Cockpit Sonar

Well after nearly two years I finally moved the black and white sounder from the helm to the cockpit. There is nothing I hate more than drilling holes in fiberglass. For some reason no matter what I do I get chipping and cracking around the hole. I tape off and drill through the tape, use new sharp bits, keep the drill straight and steady. I have come to the conclusion I am just not meant to drill holes in my boat. With that said if I ever need holes drilled below or near the water line rest assured that it will not be me doing the drilling. Anyway, at least it is not cored or structural, and the mounts cover the unsightly details. She is all mounted and wired up to power and NMEA wires to the GPS. I just need to tighten the screws down once the silicone sets and tie down the excess wire under the second station in the cockpit. It will be so nice to just turn around and see bottom contour, depth, water temp, and location without having to run inside. Which I usually end up banging my head in the process. We should also be able to click off waypoints from the cockpit now as well. It is going to be a whole new experience this year...cockpit sounder, wireless VHF mike and remote control of the stereo all from the cockpit. Now all I need it three extra hands so that I can play with all my cool toys and fish at the same time!

New Radio Install

Well it was pretty cold...but once the heater was up and running for a little while the pilothouse and cockpit were somewhat warm. I stripped out the wiring from the old radio and fishfinder. I then cleaned up some wiring I left a little long in case I wanted to make changes and then began wiring up the new radio. I also connected all the NMEA wires for the GPS, fishfinder and radio so everything can communicate to each other. I still have to apply power to everything and make sure the connections are all correct but if I interpreted the manuals right the connections should all be good. I then re-tied all the wires back into one nice neat wire bundle. In the process of relocating the VHF antenna wire I discovered the solder on connector was not soldered all that well. Next trip down I will re-solder that connection and maybe I will see improved radio range from what I already think is pretty good range.

When I was running a new accessory, always on wire I noticed a pretty heave smell of gas. My fuel filters were very loose and actually dripping slowly. Only thing I could think of is that the gaskets had shrank from the recent cold weather. I tightened them up and they did not leak the rest of the day. Hopefully the cold weather is what caused this and hopefully only a little leaked out and still have a mostly full tank.