Motor Boat & Yachting – May 2018

Patrick Steel / Alamy

TA K ING A

BEARING

MEL BARTLETT: Control freak

Before I went on holiday last year,

I bought myself a new camera –

a little point-and-shoot affair that

takes up rather less handbag space

than my purse and produces nice

snapshots at the press of a button.

It’s a huge comedown from the

‘look at me, I’m a photographer’

camera that I used to lug around,

but which involved so much faffing

that by the time I actually pressed

its shutter, the happy smiles of

my victims had been replaced

by glazed grins.

My ‘entry-level’ Coolpix attracts

snorts of derision from passers-by

as they limp past with their holdalls

full of photographic impedimenta,

but – in my hands, at least – it

produces better pictures than the

more sophisticated technology.

So why, then, do I not feel so

positive about automated controls

on navigation technology?

Take the new Lowrance Hook2

sonars, for instance. The big selling

point is that they are easy to use

• which is good. And it’s good
  that Lowrance have left us with
  a customising function – except
  that it’s buried in a settings menu,
  with a stern warning in the manual
  that ‘only experienced sonar users
  use the customise settings to
  further customise the sonar image’,
  but no instructions on how to
  actually do it!
  I had an inkling that this might
  be the shape of things to come in

the tail end of the ’90s when the

service manager of one of the

major electronics manufacturers

told me that most of the radars

that were returned to the factory

had all their controls still at their

default settings. It seemed they

were being returned because they

‘didn’t work’ by users who hadn’t

• apparently – tried adjusting the
  gain, tuning or clutter controls.
  It dawned on me that autogain
  and autotune weren’t primarily
  intended for the user: that was
  just a fringe benefit! The driving
  force for automated settings was
  the need to cut down on warranty
  claims made by people too busy
  to read manuals.
  Back then, the auto settings on
  radars and sonars were, frankly,
  pretty rubbish. A few seconds
  spent on some basic manual
  tweaks would invariably be
  repaid by a far clearer picture.
  But over the years, it has
  got steadily more difficult to
  improve on the automated setup.
  Nowadays I wouldn’t bother, if I
  were only interested in catching
  fish or avoiding collisions.
  And yet I still miss the old
  manual controls. For me, mastering
  the machine – like eyeball pilotage,
  and manoeuvring into a tricky
  berth – is as much a part of the
  pleasure of boating as speeding
  across a sunlit sea or sipping a cool
  glass of something in the cockpit.

If only everything

in life was a

simple as this

The compact

gyro unit is

designed to fi t

boats of 27-32ft

Seakeeper 2

Gyroscopic stabilisation just got a lot smaller

Californian stabilisation specialist

Seakeeper is celebrating a decade

in business with the launch of its

smallest ever model, the Seakeeper 2.

Based on the same principles as

its bigger brethren, it introduces gyro

stabilisation to boats below 30ft for

the first time.

Its compact size means that it can

fit into the leaning post of a sports

fishing boat, for

example, and is

designed to work

in any style of craft

from 27-32ft.

It runs exclusively

on 12Vpower, so there

is no need to install

or run a generator to

power it, although you

may need to upgrade

your boat’s standard

battery capacity.

The Seakeeper 2 works by spinning

a flywheel in a vacuum at speeds

of up to 9,000rpm. This creates a

powerful gyroscopic effect against

which hydraulic rams can push to

counteract boat roll.

It takes 35 minutes to reach

maximum rpm. However, effective

stabilisation is achieved in just 24

minutes. It can be used at all speeds,

including when the boat

is stationary, and in all

sea conditions.

The key advantage

of a gyro is the lack

of external fins, which

means that there is no

additional hydrodynamic

drag, and no serviceable

parts immersed below

the waterline. From

$22,700. Contact

http://www.seakeeper.com

Icom IC-M330GE

Icom’s diminutive transmission device

Icom’s new VHF

has all the usual

features but in

a smaller unit

The big news about Icom’s latest VHF

radio is, in fact, how small it is. The

front face is little bigger than the face

of a typical smartphone at 156.5mm x

66.5mm, making it ideal for mounting

in areas where space is limited.

However, it retains the same

features and operating interface as

Icom’s larger models. That means

‘soft keys’ – buttons that change

function depending on settings,

digital selective calling, an

inbuilt GPS that links

to the DSC distress

button and

controls on the microphone. It’s also

waterproof to IPX7, meaning it can

withstand immersion to a depth

of 1m for 30 minutes (if your helm-

mounted VHF radio ever does

find itself immersed to a depth

of 1m for 30 minutes, you might

want to think about using that

distress function).

A unique AquaQuake draining

feature means that if water

finds its way into the speaker,

muffling sound quality, you

can make it buzz to shake

the water out again. £255.

Contact http://www.

icomuk.co.uk

NEWTECH BOAT MASTER

Powerful rams stabilise

the boat at all speeds