Sometimes shit happens (unrelated to our sewage upgrade btw…). When we bought this boat we had planned on using the existing Furuno electronics even though Jason missed his shiny new B&G system that he had on Peregrine. As luck (or not…) would have it, the system stopped functioning properly when we started testing systems last week. The electronics are now 10 years old and instead of having the easy quick connectors it has the ends of the com cables snipped off and each individual wire hooked up to a plug on a huge junction box. It’s very shady and looked like it was going to be impossible to troubleshoot. There were little junction boxes everywhere… So Jason made the command decision that instead of spending a week or more trying to fix the nearly-obsolete system we’re just going to rip it out and replace it with what he wanted in the first place!
As usual, the removal went pretty efficiently! Hopefully the install will be equally straightforward! I also didn’t take many before pictures because it was just a bunch of wires and black boxes.
Because they’re different brands and this is just how jobs like this go, the new equipment isn’t the same size as the old stuff and that leaves unsightly holes in the boat that need adapter plates to fill. Jason and dad tackled this project with scraps of wood and acrylic that they got from the used boat parts store down the street.
Today I replaced the compass located in the area underneath mom’s bed. The wiring was pretty easy once we realized it went into a hidden space behind a removable panel in the closet….
While I was working on the water maker, Jason and dad tackled the mounting plate for the new 12″ displays.
I’ve cut a LOT of zip ties on this boat to free up the wires and haven’t put them back yet so wires are just dangling everywhere right now. A lot of the main wire runs were put in these super sharp plastic box conduit things. I hate them. They aren’t any nicer than a nice zip tie mount and they scratch the shit out of my arms when I’m working, so I ripped a few of them out.
Here’s an after picture with everything neatly bundled!
Jason installed the new handheld radio and I wired up the power to it inside the boat.
The next part is exciting to talk about but we didn’t get a single picture: I went up the mast! Ok, really only a third of the way up. Our goal was to start the mast part of the electronics by replacing the radar dome. Since I’m not bothered by heights, I volunteered to go up so I strapped into my harness and grabbed as many tools as I could think of. (never have the right ones, even with planning…) Once up there I had to have Jason get me a can of wasp spray because there was a bee nest in the loud speaker (because of course there was… lol). So now I’m dangling from a rope and shooting wasp spray on a windy day. What’s the worst that could happen? ::eyeroll:: Either way, once the danger had passed and I dripped chemicals all over the boat I managed to get the speaker off, the new cable pulled up the mast, and the old radar unbolted. It was deceptively large and heavy and I didn’t think I could put it in my bag to lower it down so I just had Jason lower me down while I had it clutched to my chest so I didn’t drop it on the boat and break things. Fun times!
Unfortunately the new radar isn’t the same bolt pattern as the old one. (I mean, we had hopes…) so we need to make a new adapter plate to be able to finish the install. The next thing that we need to do is to install the wind instruments at the very top of the mast. We went with a bluetooth wireless unit this time, which eliminates the need to pull a communication cable all the way up the mast. It also has a battery and solar panel so it doesn’t even need a power wire! Our boat had an old GPS unit installed on the top of the cabin roof that we were going to cannibalize for the lower antenna part of the wind instruments. After removing that we realized that there was no way we were going to be able to pull a new cable through because of space limitations. Our solution was to cut the end off of the cable and splice on the new connector that we needed for our updated system. Now, this is very very highly discouraged by the denizens of the internet, but we figured we had nothing to lose by trying it. I used the nice heat shrink butt connectors for everything and tried my best to wrap all of the cables back up in the aluminum foil that was there before I took it all apart. It looks super ugly but when we tested the system we got exactly the resistance we needed so it looks like it worked!
Jason got his main displays installed and the display for inside the boat.
Installing the new radar was difficult. I had planned on putting it in my sail bag and just carrying it up with me that way, but it was too big to fit and I didn’t think I could just hold it and then wrangle it above my head and not drop it while trying to set it onto the mount. We ended up using one of the mesh “fruit hammocks” that we brought for the galley to hold it and then we delicately hoisted it up. Luckily I didn’t drop anything and managed to get the radar on the plate that Jason made, screwed in the little wire hold downs, and got it all bolted in place!
We luckily haven’t had many issues getting parts for the boat, but one of the things that we had to search for was the radio! We probably found the last one in stock anywhere and it wasn’t even the one we really wanted.
Now that the radar is installed the last piece of the puzzle is to replace the wind instruments at the top of the mast! This was going to be a lot higher up than the radar since our mast is 62′!
Unfortunately I’m just a little to short to get to the top of the mast and I had to have Jason go up and finish the removal.
After we finished the wind instrument removal we needed parts so we had to redirect to something else. Jason finally found the right hardware and made a fancy adapter bracket to install the rudder angle sensor in the back of the boat so the autopilot can work properly.
Now I got to work on all the little things that we haven’t bothered to do yet. I installed the separate AIS unit (this lets us see other boats and lets other boats see us!) and wired that up. I also hooked up the VHF radio and a few other little odds and ends. Jason tested everything and it seems to be working great so far!
The boat had an Iridium Go unit, which is satellite communication through a little antenna. The antenna was mounted on the top of the arch, but I needed to relocate it for the eventual solar panel installation. I finally found the motivation to reinstall it today after bribing Jason to drill a hole in the boat for me.
It was an unexpected, expensive project but it should be worth it. The system works really well and Jason is very familiar with how it all operates. We also won’t have to chase little wiring gremlins. Can’t wait to get out on the water and use it!