New Aquisition

Last week Sarah Giddings entered the world of 21st century navigation. I have always resisted having a chart plotter aboard and, given a choice, I would still prefer to use paper charts. However, the difficulty in acquiring large scale charts of the Moroccan coast has persuaded me of the need to get some sort of chart plotter.

I was leaning towards investing in a laptop and putting a suitable bit of software on it. I had even experimented with OpenCPN on our netbook. Then, Marco Nannini of the Global Ocean Race let it be known that he had a Garmin plotter to dispose of. A bit of discussion followed on Facebook and a deal was struck! We are now the proud owners of a GPSMap 720 and an SD card with the western Mediterranean on it. We then decided to jointly treat ourselves to a large map including the Canaries, Azores, Atlantic Iberia and most of the Bay of Biscay.

Thanks to Marco for that and we wish him luck with future plans.

I am determined that the days of drawing little triangles on large expensive bits of paper should not die out. Nor will laying off courses to allow for tidal set or even EPs. However, poor visibility and strange entrances where we do not have a detailed chart will no longer cause so much concern.

I will post photos once we have it installed on the chart table.

In other news, my Brother had a mad moment and bought a Yanmar 1GM10 off Ebay and now has to figure out how to shoehorn it under Kemara's cockpit. This is to say nothing of putting in a new sea cock for the cooling water intake, redriling the shaft hole in the trailing edge of the keel, moving the cockpit drain seacocks, installing a fuel tank, installing an exhaust and silencer to come out over the transom and finally, glassing in the outboard well!

I think it is actually a good idea and will make her a much more practicable boat. We should be able to get some ideas for when we have to face up to replacing our old Bukh diesel engine as well.