I warned you – this is going to be a gear related post. If you’re not into boat-gear, this post might be the equivalent of reading an encyclopedia for enjoyment.  On the other hand, if you’ve been asking about what gear I use, here’s a gear post and you’re welcome. 

Garmin GPSMap 741xs, GMR 18HD 

So I found out my radar wasn’t simply disconnected, it was fried.  That’s an expensive discovery, so took a step back and wondered if I really needed a radar.  I tabled the decision for awhile while I talked to people and did research.  6 months later I decided I should have a radar for two main purposes: 1) at night, to be able to identify other boats on the water 2) to help identify land masses should I be navigating a strange place with sketchy charts and limited visibility.  At that point it came down to what radar.

What radar should I buy?

Great question.  Depends.  For me it was about a quality product, a low price, low power draw, color screen, and a radar range greater than 24NM.  Spoiler alert – there are few quality radars below $3,000.  The only one I found that seemed to meet my needs (and budget) was Garmin’s 741sx and GMR 18HD combo.  It’s a plotter/GPS/radar combo that can also read the bottom (it even supports CHIRP transducers) when you plug in a transducer.  Click here to see what CHIRP is.

Because of the price point and because I’ve had great luck with Garmin before – there was absolutely no competition.What really makes this unit a homerun, though, is that it does everything…

I have a simple Raymarine depth instrument.  That’s great for poking around anchorages and knowing how much scope to let out when I anchor.  But it’s not great for finding fish, seeing the composition of the bottom, or identifying reefs and wrecks on the bottom.  Being able to see a sonar image of the bottom is something I missed.  So a huge bonus to getting this Garmin unit was the ability to add a transducer for redundancy, but also to (finally) be able to see the bottom as a means to find fish and structure and dive sites.  A huge improvement. I didn’t go with a CHIRP system due to the expense – I don’t need the ability to see a grouper hanging over the bottom in 2000 feet of water (yet).

For navigation I currently use my iPad Air with SeaIQ and the CM93 charts.  The iPad is great (more on that later), but I wanted redundancy in GPS/chartplotting and it’s really nice to have a purpose-designed tool.  As if that wasn’t benefit enough, now I can overlay radar on charts and with a couple flicks of my fingers, watch the bottom in 2 different sonar frequencies. 

Finally, the unit talks to all of my other electrical doodads onboard.  It’s wired, through NMEA 0183 to my Standard Horizon GX2000 VHF.  It’s wired through NMEA 2000 to my Vesper Marine XB8000 AIS system. 

The unit itself is a small (relatively speaking) and handsome touchscreen.  It comes with the ability to flush-mount or gimbal it.  I chose to gimbal it, to avoid cutting big holes in my cockpit dash and to keep the screen closer to me (easier to see/use).  The menus are intuitive, in typical Garmin fashion, and the connections are all marine-grade – meaning they screw together and have O-rings that keep water out. 

GARMIN GPSMAP 741xs / GMR 18HD

When I purchased the unit, I purchased it as the radar/GPS combo (GPSMap 741sx and GMR 18HD), and then purchased the NMEA 2000 starter kit and the in-hull transducer separately.  Installing the radome itself was a PITA because I had to climb the mast in a rolling anchorage – but Garmin did us a HUGE favor by making the radome backwards-compatible with other 18” radome mounts – meaning my old Raymarine radar mount screwed directly into my new Garmin radome.  That’s something you don’t see very often, a round of applause to Garmin.

Installing the GPSMap 741sx was simple. Finding where to mount it was the hardest part.  The good news is that the 741sx has an internal GPS, a plug for an external GPS antennae, and it can pull GPS coordinates from other networked devices (for me, my Vesper XB8000 AIS).  So there was no reason to run another GPS antennae or pull more wire through the boat.   Here’s what the bottom of the anchorage looks like in CTG – split screen showing two sonar images, one in 50hz and another at 200hz.  

GARMIN GPSMAP 741xs / GMR 18HD

Connecting the NMEA 2000 and NMEA 0183 to the unit (to network everything) was remarkably simple.  I really appreciate the plug-and-play nature of NMEA 2000.  To run my NMEA 2000 network I simply needed to plug my Vesper Marine XB8000 and Garmin GPSMap 741sx into the NMEA 2000 backbone – and then run a power cable to the network.  Too easy.  NMEA 0183 was a little more hazy because I had to crimp wires and decipher diagrams from Standard Horizon and Garmin – but I managed to do it in under an hour. 

The transducer installation was trial and error.  I wanted the transducer as far front as possible, and I wanted it in the starboard hull (opposite my Raymarine transducer).  The design of my owner’s version Lagoon 380 made that difficult – but after a 1/2 day of playing with it we got it positioned in an acceptable spot.  To finish the installation of the transducer, we needed to grind the inside of the hull (below the waterline) to bare fiberglass, and then use 3M 5200 to attach the transducer housing.  At that point we simple let the 5200 cure, filled the housing with antifreeze, and plugged the transducer into the housing.  Not difficult at all, and it sure beats a thru-hull transducer which means hauling the boat out of the water to drill another hole under the waterline.

The biggest hurdle in the installation was mostly my fault – I needed more cable for both the radar data and for the transducer.  Of course, I installed this in Colombia, so it wasn’t as simple as walking to West Marine and picking it up.  It took a couple of weeks to get it here. 

With everything installed, hooked up, and powered on I couldn’t be happier.  For less than $2,5000 (all in), I have radar, a bottom-machine, and redundancy in depth/GPS instruments.  All on a color touch-screen that makes using it a pleasure.  Of course – the real test will come as I use the system over the next 5-10 years, but for now – all’s well. 

For smaller recreational boats, I can’t see the need for anything else.  Garmin’s 741sx does it all without sacrificing usability or breaking the bank.

Garmin GPSMap 741xs, GMR 18HD

It’s been kinda crazy around here.  Some work, some play.  My phone was stolen but it was in the middle of a night out;  I shared some fault in the ordeal. With no phone, I also have no internet access. And then, after I was without the phone for a couple of days, I realized how nice it is to be completely disconnected – so I decided not to spend money on a new one just yet.  The price of peace was my smartphone. 

But that’s not really worth writing about. 

Reality

If you’re one of those, here to be inspired – you might wanna skip the next month or so.  It’s still boat work.  The next month will be posts on gear and technical crap and me whining about the heat.  Of course, when I get real all the dreamers complain.  It goes like this:  Nate, you spend too much time talking about the boat, too much time talking about working on the boat, too much time talking about boat gear and installation.  Not enough time telling us about the dream.  Bullshit.   The dream turns out to be moments:  a sunset over an uncluttered horizon, a day of spearfishing fun, a daysail between two off-the-beaten path islands.  These dreamy moments stitched together with longer periods of challenge and hard work.  

Speaking to other folks that have prepared for similar voyages – the common thread is that preparation is two people working on the boat, full-time, for a year before they complete the refit.  Read that again:  it usually takes a year of full-time, unpaid, strenuous work to get a boat like this ready.  Some folks took two years, if they did it all alone.  Some it took a little less.   The cost of the boat is hardly the price of admission, it will amount to a single line item on a long receipt.  Don’t forget to count the blood and sweat and tears and countless hours and endless gear purchases – all following the purchase of the boat. 

So that’s the reality – this shit is technical sometimes.  This shit is dirty and sweaty sometimes.  This is about knowing what gear to buy, how to install it, and where to source it as well as (sometimes more than) sailing.  It’s about what spares to have onboard.  It takes tons of work to get set up for big crossings and sailing in remote locations.  Every time somebody tells me I’m living the dream, I can look down at greasy hands and filthy clothes and wonder what strange dreams they heave.  But any dream takes work. 

Since we’re being real today, let’s talk money.  It costs real money to buy this kind of boat.  It costs real money to refit this kind of boat.  It costs real money to sail and maintain this kind of boat. Defender.com doesn’t take IOU’s.  I tried to convince both the grocery store and the marina that they should let me pay with pocket lint.  The guys at the diesel dock just said “No entiendo” when I told them that I needed diesel but that I didn’t have money.  When I have to pay for visas, the officials become sullen when I explain that I’m paying with my goodwill.  

About as often as somebody tells me I’m living the dream, I get a request from a stranger to come onboard… (wait for it) …without any money. They want to come and sail with me, without paying for the place they sleep or what they eat or what they drink.  It’s like standing in line at a theme park without having the money for admission.  In short, it’s foolish.  They say they’ve always dreamed of sailing around the world – as if their dream is an established currency in their dream world.  I’ve taken two people without money onboard – one stole thousands of dollars from me and the other added money-problems to my already long list of things to think about.  Fooled me twice, shame on me.

The dreams of so many people are so far removed from reality.  You learn, as time passes, why harbors and boatyards are stocked full of derelict boats. Unfinished projects serving as gravestones marking the harsh reality behind the facade of idealistic dreams. 

You can do this with less money but not at this level.  You can do this with less work but you better be able to cash that check.  That’s the reality.  It’s not as shiny as the dream.

The Last Month in CTG

Back to the present. 

When I first got back to the boat it was with great relief.  The States just isn’t home anymore – the language of job worries and commuting and mortgages and weddings and insurance and baby showers is now foreign.  The longer that is foreign, the better I’ll feel.  Back in CTG I had a week to get stuff settled.  A week to decompress and prepare for a visit from a friend.

Look how nice the water is…

Said friend visited from the States and we took a short trip to the Rosarios.  A trip to Cholon, lots of rum, late mornings and long nights.  She left.  Then it was singers at bars and drama at beaches.  Then it was back to boatwork.  Weeks of sweating and bleeding and cursing boats in general.  The heat oppressing, we pray for cloudy days that rarely manifest.   A moment of humor and clarity – yesterday when I went to the dock I received a standing ovation:  it was the first time they’d seen me clean in months.  This work is dirty.

The good news is that I accomplished a fair amount.  I’ll start in the engine rooms. 

There was a final repainting of the engines.  This is my third shot at painting the damn things in the last year. The first time I used a Volvo Penta paint, assuming it would be a quality paint.  It was not and it began flaking and rusting within three months.  The next shot at painting the engines I used this stuff:

Engine Paint Fail

Word to the wise:  don’t use that stuff.  It may be good for high-temp, light-duty stuff.  It is certainly not good for heavy-duty or marine use.  Rubbing that paint with a soapy rag removed the paint.  So about two months after the application of that paint, I decided to scrub and scrape it off the engines again.  A-freaking-gain.  

I reckon the third time’s the charm. 

The third time around I vowed to never, ever use a single-part paint on the boat again – at least not on anything I care about.  Single part paints just don’t cut it.  Single-part paints are for hobbyists.  This time around I wanted an epoxy-based paint.  The epoxy-based paints adhere well and provide a heavy-duty barrier that prevents corrosion.  Unfortunately epoxy-based paints don’t do very well in high-heat applications.  But with a bit of searching I found a local, epoxy-based paint that tolerated heat – a two part paint of course.

So we spent another two days on each engine – scraping and cleaning and repainting in The Sauna (the engine rooms).  Eventually we got it done.  Then we needed to replace the sound barrier in the engine rooms.  I searched and searched and finally found what I wanted – in the States.  Getting it here would be a problem though.  The cost and trouble of getting my hands on it, though, bordered on ridiculous. 

So.  I made the damn soundproofing.  It’s two parts:  one piece of a heavy lead or rubber sheeting that serves to absorb the sound/vibration and another piece of mylar-coated insulation.  Lead sheeting was near-impossible to find here, but I found a heavy rubber (gasket material) that turned out to be a great substitute.  The process sounds simple, but it took a week.  We  removed everything mounted on the bulkhead, cleaned the surface, glued the two parts together, cut it, fit it, glued it to the bulkhead, and then sealed all the edges with the right tape.  It turned out well and it cost a fifth of the commercially available products Stateside.  The real investment was time.  You can see the result, behind the fuel filter below. 

Griffin Filters

Next up was replacing my old-school Racor fuel filters with the turbine fuel filters from Griffin.  I opted to go with Griffin over Racor based solely on price.  In the words of a good friend:  Racor’s not the only game in town.  For the price of one turbine Racor fuel filter I got two Griffin’s from John at dieselfitlersdirect.com.  For any and all fuel filter needs, these are my guys.  I added the vacuum gauges on top as a means of telling when I should replace the filters.  The vacuum gauges are a nice-to-have, not a must-have.  The turbine filters are a big upgrade over the twist-on Racors that I replaced, if only for ease of replacing the filter cartridge.  In addition I picked up 36 fuel filter cartridges – 36 of the new cartridges cost less than 6 of the old and occupy less space as well.  With freshly cleaned fuel tanks (and new inspection ports), properly treated fuel, and the new fuel-filtration system – I think the majority of my fuel problems are in the rearview. 

And that’s enough for today. 

Next up is the radar/transducer/GPS system installation.  New toys.  It’s just money, right?

Reality