sailfish
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Posts posted by sailfish
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Thought it might be time to update this post since there have been quite a few updates on the site, and quite a few new yachts (400 total now)
So I've been busy in my spare time building more functionality into this cruisers tool.
1) New Chrome, Android and IOS Apps now available to work across most devices, except microsoft phones (hopefully chrome apps will run on those soon). These apps allow use from ipads and such and talk directly to the site thus not loading any html or css or js and the only communication is the stuff necessary to get your update on the site. Great for poor 3g connections etc. I wanted to take this a step further and have it talk to Irridium GO directly but stone walled there in getting access to their api's.
2) But, Iridium GO is now supported, not like predict wind which has it's own integration (and most likely a team of developers to achieve this) but you can just send an email to the YIT server and your positions are automatically plotted on the map. I did email Irridium asking if I could use their interface to connect directly with the YIT app but they didnt even answer my inquiry. I guess hobby software doesn't feature anywhere in their corporate priority list.
3) Satellite images can be downloaded directly into the app. Say you are cruising around the Asawas and a reef pops up in front of you that isnt on the chart (which is so friggen scary!) how do you know which way to go? Easy you just pull in a satellite image from your position (or position where you want to see) and boom you can see the reef in all its glory and
3) Internet radio streaming of GHR in the mornings. Due to the SSB skip from Gulf harbour to Opua, cruisers awaiting weather windows to the islands could not hear GHR weather report in the mornings. One cruiser emailed in asking if we could stream it to the website. So I set it up so there is a live stream from the GHR radio room (booming weather out to the pacific over SSB) which now has listeners in San Fran and OZ. I try to record the weather portion of the broadcast so that is saved and people can listen to it at a later stage. This streaming is only available to logged in users (Which are yachts) as the server won't handle to many people on due to there being a chat room as well for questions and feedback from those on the streaming and not on the SSB.
4) Comments on yacht status updates. I reluctantly put this on due to potential spam issues, but it seems to be a big hit with friends and family. If boats set their main YIT email address to their boat email address then they get the comments on passage in email form. Hence you can see why I was worried about spam. I had to make sure it was easy to post comments but no spam could get through. So far so good (touch wood).
As you can see from the site (www.yit.nz) it is starting to get messy due to the numbers of boats now using it, so I've had to start a complete rebuild of the front end (there goes all my spare time again) so it can accommodate the big lists of yachts.
One of the biggest decisions I had to make was whether to build the IOS app. The chrome and android was a no brainier, not costs involved except my time to build them. The IOS on the other hand requires money to build. $150/year every year from now to the end of time and if you don't pay the app is removed from the store. Apple takes 30% of that, then tax etc. So every year 20+ new boats have to buy the app just to pay Apple. I took the gamble and released it. This year we have cleared the 20, but next year or the year after who knows how long it will last. Google is great, one small fee - 1/7th of one year for Apple and it's for life.
Anyway the site has turned into a labour of love and by the time my wife and I go cruising again hopefully the system is bug free (tested by the current cruisers), looks awesome and generally perfect (yeah right). I welcome all thoughts and suggestions as there have been a few from here that I've put into the site and that have worked out well.
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Hi Chris,
Do you have a date for departure so I know when to have the weather splitting in the site by? The other stuff is working as I didn't need a sat phone to test that.
The site has been quite busy with boats on the way to the islands and I've been ironing some issues out as a result and havn't had a chance to build it. Gulf Harbour Radio is getting localised weather information from yachts on passage and is taking that into account for its weather it's predictions. eg a yacht that other day reported winds 10kn NNW and a yacht 58 miles away reported SE 15. So in your sat updates i'll make is so you can add weather as it is extremely useful for the forecaster.
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Ok spent the day putting part of this in and its working on the live site, just need someone/chris14679 with a isatphone to test it. It works via normal email fine.
so to do an update use the following.
s@yit.co.nz (email address)
boatname (email subject)
[p]mypwd
p:36 25.6037s 174 50.4068e
This is a test update with a position for kawau island.
Now recieving weather updates which maybe 500 chars or larger. I can split out the body into a series of 160char chunks ( I presume the address on sending doesnt enter into the char count does it? ) on the server and send one after another to your isatphone email address. This would push the weather update out in 3-5 emails. Is there a time limit on these like an hourly limit that you know of? Fiji weather, such as towns, can be quite long sometimes.
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It's quite easy to code in the support for this, I'll just double up the tags as you suggest. If you guys don't mind testing this functionality this season then I'll definitly add it for you no sweat. It's not much work and if it means your friends and family will follow you then thats awesome for them. I'm not sure how the format of the emails will come in so if your phone is active now can you test by just sending a test email to mike@ore.co.nz with the following.
[p]mypwd
p:175 35.41e 24 45.94s
Not sure how many characters this is but I will stop it at 160 characters.I still have 60 more and I'm running out now.12345
That is 160 char according to a char counting site on the net.
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Well I've been beavering away tidying up the site somewhat and think it's pretty usable now after several yachts ironed out the bugs and stuck with it last season.
A couple of improvements as requested by those cruisers that used it last season:
* You can subscribe to weather areas for any number of days now. ie fiji: 14 (gives 14 days of fiji weather)
* New weather area Norfolk for yachts on passage to New cal, subscribe for 3-5 days or so and then it stops automatically. norfolk: 5 .
* New weather area brett for yachts coming in to NZ, 3 days out add this to your weather requests and you know what you're heading into coming back into NZ.
*New weather area newcal, transalated on the fly via google into english. The local weather translated and sent via email in english instead of having to have internet to get the translated version.
* Weather from yachts that report it, within 200 miles. Great on passage and also shows where other yachts are around you in relation to you.
* Friends and family can now subscribe to your yacht so when an update or blog comes in they receive an instant email with the update text and link to the site to see the map and any photos.
* photos can now be sent with statuses and blog updates. So now you can queue any photo blogs up and send when you have internet. You can still add them later and just send the text versions over ssb and sat.
* Gulf harbour radio will be coming online soon (if not already) and will be using the site to keep track of yachts around the pacific. So if you use these guys for weather then it would be recommended that you use the site to help them help you. There will be an option to not be viewable on the public site but be on there weather list.
I should get more updates and improvements up onto the site through out the year as time permits. But as with any hobby sometimes other things get priority such as rust and leaking hatches
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I have updated the homepage to show the diving, snorkeling and walking tracks now. Also when you select one of those to view you can zoom out and see other ones that are close by. eg zoom out on this snorkeling site to see some nearby dive sites and a snorkeling one.
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Ok well I've got it sort of all working now. Still heaps to do but its up and running and very usable (as far as my testing has shown). I've had to put it live now as the wife wants me to find a job and stop living off her
I thought I'd try and extend last seasons cruise as long as I could 
Visit the live site at:
Everything on the site has been submitted by email, except the photos. You can pull down everything off the site via email (except the photos). You can pull down a whole bunch of weather reports via email which include but not limited to:
:tonga (gets tonga marine)
:fiji (gets fiji marine)
:fiji-towns (gets fiji-towns)
:pacific (gets pacific high seas : NZ metservice)
:niue
:kiribati
:nauru
:tuvalu
:cookis
:swpacific (fiji metservice)
:subtropic (NZ metservice)
anybody can request one of those and they dont even have to be registered. Just send an email to get@yit.co.nz with no subject with the following:
[weather]
:tonga
:subtropic
you can get diving, snorkeling and walking locations via email and not even be registered. Try it for tonga, send an email to:
no subject
[position] 18 39.862s 173 58.292w
[diving] 50
[snorkeling] 50
This gets you diving and snorkeling locations within in 50 miles of the given gps co-ordinates. Try it for savu savu as well. The same applies for position based blogs.
To build up the base of walking treks, diving and snorkeling locations its best if people register and submit them so others can enjoy
There are no costs, its all completely free to use and will always be. You can get the whole help file by sending a completely blank email to
help@yit.co.nz with no subject and no body.
All feedback is welcome and would really be appreciated. You can email it to mike@ore.co.nz if you like.
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Ok since i'm unemployed I decided to carry on and build this for gulf harbor radio anyway, since I did promise to do it for them and they provide such a wicked free weather service for yachts in the islands.
So easter is the big test. Those that want to can use it, those that don't dont have to. Its totally free as I built it as a favor.
Current Features done as of now for one incoming email:
-Position report, plots on google map and draws lines following your progress. Shows position, speed and heading.
-Optional status from email is shown on position update. (TODO push to facebook)
-Optional blog to the site from same email. (TODO push to facebook)
-Optional as many dive sites added to the dive sites on the site with gps and description.
Features ready for testing over easter:
-Request public blogs, public status updates and/or private blogs and status for boats you are following.
-Request dive sites, when given a postion returns an email with sites within 30mile radius sorted by distance
-Request help file with all commands and information how to register, add status, blog, dive sites etc
-Register from email.
Will post up the details closer to easter for those that want to test. All feedback will be appreciated. This site is going to be used by yachts using the gulf harbor weather service and hopefully yachts that dive. The dive locations would have been handy for us as we are divers and have heaps of locations to add after scrambling around trying to find them in the islands. We also know a few other dive yachties that have a lot of dive sites to add.
Stuff like this makes being unemployed fun
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How will this be different to the service http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps_intro offers?
It's different in the fact that this is aimed primarily at radio operators as an interactive tool to manage radio nets. It shows lists of yachts currently checking in with them during each radio sched, which allows them to free up valuable time otherwise wasted on error prone position reporting during ssb transmissions. The other functionality is just a by product of the way it will operate.
[cant edit page grr]
I see now the reporter software may do the above as well. Then the only difference would then be that this would be a more modern web based application with the associated benifits [for ground based stations].
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How will this be different to the service http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps_intro offers?
It's different in the fact that this is aimed primarily at radio operators as an interactive tool to manage radio nets. It shows lists of yachts currently checking in with them during each radio sched, which allows them to free up valuable time otherwise wasted on error prone position reporting during ssb transmissions. The other functionality is just a by product of the way it will operate.
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Hi Cruisers,
Having just returned from our first successful trip to the islands, we discovered a need for radio net operators, such as Gulf Harbor Radio, to have yachts report their current position via email, as too much precious time was being taken up with yachts reporting their positions over ssb during the radio net propagation window. Those that did report via email were being recorded in a book - a very laborious manual process which I thought could easily be automated.
So I have just started today and hopefully will have a system up and working in the next few weeks where yachts can email a position report to report@yit.co.nz (Yacht In Transit) containing their position, current weather conditions, course, speed, revised ETA, and a quick status update.
The report automatically gets assigned to that yacht's account, which needs to be pre-registered before departure with details of the boat, a photo and, if desired, approved access to a Facebook account (if you login via Facebook, it automatically creates an account on the YIT site and pushes status and location updates to Facebook).
This then appears in the radio operator's list of yachts they are currently giving weather to or taking passage check-ins for. This should make life easier for radio operators dealing with lots of boats in the long run. Radio operators can choose to respond via email or SSB and may cover groups of yachts in close proximity with a single response. Added spin-offs are that family and friends can get automated position and status updates via Facebook, and other cruisers can get them via email from yachts they have chosen to 'follow' on YIT.
By the end of March I should hopefully have it all up and running and would love to get some testers to help iron out the bugs and make it as user friendly as possible, so if you're keen please let me know and I'll keep you up to date with progress.
cheers
mike
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whoa! i've had to unplug from shore power today and let the solar panels do their thing. They are now in desulfating mode - short bursts into the batteries to break down the sulfated layers.
Its not quite 400w, 380 to be precise. One thing they did was give me a to small fuse wire and fuse (only 15amps) (must have been for 24v) cause although I havnt broken 15amps yet its come close and those wires are very warm!
Mounted on top of my dodger, both panels take up a combined 1.6m2. They sit above our rain catcher with nice airflow underneath. I mounted them so there is only chance of one being shaded at anyone time (via back stays or radar or wind genny) and in parallel because if one gets shaded(high chance) the other is not affected.
thats good about the mppt controller tripping out, was a little worried there knot me.
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Just finished solar panel install. 400w with a 30amp mppt controller. Just trying to drain our batteries a bit to see what solar panels will put in. Currently its very very cloudy in wellington and still in float mode and pumping 6amps in which is good. So on the cloudest days we'll at least get 6amps. Thats enough to run our fridge and part of our freezer during the day
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Cut lots of steel out of the engine room in preparation for the 12-18hp(not sure what it is) diesel genny and dive compressor to go in. Made the frame they sit on so I can run it up as a unit out of the boat. Turned the old girl round so I could get ready to put the new 100m's of chain in but that didnt arrive so removed the diesel day tank and cut the off its mounts in anticipation for relocation further into the engine room.
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Hey bbay where did you get your furuno nmea plugs from? I need two of them for a furuno 1721 radar and equivalent age depth sounder.
Instead of doing the windlass today due to the rain, wired in the radar through some existing cable runs, which unfortunatly meant ripping out the airintake cover as the screws were all puttied over
Thinking I had found the hollow caverty where the cables were running I drilled in to intercept but saw daylight eeek, came out in the companion way steps d'oh !! Got it all sorted eventually, ~40m of wires installed (6 lengths)Wired up the xmas lights to the top of the mast both sides and down. One side is changing colours (has stupid settings) so if your round the marina at night thats ours thats all lit up
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Thought i'd kick this weekends thread off. Try to keep it marine related, no body cares if you swept the drive or cut the hedge
I got a lot done but nothing finished
Wired up the VHF Pa output to a 12v relay to sound the horn only to realise it outputs audio "stuff" and its not possible to throw a relay. Off to jaycar, one DIY circuit board later and the VHF can now sound the fog horn on automatic every two minutes (just need to solder it all up). Installed an external vhf speaker for the cockpit and wired up the anchor light. Will pull the windless motor out tomorrow (needs new brushes) anyone know the best place to get that done in wellington? -
busy weekend! just finished the new garmin ghp12 autopilot install, rewired the engine room electrical panel after a small meltdown (removed trailer plugs from wiring harness!!) and got the strange VSR box in our kitchen now working between both batteries (it came with the boat and I didnt think it was ever working - and confirmed because it now has LED's blinking
), then went out in the harbor and let the autopilot do its self configuration / setup and then let it sail us around the harbor. We learnt today how cool it is to not steer -
looks like a lot of boat for the money. looks like it had self steering gear on the back + water maker. couple of things we still need to get. I imagine you wouldnt be dissapointed and its 13.5m which is roomy (1/2m bigger than ours). really like the look of that side cabin with the sliding door.
my2c
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This is our home.
Inflatable pool is the water catcher or wifes new "bath" as she calls it.
should catch a lot of water in the tropical downpours and can also hold it till we go (not sure how long you stay in one place though)top speed on the gps 12.3 down a wave through the kaori rip, just a lil bit scary, main was on its 3rd reef and quickly took it down after that
boat came with the 37" tv, not my idea but worth having when living and not sailing. hooked the chartplotter up to it, pretty cool (chartplotter has remote).
we are very very happy with the boat, steel is in near perfect condition inside and out, very lucky find. looked at one and the whole thing was about to go would have been a lot of work and the guy wouldnt budge on price, boat still hasnt sold. keep looking youll find a good one - we did and we nearly missed it
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I read somewhere you can always buy another house or another car if it doesn't work out for you, but if you don't do it, you'll always regret it and you can't just buy another life or go back and do it when your old
My wife and I are trying to do exactly the same as you but the only difference is we are 1 year ahead of you.
I'm no expert, in fact far from it (you should see the look on the yachties faces at some of the stupid questions I ask, but i'll keep asking its the only way to know the answers) and so you won't get an expert opinion, just bits of an opinion mashed in with our experience thus far:
We looked at so many yachts and we bought one that was setup as a livaboard already (thank god we did) because all we need to do now is kit it out for sailing while living on it (which is easy as the living parts havnt been touched hardly at all and we can go through our daily routine with ease). If it was the other way around I imagine it would be quite a mission to live in something that your building and renovating, its been hard enough sometimes for the wife with various things for the yacht in the lounge that she has come home to find ( I miss having a garage! ).
We bought 43ft and I'm glad for it, wouldnt go any smaller. Friends who have sailed the world for 10 years in a 37ft love their yacht but personally I feel cramped on it and feel in the way. I'm 6ft2" and you need full headroom or just under (think our roof is 6ft1") and plenty of space for all the friends who have to come see the boat.) another factor for size is the ability to get in and fix stuff. Our engine is very accessible as with a lot of things, but the smaller you go the smaller you need to be or more stuff you need to remove to get to. One guy was telling me about moving the engine today just to get at a pump that was leaking!!
I read somewhere the smaller the yacht the less loads your dealing with the easier it will be for you handle the boats sails etc. When the yachts start to get big, the loads get bigger and thats when things start to hurt if things go wrong or you need to man handle something (same article)
43ft is starting to get heavy, people notice it when assisting us berthing. Yes the bigger you get the more fun your going to have berthing etc. Also the more expensive things get, as they are just bigger in nature ie anchors, sails etc. already finding this out with ours.
But a bigger yacht has benefits. We have a 37" flat screen tv, full bose entertainment system with sub, washing machine (that saves us heaps and in time spent trudging up and down in winter to the amenities), microwave, bigger fridge freezer than we had in our house, 2 kayaks, 3.7m tender with 15hp, wakeboard, waterskiis, full height electric toilet (must have for ease for guests) and separate full shower (what sold the boat for the wife) which will doubles as dive tanks storage and wet storage whilst sailing, 12hp diesel genset, dive compressor, 1.5m lathe, welder/plasma/tig welder [8ft inflatable swimming pool for the deck - which you just didnt read(great for the kids) ] etc etc
Those are the main bulky things but we have the room being 43ft. we had one kayak, a lathe and 12hp diesel engine sitting on our lounge floor at one stage. Our table comes off and we had 5 people dancing with a lot of room to spare. A roomy yacht is a nice yacht if you live on it and have people over often.
I would look yankiwi up, that is on the market and was a liveaboard here in wellington. Its being moved to picton. 47ft roberts steel. its had a fresh paint job last summer and new engine. Its currently listed at $119,000 (prob go for less than that i would say) and had two adults and 2 teenagers living in it. I class that as a large yacht, cutter rig will do 12 knots apparently. vinnings have it (google it, in there over 100k yachts and its blue)
remember youll need 10% of the purchase price / year just to maintain it and youll need to change stuff, buy new stuff (whatever it doesnt have to get cat 1 plus toys)
Our additions have been thus far in 1 year,
New tender and outboard (big enough for cruising needs to be 15hp and sized tender accordingly)
Autopilot (still coming)
New roof for dodger
paint inside
new freshwater/saltwater toilet system
new bilge pumps and freshwater pumps
radar tower and crane for existing radar
chartplotter
lathe
genset
welder (we are steel)
we still have to do:
new anchor and chain
new headsail
2x spiniker poles
cat 1 gear
AIS
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.etc
And the list keeps going and going. We are one year in and made all those modifications and been across the cook straight 6-8 times (often in the middle of a modification) so far. We have also spent some of the most amazing nights just in wellington harbor at somes island. We have researched and researched cruising and whether its a mistake or not. Every time I have read one of these posts, half a dozen cruisers jump in and say DO IT. Its not a question of whether you can afford to do it but more can you afford not to. that might have been in a video i watched recently not a forum. that one stuck with me the most.
Our friends and neighbors have just hit the islands year and I can tell you it sux big time to be left behind getting the boat ready, especially when they are in tonga and fiji and in their HOUSE! next year that WILL be us, a lot of work but it will be worth it. We plan to come back after a season have a couple of kids and then bugger off for a long time at around the same age as yours. I work with a lady who used to teach via correspondence to kids on boats and all around the pacific and the kids did exceptionally well compared to normal kids due to the one on one learning with their parents etc. Something I'm looking forward to believe it or not
Anyway I'll stop dribbling on but its nice to see someone in the same place we were a year ago, exciting times ahead for you if you follow the dream. Our next exciting bit is sailing to chch from wellington (Coool)
cheers
mike
p.s remember don't buy the first one you look at. we looked at heaps and then bought the first one we had looked at
NZ blue water cruisers ssb weather operator tracking site
in MarineTalk
Posted
Thanks for the feedback, it is appreciated. I suspect I need to do some major work on the manual. It seems documentation is always the last thing that gets addressed and is probably the most important.
I think I'll make some short training videos on how to use the system as well and install stuff. Give something else for people to watch other than netflix
I will try and send Iridium an email again and see if they respond again. I suspect you need to be a big commercial player to even appear on their radar.
I've just added support for the Delorme Inreach tracker because a few yachts are using these things now and asked for it. I still don't even really know what they are, some sort of GO clone perhaps? I guess I could google it but anyway it was a bit harder to configure the site to take these as they have no return email address I could easily use to tie them to yachts accounts.
If you find frustrating stuff ie in the manual etc, just fire me a message mike@yit.co.nz as I do want to make things easier for people in the long run. Fighting stuff is no fun at all. The system does work, it's just teaching people how to use it I guess.