My first searay, my first big boat, need some basic help

[Ethan's Tank]

I had a few questions about this 'new boat', maybe you all can help me.

1. windlass - Do I need to use the metal brake tab and safety clip each time I raise and drop anchor, seems like a pain in the ass to do each time and kind of pointless if I have an up/down button at the helm. Or is that brake used at the end of the day or end of the season?

2. windlass - rule of thumb for dropping anchor is 7ft per foot of water [normal weather], how do you all determine how much chain is in the water?

3. raymarine chartplotter E120/E80 series. I spent a good part of 2hrs trying to use this plotter from MD to VA, since I had swing around the lower MD side peninsula and get home the right way. I ended up following the GPS on the map and just winged it. Good thing I studied my maps beforehand, but really wanted to learn this chartplotter. Seems like Garmin is more friendly-user for me and I followed the instructions in the manuals and still didnt make any sense. When I try to set up a way point from my origin point to my marina, it drew a dotted straight line across land. I wasn't sure if I had to make multiple waypoints in the water all the way home, that just didn't seem right. Every time I select 'New Route' and way point to way point, everything was grayed out except stop goto and restart xte. I would have like to try the autopilot in the open bay.

4. autopilot - Does the autopilot follow the channels in the deep ends or does it just go as straight as possible or is it smart enough to avoid shallow water?

5. transom / sunpad speakers - deck speakers work, but I can't figure out how to get the transom/sunpad speakers to play any sound

 

[mainstream]

I use the safety hasp on my windlass at the end of the day
the chart plotter you have to plot your course around the land by placing way points on the chart it does not do it for you

the auto pilot follows your course in the chart plotter so if you plot in deep water it will keep you in deep water

for your anchor rode you can mark it with different colored tape at 10 ft incriments I marked at 20 feet and counted how many seconds of holding the button got me to the mark and now I just count it out.

 

[Ctsearay]

Good info SF,

I couldnt add much to that lol, but the speakers typically will have a switch separate from the stereo that will shut "zones" on and off. Mine are on the right side bulkhead as you go down the stairs into the cabin under the light switches.

 

[ziekman@cox.net]

Ethan, do you have the Quick Start Raymarine Cartplotter manual? I learned 99% of what I needed to know, upfront from it. The full-blown manual made more sense after I got comfortable with the plotter. Baby steps and patience are your friends. Keep on asking the questions. A teacher I had a very long time ago, once gave this guidance: the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

 

[AMFM3]

Ethan...congrats on finally getting in the water and home.

I learned the the hard way about using the safety clasp. Make sure it's on. On AMFM the windlass remote is on the lower dash...my knee can hit it accidentally. Keep the clasp on!

i learned my chart plotter the same way as mentioned. The quick start guide is great.

Mark

 

[b_arrington]

The only additional thing I can add to the above good advice is about the GPS and autopilot.

The Raymarine units of that era did not have any "intelligent" routing capabilities. The routing is simple point to point - and can set you over shallow water, land, etc. You may want to see if Raymarine has any PC software where you can do your routing at home vs. inputting many points. Of course this only really works for trip planning, not ad-hoc trips.

On your Raymarine vs. Garmin comment, yes Garmin units are more user-friendly and easier to learn vs. the E80 (my opinion only!). I shopped Raymarine and Garmin units of that era and chose Garmin for the ease of use. Garmin also has an auto guidance feature that is part of their G2 Vision optional card. It will auto route to steer you in safe water based on the specs of your boat you enter. It does not necessarily route in the channels, but in "safe water" as determined by the map data. I find it very useful as a general guide, but you must also check the route and and not follow it blindly. IIRC, Garmin won't let you use their auto pilot to follow an automatically-generated Auto Guidance track. This is so people don't set Auto Guidance, hit the autopilot, and blindly follow the track.

As with any autopilot with any GPS system, the most important safety feature is the Captain's head, and he must remain engaged and use critical thinking all the time.

 

[KnotEasy]

Edit.... Boat in sig (Wellcraft 2600) is not boat he is asking about. Deleted comment.

 

[Sous]

The only thing that I'll add is on the Anchor rode/scope issue. As a clarification the distance should be measured from your anchor point to the bottom so water depth + air space from waterline to your anchor roller. Might have simply been an oversight in your question since you were really asking about marking the rope/chain, but wanted to be sure. With your new boat that number (waterline to roller) is quite large and can have a huge impact on the scope you let out.

 

[Ethan's Tank]

4/3 The autopilot will not keep you out of skinny water. It will follow a heading or a route only. You can program in a route in the E80, but you must make a waypoint for each course change. That means if you want it to go around a land mass, it's going to take a lot of waypoints to make it happen.

1. Use the safety clip, if the windlass fails and drops your anchor while underway, you won't be happy with the result. As for the brake tab, mine kept catching all the time, so I removed it.

2. Do you have all chain, or a combination line and chain? Generally more rode out is better, so if you are not certain if you have enough out, let some more out. Some folks mark their rode with paint or fabric, I personally don't. From experience, I have a pretty good idea how much line I have paid out. With a line/chain combo, 7 to 1 is a good ratio, remembering to add the height above the water for your windlass. I don't know if having an all chain rode would allow you to use slightly less, like 5 to 1....

That sucks on the waypoint and routes, cause that would have taken me some more additional time to set the waypoints all the way around southern MD. HAHA I like car GPS better since you select a way point and it just follows the route.

As for my windlass, I'll just use the brake tab at the end of season, I had spent some time trying to get the pin back in to lock it. I was in open water that time and it is fine, but I'm just thinking if I'm close to shore at 3ft of water and I'm struggling to put the brake tab not realizing that the wakes/waves pushes the boat into more shallow water could suck.
And my windlass is all chain, and despite of what the captain said during orientation, he suggested i switch it off all chain and go with chain-rope...guess he doesn't like the windlass mechanism

 

[Ethan's Tank]

I use the safety hasp on my windlass at the end of the day
the chart plotter you have to plot your course around the land by placing way points on the chart it does not do it for you

the auto pilot follows your course in the chart plotter so if you plot in deep water it will keep you in deep water

for your anchor rode you can mark it with different colored tape at 10 ft incriments I marked at 20 feet and counted how many seconds of holding the button got me to the mark and now I just count it out.

Good idea on the countdown and marker, the tape holds up to being dipped in the water?

 

[Ethan's Tank]

Good info SF,

I couldnt add much to that lol, but the speakers typically will have a switch separate from the stereo that will shut "zones" on and off. Mine are on the right side bulkhead as you go down the stairs into the cabin under the light switches.

HAHA my 5year old found those 2 switches for me. I was sitting messing with the both radios and trying to figure what is what and why there were 2 units+cd changer. My son kept tugging my shirt and calling me and he said, are you trying to listen to music? He pointed at the music symbol and flipped it,...finally sound. So I come to find out the single DIN unit is the for salon and the bottom bigger unit is for the deck and cd changer. Just never found one for the transom or sunpad...

 

[Ethan's Tank]

Ethan, do you have the Quick Start Raymarine Cartplotter manual? I learned 99% of what I needed to know, upfront from it. The full-blown manual made more sense after I got comfortable with the plotter. Baby steps and patience are your friends. Keep on asking the questions. A teacher I had a very long time ago, once gave this guidance: the only stupid question is the one you don't ask.

HAHA the previous owner left me ALL the manuals, and there were probably 50 books in that pile. I did try that quick start, but I never thought the route would draw a straight line across land mass and I was getting frustrated cause the time [supposed to have left MD by 1PM] and wanted to get started. It seems this can get troublesome since all it draws is a straight line, I can see it running through shallow water since the channels run all zigzag.

On my second stop to get gas, I stopped by Tall Timbers Marina, by this time it was 930PM, pitch black and just as I got out by the channel [17ft water], I almost ran into a row of sticks...kind of look like a fence in the middle of the water, probably running down about 75ft in a row. Good thing I had the flir and spotlight since the GPS never picked it up, the last stick had a green reflective tape on the top. Autopilot and chartplotter might have done some damage on my maiden voyage home, of course I would know better not to use at night... but

 

[Ethan's Tank]

Ethan...congrats on finally getting in the water and home.

I learned the the hard way about using the safety clasp. Make sure it's on. On AMFM the windlass remote is on the lower dash...my knee can hit it accidentally. Keep the clasp on!

i learned my chart plotter the same way as mentioned. The quick start guide is great.

Mark

My airhorn is by knees, so I keep sounding off HAHA

 

[wjglampe]

Sweet Ride! I got the blue hull as well.

 

[JimFromMD]

HAHA the previous owner left me ALL the manuals, and there were probably 50 books in that pile. I did try that quick start, but I never thought the route would draw a straight line across land mass and I was getting frustrated cause the time [supposed to have left MD by 1PM] and wanted to get started. It seems this can get troublesome since all it draws is a straight line, I can see it running through shallow water since the channels run all zigzag.

On my second stop to get gas, I stopped by Tall Timbers Marina, by this time it was 930PM, pitch black and just as I got out by the channel [17ft water], I almost ran into a row of sticks...kind of look like a fence in the middle of the water, probably running down about 75ft in a row. Good thing I had the flir and spotlight since the GPS never picked it up, the last stick had a green reflective tape on the top. Autopilot and chartplotter might have done some damage on my maiden voyage home, of course I would know better not to use at night... but

Sounds like a fish trap... they're all over the bay too.

You definitely have to chart your route via waypoints. If you put in one waypoint and tell the GPS to navigate to it, its a direct line every time. As mentioned, Garmin with Vision G2 has auto-route guidance, but that only keeps you in water deep enough and from passing over head obstructions like bridges that are shorter than your boat, based on the parameters you provide. By no means fool proof or anything you could follow and expect to do so safely. Fish traps, logs, crab pots etc... that's all out there and not marked on charts.

Since I have all garmin equipment, I cant help you with laptop/ipad navigation and charting solutions for Raymarine... but I would recommend them highly for creating your routes and saving them to your on board GPS for following. Its much easier than doing it on the gps itself.

 

[Ethan's Tank]

The only additional thing I can add to the above good advice is about the GPS and autopilot.

The Raymarine units of that era did not have any "intelligent" routing capabilities. The routing is simple point to point - and can set you over shallow water, land, etc. You may want to see if Raymarine has any PC software where you can do your routing at home vs. inputting many points. Of course this only really works for trip planning, not ad-hoc trips.

On your Raymarine vs. Garmin comment, yes Garmin units are more user-friendly and easier to learn vs. the E80 (my opinion only!). I shopped Raymarine and Garmin units of that era and chose Garmin for the ease of use. Garmin also has an auto guidance feature that is part of their G2 Vision optional card. It will auto route to steer you in safe water based on the specs of your boat you enter. It does not necessarily route in the channels, but in "safe water" as determined by the map data. I find it very useful as a general guide, but you must also check the route and and not follow it blindly. IIRC, Garmin won't let you use their auto pilot to follow an automatically-generated Auto Guidance track. This is so people don't set Auto Guidance, hit the autopilot, and blindly follow the track.

As with any autopilot with any GPS system, the most important safety feature is the Captain's head, and he must remain engaged and use critical thinking all the time.

Which era would the unit I have be? I have both the E120 and E80 [master and slave]. I see the new E120 are touch screen, not sure about being intelligent. Does Garmin units work together with Raymarine?

 

[JimFromMD]

I find it very useful as a general guide, but you must also check the route and and not follow it blindly. IIRC, Garmin won't let you use their auto pilot to follow an automatically-generated Auto Guidance track. This is so people don't set Auto Guidance, hit the autopilot, and blindly follow the track.

I haven't found the auto-guidance very useful at all. Perhaps I am not using it correctly, or it just doesn't work well for my application/preferences. The main problem I have with it is that if I set the minimum depth to something reasonable (maybe 4-6 feet) and then pick a destination, it routes me close in to shore and/or through areas that are mostly shallow enough to be littered with crab pots. To avoid those, you need to get out into 15-25+ foot depth areas. I did once try increasing the depth minimum to something higher, and it was better, but I also ran into issues where the destination port had a shallow entrance (or at least shallower than the minimum depth settings). In that case, it won't create a auto-route if there is a portion of the trip that is shallower than your minimum required setting, and there is no way to avoid it.

I guess I could pick a destination point that's not actually the desired marina, raftup-spot, or whatever, and then let it auto-route me to that waypoint. Then guide myself in manually from there. I just find it easier to pre-plot routes via homeport on my laptop and then upload them to the helm unit with the chip. I've also found myself using my iPad with BluechartMobile to do my pre-trip route and then just picking the next waypoint on the main garmin unit by hand and "navigate to" each future waypoint as I go. (I have a 740 series so the screen is not as big as some you are working with).

Having the iPad running BCM at the helm along side the 740 provides a nice option for zoomed out view and perspective of what is around you on shore. It also allows the 740 to stay zoomed in, or run in split screen radar/chart mode without cramping the perspective/level of detail you can get.

All that said, I usually only run with the iPad at the helm, or by actually following a pre-plotted route if I'm going somewhere new or have only been a few times. Otherwise I run in RADAR overlay mode or split screen mode for practice.

Just curious how you operate, and your experiences with the auto-route guidance, and under what scenarios you use it typically.

 

[ziekman@cox.net]

I have a stock C80, and programmed about 20 routes, manually,.directly into the thing 6 seasons ago. Haven't charted another route since then.

 

[Ethan's Tank]

I haven't found the auto-guidance very useful at all. Perhaps I am not using it correctly, or it just doesn't work well for my application/preferences. The main problem I have with it is that if I set the minimum depth to something reasonable (maybe 4-6 feet) and then pick a destination, it routes me close in to shore and/or through areas that are mostly shallow enough to be littered with crab pots. To avoid those, you need to get out into 15-25+ foot depth areas. I did once try increasing the depth minimum to something higher, and it was better, but I also ran into issues where the destination port had a shallow entrance (or at least shallower than the minimum depth settings). In that case, it won't create a auto-route if there is a portion of the trip that is shallower than your minimum required setting, and there is no way to avoid it.

I guess I could pick a destination point that's not actually the desired marina, raftup-spot, or whatever, and then let it auto-route me to that waypoint. Then guide myself in manually from there. I just find it easier to pre-plot routes via homeport on my laptop and then upload them to the helm unit with the chip. I've also found myself using my iPad with BluechartMobile to do my pre-trip route and then just picking the next waypoint on the main garmin unit by hand and "navigate to" each future waypoint as I go. (I have a 740 series so the screen is not as big as some you are working with).

Having the iPad running BCM at the helm along side the 740 provides a nice option for zoomed out view and perspective of what is around you on shore. It also allows the 740 to stay zoomed in, or run in split screen radar/chart mode without cramping the perspective/level of detail you can get.

All that said, I usually only run with the iPad at the helm, or by actually following a pre-plotted route if I'm going somewhere new or have only been a few times. Otherwise I run in RADAR overlay mode or split screen mode for practice.

Just curious how you operate, and your experiences with the auto-route guidance, and under what scenarios you use it typically.

That is I'm afraid of, I'm still trying to figure out how shallow this 350 can go. I think the smartvessel transducer is mounted at the bilge, not sure where the raymarine transducer is, but I just get worried ill smack the river bottom and bend a prop or damage the lower units. The aquatic grass doesnt help either since I keep getting no readings or 2.5ft. So the creek I'm in, definitely not using the autopilot, the channel there during this past weekend was at 3ft.
Offsubject: Not sure if 'Aruthur' did something to the river, but everywhere around the marina was super shallow. Had to help a dockmate pull his boat in since it got stuck in the mud

 

[Ethan's Tank]

I have a stock C80, and programmed about 20 routes, manually,.directly into the thing 6 seasons ago. Haven't charted another route since then.

Sadly I may have to do the same until I can figure it out, doesn't seem like I'll be using it much except for the depth that I'm coming up to. I swear the cheaper garmin 441s, I used practically everywhere, so user friendly and from what I can remember, it guided me along the channel, zigzag and all. Garmin also gave me time of arrival and POI.

I'll have to figure out how to work it with my laptop. I got so many manuals and CDs with this purchase, I still have to sort through everything...