Hello,
I've been rewiring a Macgregor 26X circa year 2000, suspected first sold in the UK 2002, now installed with an exceedingly good house battery, with made to fit restraints for knock downs or worse, after tearing out a 2002 battery wired in parallel with a 2014 leisure battery with no restraints (next to a through the hull echo sounder) and generally, ripping out some of the worst wiring I've ever seen and replacing all using the very best of certified marine grade components and done and made 'properly'. I didn't purchase this boat to be a project, but that's the way it has turned-out to be. Ship-Shape is expensive and time consuming, with the latter being whoever you lay that work time and expense to provision. In this instance it's me, friends and experts.
I have few complaints really, the boat needs to be getting back in the water after a summer of discontent and I fancy a sail across the Irish Sea, but hopefully with few risks / episodes of discombobulation in the process.
Satellite phones. There; bless. I've finally hit the subject matter! Now I'm looking for anyone who has experience with such Harry Potter wands of magical nonsense and in particular in such seas.
It seems there are satellite phone equivalents which funnily relate to folks who have camera preferences. The two biggest producers of SLR - Single Lens Reflex cameras, were and are both Japanese manufacturers of some outstandingly good stuff. The lust however is not the manufacturer of the camera you have, it is that the grass is greener on the other side, so those with Canon cameras lust after those made by Nikon and vice versa. The same is true of Satellite phones. Those with Iridium sets wonder if they should have bought Inmarsat and again vice versa.
Folks will argue about voice quality and data speed and dropped connections, but can anyone give me any info as to devices that they might have aboard for when everything might go all to sea please?
Regards
David
Left hand down a little
David
Hi, David,
I would get a VHF radio, either a hand held version or as you seem to be a dab hand with electrical stuff and wired in one. You can pay a fortune for an all singing dancing one or a lot less for a basic one but do get one with the DCS function. Press the button and the world's emergency services are at your command. After that a satellite phone is a good reserve in case of emergency but you can follow your heart as to what functions to concentrate on. You do need a certificate to use a VHF radio though. I have a i phone with GPS but am nervous about battery life so have a power bank as back up just in case. (fancy name for a battery booster). My power pack can re-start my outboard as well (£40.00 from Halford's)
I am still mulling over whether to continue with pyrotechnic flares or go with laser/led ones.
ii is just as well that I enjoy pottering almost as much as sailng my Mac.
Good Luck with it all
Simon Armitage
Sowenna (26M)
Hi Simon,
Thank you for your comments. I've already got a fixed VHF radio with DSC, a handheld VHF with DSC, a PLB and an AIS transponder. The satellite phone was for contacting the coast guard if I couldn't get them on the radio and perhaps in circumstances where I had deployed the PLB.
After hearing things about needing to point an Inmarsat aerial in the right direction and a call couldn't be made until GPS details were established, Iridium seemed to be a better way to go. Iridium's call charges are eye wateringly expensive, but at the end of the day its another insurance policy is the way that I look at it.
I found an Iridium 9575 extreme on Ebay in nice condition, with loads of accessories including Iridium's WiFi Axcess Point which acts as a data concentrator and firewall, allowing for small emails and photos from an iPad via the data connection of the Satphone and disallowing other internet traffic through the expensive connection. I got all this for less than 50% of the price of just a new phone on its own.
As the phone has a GPS, you can also use it to send position to a family member by SMS too, which I thought was a nice touch. If this message is received on a smartphone, when the link is clicked it displays the position on a map.
Left hand down a little
David
David,
You have a lot more electronic safety equipment than me but then you are contemplating sailing the Irish Sea.........Have you got a foghorn? I joke not. I have had to use mine and not in the fog.