New Radar and Scuba Compressor Arrive

Old radar on the right, the new unit on the left

The new radar heading up the mast

Today was a busy day on Ocean Song. Linda went to her mom’s house yesterday and brought her and her stepdad, Charlie, to see the boat for the first time today. They arrived in Beaufort around 11:30 while I was helping (mostly watching) the guys from Morehead Marine install our new radar unit. Our old unit had not been transmitting properly. We were able to replace it with a newer, upgraded unit at a 50% discount because the old unit, while out of warranty, was less than 5 years old. B&G has reportedly had lots of problems with many of the 4G units like the one we had. We upgraded to the new Halo unit which has thus far received very good reviews.

Charlie Jine and Linda at Clawson’s

After spending some time at the boat, we went to Clawson’s for lunch. Linda then headed back to Goldsboro with June and Charlie. I think they had a nice visit and enjoyed a good lunch. Just as I was walking over to Clawson’s to meet everyone for lunch, FedEx Freight arrived with our new scuba compressor.

Sure we can load this!

I jokingly told Linda and her mom they’d have to help me put the compressor onboard. It was on a wooden pallet in a box much larger than I had anticipated. Luckily, the compressor was packed in cornstarch foam which probably took up more than 50% of the box’s volume.

There’s a scuba compressor in there somewhere.

Once unpacked (it took a while to liberate the compressor from the cornstarch foam) a boat neighbor helped me hoist the compressor onboard.The initial run of the radar seemed to go well. It appears to be working properly and I spent a good bit of time playing around with it. The tracking function is great. The radar will track targets in much the same way a boat’s AIS (Automatic Identification Systems) tracks boats and ships. In a busy boating area like the Beaufort/Morehead City area, there are dozens of targets all the time. I had more than 50 show up at one time. Many were boats miles away, many just like Ocean Song were docked, and other targets were stationary objects like buoys, channel markers, etc. In combination with our AIS system, the radar tracking function should give us a better safety margin during offshore passages.

The compressor onboard

Morehead Marine is going to do the electrical work for installation of the scuba compressor. Hopefully it can be completed in the next week. Now that we have working radar, once the compressor is installed, all of our initial upgrades for cruising season #1 will be complete and we can start heading south, as always . . . weather permitting.