Practical Boat Owner - July 2018

New Gear

The latest new products on the market

Balpha Mast

There are a signifi cant challenges facing
the trailer-sailer getting to and from the
water, not least of which is hoisting and
lowering the mast.
First featured in PBO late in 2017, the
Balpha Mast is a carbon fi bre mast that
pivots within a stainless steel housing. The
mast slides through a pivoting collar
attached to the housing about a metre off
the deck, but it’s the clever mechanics in
the mast-foot slide that make the whole
contraption easily manageable for the
single-handed sailor.
To lower it, the mast foot gently slides to
the forward end of the gutter-shaped

Voice activated electronics are here, now.

Digital Yacht demonstrated its ‘speaking

nav’ set-up at the London Boat Show,

then again at April’s Beaulieu Boatjumble.

It requires an Amazon Alexa, a 4G

Connect and an iKommunicate box plus

the mobile broadband SIM card – a fairly

costly package all told – but it will answer

numerous questions about where

the boat is going, the depth,

windspeed and more,

depending on the

amount of

electronics you

have installed.

At the other end of the

scale is the new Alexa add-on (or ‘skill’ as

they are known) for the popular Boat

Beacon and Boat Watch apps. These two

apps were originally designed to enable

you to interact with online AIS data afl oat

• not to replace an onboard AIS receiver,
  but to provide real-time AIS-like capability
  wherever mobile internet signals could be
  received. Both apps have
  expanded in scope – Boat Beacon
  especially. PBO has previously
  featured the brilliant FLIR ‘night
  vision’ Boat Beacon adaptation.
  Now Boat Beacon’s designer,
  Steve Bennett, has developed an

Voice-activated position plotting add-on to both of his apps that permits the

voice-activated Amazon Alexa system to

speak the answers to two very specifi c

questions: ‘Ask Boat Beacon my position’

and ‘Ask Boat Beacon my exact position’.

Exact position will relay Lat, Long, heading

and speed, whereas the request for

‘Position’ alone will describe the same data

as: ‘travelling north-east at 6 knots in the

English Channel currently fi ve miles south

of Plymouth.’

Each user’s app has a

unique identifi er, so you

can register multiple Alexa

units anywhere to respond

to queries about ‘my boat’.

Currently, there is no

capability for tracking

multiple boats using Boat

Beacon, but the

BoatWatch skill lets you

ask Alexa for the position

of any boat by name or

MMSI number.

Qboatbeaconapp.com

carbon slide, which is then, itself, gently

released from a line direct to the foredeck

to complete the aftward tilt. The now

horizontal mast is supported at the bow

and at the collar, offering a maximum air

draught about 1m above the mast foot.

Once the headsail halyard is eased and

the shrouds released, the entire operation

takes a few minutes. Designer, Stuart

Balfour, claims to have shot 46 bridges in

16 hours on his 7m Dick Koopman

keelboat sailing (and motoring) between

Helevoetsluis and Amsterdam in Holland,

where the maximum clearance is 2.6m.

“Generally, I’ve had a global interest in

our product from the US, where air

draught due to bridges (particularly

Chicago and Florida) is a restriction and

from New Zealand where trailer sailing is

popular and mast handling is

inconvenient,” says Balfour.

“In the Netherlands, I met boat owners

who would rather have a yacht but the

extra 20-mile drive clear of bridges makes

a motor boat the only option.”

Suitable for retrofi tting to most

small keelboats (8.5m mast heigh

maximum), the price for 2018 is

£7,600. A planned larger version

(up to 10m mast height) is due to

start production.

A video of the Balpha Mast in

action is available on the website:

http://www.balphamast.com

Balpha Mast

slides in a

gutter-shaped

slide for easier

raising and

lowering

Digital Yacht

4G Connect

Amazon Alexa

Boat Beacon app