{ LIVINGABOARD }
WHAT WORKED, WHAT DIDN’T
AFTER 11 YEARS
Y
ear 11 of wandering the oceans of the world has moved us into the expanses of the Indian Ocean. We have passed the half way mark towards a circumnavigation in longitude only. It is doubtful our sailing course will ever return us to our starting point and the stagnant life of a house with a backyard in Rhode Island. Life is far more interesting when we stay on the move to places many people have not heard of. To maintain this pelagic life, we are always working to keep our mobile home mobile and very livable; here are a few items that worked and one that didn’t. 32
Patrick & Rebecca Childress FLIR DownVision
After installing our new Raymarine HybridTouch eS128, 12-inch chartplotter and color HD radome (www.raymarine.com) for seeing far out over the sea, at our next haul out, we installed a new fairing block and transducer for the Fish Finder/Sonar and Down Vision, to see what is below us. The fish finder contains a 2D color Sonar that goes down to 800 feet. But rather than be-
ing stuck on one frequency for pinging, it sweeps sound energy across 320 to 370 kHz for better resolution. Switch to another screen and there is the DownVision. This is a CHIRP, “compressed high-intensi-
BLUE WATER SAILING