Kestrel® 4000 Pocket Wind Meter

The Kestrel® Tracker is the next generation of weather monitoring. You can now measure EVERY major environmental condition, easily and accurately, right in the palm of your hand. The chart mode allows users to recall and graph up to 2,000 measurements, along with the date and time of storage. Barometric Pressure, Altitude, Density Altitude, Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed, Wind Chill, Dew Point, Wet Bulb, and Heat Index... all in one pocket sized instrument.

A bit pricey at $329 but it solves the question of networking atmospheric sensors into the ships computer - go with a handheld instead!

Infrared Thermal Imaging

Thermal imaging uses high-end sensors and electronics to detect the infrared electromagnetic energy radiated by just about everything. We sense this energy as heat. Small differences in the amount of heat from different objects allows these devices to paint a picture of the surroundings that looks kind of like a black and white negative. Several companies are now making products directed at the marine market. Aside from the ability to see other nearby vessels and objects through smoke, light fog and in the dark these devices are extremely well suited for spotting the heat signature of a crew member overboard.


The ThermoVision Mariner from FLIR Systems runs around $7,000 and is described by FLIR:

The 12 volt ThermoVision Mariner is a powerful thermal imager for maritime navigation, search and rescue, and security applications. With thermal imaging, the Mariner gives navigators the ability to see in total darkness, through light fog, and smoke at a reasonable price. Unlike night vision scopes that require low amounts of light to provide an image, the ThermoVision Mariner system features the same thermal imaging technology used by the military. The Mariner makes navigation safer, by allowing you see obstructions, buoys, and other vessels at night, regardless of lighting conditions. The Mariner can also be used for search and rescue and security applications.

Neraida makes the 24 volt Nerin3R Enhanced Vision System imaging sensor which, like most devices in this class, can output to anything that will accept a standard NTSC video signal.
image:

D&B Technology Group, Inc. makes the Hoteye line of infrared devices for the marine market.

A handy improvement to these mounted-camera designs would be for them to optionally eliminate the cabling between camera and display in favor of a wireless connection.

The dedicated marine systems are expensive and require mounting, installation, wiring and a means of display such as a TV monitor, LCD Panel, or a computer or chartplotter that accepts an external video signal (although some products come with their own displays).

If you want a simpler solution, which you can take ashore for fun in the dark, go with a handheld thermal imaging camera. Note that these are not the same as 'nightvision' scopes, which use a source of infrared light to illuminate the nearby scene which is then picked up by a low end sensor. These don't have as much range nor do they work as well in fog and haze.

A true thermal imaging camera detects the infrared energy emitted by the environment and requires no source of illumination. This makes these devices just as spendy as the dedicated marine systems but you get the additional flexibility and security of being able take it with you when moving around in the cockpit or on deck or when leaving the boat.

FLIR Systems makes a handheld thermal imaging camera, the ThermoVision FlashSight.

ATN Corp makes a five inch long handheld, the Thermal-Eye X100xp, that retails for around $6,500.

If I was looking for a crewmember overboard I would want to use one of these handheld that I could quickly point in any direction rather than use a joystick to drive a gimballed unit likely mounted on the pointy end of the boat or on the mast.

Star Gazing's Electronic Assist

One of our favorite pastimes while on watch at night is to gaze at the sky and pick out planets, constellations, and individual stars. This usually requires frequent consultations of the almanac (and other primitive tools), and plenty of time spent glancing back and forth from sky to page.

Now Celestron has solved that problem with the introduction of the $399 SkyScout. From their website:

The SkyScout is a revolutionary handheld device that uses advanced GPS technology with point and click convenience to identify thousands of stars, planets, constellations and more.

Identify
Simply point the SkyScout at any star in the sky and click the "target" button.

The SkyScout will tell you what object you are looking at.

Locate
To locate a star or planet, select the object's name from the menu and follow the directional arrows through the viewfinder.

Once it has helped you identify the heavenly body you are looking at, the SkyScout will entertain and educate you with facts, trivia, history and mythology. With over 6,000 stars, all 88 constellations, and over 100 galaxies, nebulae & star clusters, a clear, moonless night on passage will pass all too quickly.

Automatic Identification System ("AIS")

Automatic Identification System ("AIS") is a International Maritime Organization standard for digital tranmission of vessel information. Regulation 19 of SOLAS Chapter V mandates large commercial vessels be fitted with AIS equipment and operate it at all times.

The regulation requires that AIS-equipped ships shall:

* provide information - including the ship's identity, type, position, course, speed, navigational status and other safety-related information - automatically to appropriately equipped shore stations, other ships and aircraft;
* receive automatically such information from similarly fitted ships; monitor and track ships;
* exchange data with shore-based facilities.

The technology works on a couple of VHF frequencies using Self-Organizing Time Division Multiple Access to permit vessels to report and update their position information in real time. The U.S. Coast Guard has an excellent overview of AIS and how it works.

This is useful stuff for the cruising sailor. One of the great fears of any bluewater sailor is of crossing paths with a huge commercial vessel that, like some cruisers, may not be keeping a good watch. With an AIS receiver hooked up to the chartplotter or navigation computer, the on-watch crew is less likely to be surprised by another vessel because the system can generate an audible warning as soon as an AIS-broadcasting vessel comes within a defined range.

While AIS transmitters are expensive, costing in the thousands of dollars, an AIS receiver, possibly as cheap as one hundred dollars, is within the reach of cruisers. There are more and more manufacturers making AIS transpoders and receivers, such as Smart Radio Holdings, Milltech Marine, Euronav, Nobeltec, and Sealinks, maker of a $1,500 Class B AIS transponder.

NASA Marine Instruments promises a standalone AIS receiver/plotter that displays AIS information in a radar-like format. They also have a AIS receiver that will send AIS NMEA sentences to a serial port on your computer or to other navigation electronics using the NMEA 2000 bus interface.

It seems a no-brainer for this technology to be incorporated into VHF radios but we have yet to see one offered or announced, despite Chuck Husick's May 2005 BoatU.S. Techno-Talk article entreating all recreational boaters to request manufacturers do so.

Handheld Weather Forecaster

On passage we keep a handwritten log in which the on-watch makes hourly entries about speed, heading, position, sea state, weather, and the like. One of the fields is barometric pressure, for which we always went down into the salon to look at the barometer. While I have seen various NMEA barometric sensors (I will be covering these in a separate article), they are still prohibitively expensive and may be overkill for those who don't plan to implement a full-on NMEA network with sensors and displays.

A inexpensive solution is the Handheld Weather Forecaster from Oregon Scientific. Although it does not output any NMEA data it has a readable screen, runs on watch batteries, and will display temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, time (with alarms), and moon phase.

Tacktick Wireless Instruments

Tacktick, Ltd., of Hampshire, UK, makes a line of solar powered, wireless sensors and instruments. While they tend to be more expensive than your typical wired versions from the competition, think of the time, money and skinned knuckles saved by not having to run cabling all through your boat. Of interest to cruising sailors is the Micronet line, which includes wireless masthead transmitter, hull transducer transmitter and NMEA interface module along with a set of wireless displays and even a handheld remote display. Everything is solar powered with rechargeable battery backup - displays can operate up to 300 hours on battery and will recharge even on cloudy days.

Inaugural Posting

This is the first article of the Marine Electronics Review blog from Wheatstrong.com. The author is MJ Patterson, a lifelong sailor and bluewater voyager, and part-time blogger. The objective for this blog is to collect interesting articles about electronic technology for recreational boats. The focus is on solutions for sensing, instrumentation, navigation, telemetry, weather modeling and routing and the like.

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