We pulled out of Rochester last Friday afternoon for a five-day Independence Day weekend sprint up to Grindstone Island on the St. Lawrence, via Fair Haven, Sackets Harbor and Clayton. Visiting our friends on Grindstone and watching the Clayton Fireworks has been a tradition for us for many years. Friday when we left Rochester, I dialed up the radar to find the image below. At first, I thought the radar was broken. Then, I slowly came to realize that those weather maps showing the areas of hazardous air quality weren’t lying. My radar was picking up all the particulates our Canadian friends were sending down to us!
We pulled out of Rochester last Friday afternoon for a five-day Independence Day weekend sprint up to Grindstone Island on the St. Lawrence, via Fair Haven, Sackets Harbor and Clayton. Visiting our friends on Grindstone and watching the Clayton Fireworks has been a tradition for us for many years.
Friday when we left Rochester, I dialed up the radar to find the image below. At first, I thought the radar was broken. Then, I slowly came to realize that those weather maps showing the areas of hazardous air quality weren’t lying. My radar was picking up all the particulates our Canadian friends were sending down to us!
Out on the lake, it was eerie. Some areas had very limited visibility; it felt sort of
Twilight Zone-ish. There was actually some ash floating around and landing on my boat. Short-range radar visibility was okay, but long-range—more than a mile or so—was too cluttered to see anything. Speaking of the Twilight Zone, I remember when the first episode of the Twilight Zone aired in October 1959, and I was BIG Fan! I rarely missed an episode. It was a very exciting day when Rod Serling gave the Commencement Speech at my college graduation!
I installed two Simrad NSS Evo3s MFD’s on our Back Cove 37 Essential when she was delivered back in September of 2020. These devices are capable of so much more than I will ever use or master. They each have six processors and the ability to put up to six screens on each display, plus sidebars and data lines top and bottom. I figure I am using maybe 10% of the system’s capability!
My normal set-up when I am traveling in open water is to put a chart and depth on one screen and radar on the other, along with side and date bars with assorted information that is sometimes useful. In the picture above, I have a chart up approaching the St. Lawrence River. A few things to notice are the Lat/Lon display in the lower left corner; the little triangles are boats, both commercial and private, transmitting AIS signals. You will also see all the tracks from previous visits. My travel into the St. Lawrence and along the south side of Carlton Island are pretty consistent over the years.
To the right of the chart is a picture of the bottom via the boat’s sonar, including water temp under the boat. Moving over to the right side display, the first two inches on the left show the autopilot control screen. Notice I can toggle this between the autopilot and stereo controls or close it altogether. Next is the radar display, again with your Lat/Lon position in the lower left, the range set on the radar in the upper left and over to the right there is data on your nearest radar targets along with some other data I haven’t figured out yet.
We have a solid state Simrad Halo 24 Dome that claims to have a 48-mile range, but, only being 12 feet off the water, I doubt it reaches out half that distance. What is truly impressive is the close-range radar performance. You can drive up on a channel marker or piling and watch it on the screen to within a few feet of the boat’s bow! To the far right of the screen is a vertical data bar where you can display 7 of 40 to 50 different data points, selectable in any combination you desire. Notice there is wind and temperature data—this is via an Airmar 120WX Sensor with wind, temp and barometer data which is surprisingly accurate!
Below the left display are two switch banks for lights, wipers, horn and anchor windless. Below the switches on the left are the proportional thruster (bow and stern) controls, engine data display and the Zipwake controller. To the right of the steering hub is an Simrad OP-50 controller, which allows you to adjust some things on the displays.
I like that it has a MOB button, to quickly record a location in case you lose someone or something over the side and also a Standby button to quickly disengage the autohelm should you need to make an emergency course adjustment. This system continues to work very well for me.
