Saturday 14 April 2012

Cape Towns big surfer waves

Seen here off Kommetjie, a monster set of waves, just right for the brave and experienced surfer!

picture taken from the Kommetjie web site, many thanks. Click on the picture to see the full size and extent of this set of braking waves!

There is a yachting connection here, any yacht coming from the South, thats the Cape Point area and going to Hout Bay, will come very close to this set of braking waves. Make sure you stay a good few miles offshore so that you will miss them. The general area is marked by the Slangkop Lighthouse.

Slangkop Lighthouse looking South. File image from the web.


How hard can this be.

Roy

Friday 13 April 2012

A cruising Endurance 37 on the wall

Seen here about twenty two years back is the Endurance 37 Ocean Cloud, she was  out on the drying sand to check out a hull fitting. The boat had recently returned from a one year cruise to St Helena isle, Ascencion isle, Brasil, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and many of the stops in between.

This boat was last sighted moored in the waters of the FBYC, Simonstown.

Due to changes in the outer harbour wall, this ability to dry out in Hout Bay Harbour no longer exists.

Roy

The Hout Bay Festival classic boat regatta 2012

The name is bound to change but the intent is clearly laid down in a straight line. We invite the HBYC and other club  members with their more classic and wooden boat designs, to get out on the bay for a weekends fun.


The TBA regatta around 1996, we had prime space at the V and A Waterfront, this was not to last, in later years we were invited to use the inner harbour marina fingers.


When did you last see a South African yacht fleet dry out between the tides? this was great fun but I will admit some skippers were rather worried at the time.

Seen here still drying out.

The intention of the HBYC is to re discover the fun of a traditional fleet but this time in the waters of Hout Bay.

All pictures by Roy McBride using a Canon FT film camera.

Thursday 12 April 2012

French plys for the Cape Henry 21 kit

We are sending a Cape Henry 21 part kit to our client in the USA, he chose the option of the Lloyds aprooved French plys, we start cutting that kit next week.


The kit will be for the drop keel version, we are also costing the steel drop keel as well.

Roy

Wednesday 11 April 2012

French marine plywood now in stock

This came as a surpise, a new source for French marine ply has just come in, its a once off and when its gone, its just that, Gone!


You can expect to pay around 20% more for this branded ply, note the Lloyds approoval badge, thats worth the extra?

Top quality and available today.


Roy

Tuesday 10 April 2012

The TBA sails again!


I saw Johan on the dock yesterday and commented on his now quite rare TBA jersey, he was to be seen later sailing out of the Hout Bay Harbour.

Ariete sailing toward the Hout Bay Harbour on her way the bay.

This is a Fred Bingham design that Johan built himself from strip plank, its a great traditional style boat and sails really well.

We have at least three TBA members on the HBYC marina, time to do a TBA Revival Regatta!


How hard can this be?

Roy

My idea is to recognise the hey days when we had yachts join in from all local yacht clubs in the  Western Cape, being held over an Easter Weekend it was also possible for the Cruisers passing through to join in. Easter 2013 will be the date to remember!

I require one member (or more) from each South African Yacht Club as support and my contact with your club for this venture, names please!

Monday 9 April 2012

Garmin GPS 120 Antenna connection?

This is a call for help, someone out there has had to do this, so please tell me how!


This is an early (1995?) Garmin 120 stick antenna, the boat it was on sank but this bit was on a 3ft stainless pole and survived!



The idea is to install an outsdside antenna so I can check various GPS I have.
GPS signals can use a one wire feed, so how do I connect this eight (8) channel Garmin antenna? there is the center pin and the screen cover only.

So how do I power it and get a return signal via a BNC type plug?

we have the center pin/core and the braid outside, there is an alloy foil too
but thats under the braid, so connected to the braid.

The Garmin GPS 120


Any ideas?

Roy

Roy thinks this one out for himself, as the specialist he emails for assistance is yet to reply.

In this case the antenna I have from the Garmin 120 is passive, its an aerial only, it is not a transmiter back to a GPS plotter or computer! So if you have an old type GPS that accepts a BNC type plug as its receive signal, the Garmin 120 antenna should work?

Garmins web site tells me the following, I assume it needs the Garmin 120 connected to do most of those functions, its the eight satellites I am keen on.

Receiver: Differential-ready MultiTrac8™ continuously tracks and uses up to eight satellites to compute and update a position

Acquisition Times:

Warm: approx. 20 seconds
Cold: approx. 2 minutes
Autolocate™: approx. 7.5 minutes
Update Rate: 1/second, continuous

Accuracy:

Position: 1-5 meters with DGPS
Velocity*: 0.1 knot RMS steady state
Dynamics: 3g's
Interfaces: NMEA 180, 182, 183 and RTCM 104 DGPS corrections
Antenna: Remote marine mount with 30' cable

This mail has just come in from John, thanks very much.


Hi Roy,

 
I don’t know if you have gotten any correct information regarding your external GPS antenna question

 
(I came across your OLD POST/question while researching something else – YES, I own & use the antenna pictured.!)

 
I currently use mine with my old Garmin 48 handheld GPS mounted on my pickup truck here in the USA. 

 
To answer your question, I believe it is an active antenna that gets the power from the GPS unit.  The connector on the end of mine is a BNC “thingy”.   (I’ll try to find my instruction manual and the proper antenna model number for you, if you wish.)

 
********************

 
John S. Halsey, Jr.

 


Scenic Hout Bay

We are often told we live in paradise, well as far as the vistas are concerned thats true for sure. Lets take the trip along Chapmans Peak Drive, the pictures show you what to expect.


The view looking down at Long Beach and over to the village of Kommetjie.





Yes it really is this nice!



The flowers just happened to be there.



You will normally see a shark flag posted near here for the swimmers and surfers, please stay out of the water if the flag is black with a white outline of a shark.



Hout Bay and from the Chapmans Peak Drive, we are supposed to work in this place!


 
How hard can that be?

Roy

Note, all pictures are by Roy McBride, the camera was a Canon G11 set to auto, Jean was driving at the time,so all pics, were taken while on the move.

Hout Bay Harbour scene

A picture I took last year, peach and quiet in what can often be a busy harbour.


Even a yacht inside the fishing boats, its a Van der Stadt 50ft steel design.

Roy

Sunday 8 April 2012

B&G Network VHF fix

Well it will work for some, in my case it did not. Searching for info on the old B&G Network VHF I have I found a cruisers forum http://www.cruisersforum.com/ There I found a mail telling me that the same set was also branded as a Kenyon RT80 or a Vigil RT80.
I have contacted B&G USA about the set, their reply was they had no circuit diagrams for the set.


My set has a decent digital readout, all functions work, except there is no audio either way, plus the mike does not work either. I decided to sign up to the forum so that I could discuss the issue with who ever posted the info, I had an email back from the USA that same afternoon!



With the four screws holding the front panel removed its easy to see the memory battery. I will next remove that pcb and find out why the light does not work?


The view inside the space between the pcb panels, I see nothing loose or burnt.


The entire set is quite easy to work on and opens out quite well.



To replace that 3 volt memory battery should be easy, its quite dead now.






The LCD and its related push buttons.The light source is the four white rectangles between the buttons, they seem not to work?


Mail from the forum member, Martin follows.

Hey Roy,

Yeah.... these were kind of weird radios, even for their day. The reason I loved it was that it fit into my instrument console so well at the helm of my Morgan 41 center cockpit sloop. I still have another one that a friend of mine gave me that also wasn't working. Same problem as my original one, and an easy fix. However, before we get into the "fix" I decided not to install this one in my new Freedom 32. For $100 US I just bought the RAM3 remote VHF microphone to go with my Standard Horizon VHF. It was less money, less labor to install, and the extra external speaker is not required, as it's a speaker AND a microphone all in one. The RAM3 also gives me WAY more functionality at the helm. So...if you get into the B&G VHF and it's not working out, or can't be repaired, I wouldn't spend any money on it. I'd suggest just going the remote mic route and I think you'll be much happier.


There is a small memory battery to the right of the picture, this one is dead.

See attached for the manual, and now for the fix. You need to take the entire case apart. It's a little tough to get apart as I recall, but once you slide the unit away from the back you will be able to get to the circuit board. The fix is easy. It's about a bad ground connection inside. There are screws that mount the circuit board and there is one MAIN screw (as I recall---from over 15 years ago!) and this main screw is the culprit. I believe there was a ground wire that went from it to the case? Not sure...at any rate if you unloosen ALL the screws that physically mount the circuit board and clean up any corrosion under these screws, then screw them back down tight that is all there is to it. The dead functions of the radio are simply because there is no return to ground for the negative side of the power supply when those screws get electrolysis and corrosion under them.

There are actually two circuit boards.

Hope this helps. After I fixed mine it worked flawlessly for the next ten years and was working fine when I sold the boat back in 1999.

Martin.

Great service from the forum and its members.

click on the picture for a larger view.

Progress of sorts, I can see that this Toshiba amplifier has been popped, it controls audio and thats what my B& Network VHF lacks. I have located a new one and may have it tommorrow. I now need a solder sucker and my trusty 12 volt soldering iron, its a 16 watt output so should do the job.


A new Toshiba amplifier I found it locally for R15, thats about U$2.00 give or take a few cents, now to fit it!
Notty in the UK has advised I cut the seven (7) pins as close to the unit as posible, then unsolder the pins one by one, then with the solder sucker, remove the excess solder. I may have to use a small drill bit to open each hole?

On the VHF circuit board, positive (+) is upwards.

I have raised the round battery off the small plastic sheet it was glued to, next I will clip it free with nail clippers, that will leave me with two prongs I can solder to.


A selection of suitable batteries, I need just the one and will have to pre solder a wire to the positive and negative side of the new battery.

The memory battery will then be next, will this work? I have no idea!


Roy

A progress report:

July 17th 2013, I had a local technition install the Toshiba part for me, those seven prongs look like messy job to me?

The radio now lights up, receives very well, the audio is good and it scans and does all of what we expect it to do, excepting there is no transmission when the mic button is pressed. As the up and down buttons do nothing either, its possible that the mic is faulty? The set will go back to the tech guy tomorrow.



Community rowing

This is a great idea, instead of building a single and small dinghy for yourself, why not team together as a club or village group and enter the fast growing rowing regattas.


By kind arrangment with Jordan Boats, UK, we can now supply plans and kits to this and other designs. From what I have seen, these vessels are suited to the South African coast line, I think they will be good to launch of beaches.

The class has basic rules, one is that the oars shall be easy to make, with no curved blades which will increase the cost.


We will be costing the designs soon.


Roy