’s coffin on Veloce.
Network Switch
Raynet is basically a Ethernet network. Both our hard keypad RMK10 and display Alpha 7 connect to Axiom’s brain via Raynet. The Axiom only comes with one Ethernet port though. Thus a network switch able to mix ethernet signals from/to at least 3 devices.
One option was to use a simple Netgear switch at a fraction of the cost and change it often as it rusts away. Imagine it stopping to function on race day. Could I live with it? You know the answer.
I decided to go for the new marine grade switch from Raymarine RNS5. It is the “simple” version with only 5 ports and no PoE (power over Ethernet), but more than sufficient for my use case.
Still missing?
A data logger. Unfrotunately here Raymarine provides limited capabilities. More likely I’ll connect a PC stick running OpenCPN on Linux. Cheap and effective. Alternatively, a dedicated datalogger, more expensive, but robust and powered by the Seatalk bus.
Raymarine Smart Wind. For the time being…
Let’s see how Axiom 7 performs. Will it cope with the extra processing required by Alpha? And what about the heavier Lighthouse software? Raymarine overall architecture appears to rely on Axiom as main processor, at the same time pushes some brainy activity at the “edge” (see attitude and analogue/digital conversion within the transducers). Will this require an Axiom upgrade to cope?
Only time will tell. And I’ll report 🙂