Welcome Aboard!

These pages will cover the restoration and upgrades I have done to a 1979 Choate 40.
I acquired the vessel in poor condition at a reasonable price and so far have put twice that amount into her.
From the evidence I have found, she had been de-masted, run aground several times, slightly flooded, run hard and put away wet.
Fortunately, she had new standing rig with a used mast from a Catalina 40 and a recent head job on the motor.
The rest of the info I'll segregate into pages for detailed information.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

New Electronics

Well, the last major expense, the electronics! I wanted until the last to buy all this stuff so I would get the latest version of what's available.  I had a hard time trying to decide what brand to go with but hopefully I've done good with the Garmin stuff. I was considering the Simrad Digital Radar and accessories but the radar doesn't seem to be up to it's rep and its versatility isn't all that good. And their prices are a bit higher.

So the first thing installed is the Heading Sensor Garmin or Airmar H2183, they're both the same, just different prices. I installed it right by the alum fuel tank, which is pretty low and about on-center of the boat I can get w/o putting it in the middle of the companionway.


I built this self leveling radar mount, originally for the Simrad but had a change in sizes and mountings so it's a bit of a hack job w/o doing it over, and I don't have time, so it'll have to do. Also, I had to make a wedge to go under it due to the bad workmanship of the arch builder. So, begets the Ugly Duckling.

Here mounted atop of the arch along with the GPS antenna for the AIS (to be discussed later). The wires were a fun deal. The radar wires had to come from below and the GPS antenna wire from the top. The wires for the radar were 40' long. It's much easier to pull from below with a string.

And here with the dome mounted and wired up. I put a support strap from the pivot point, over the front and under to help stop the bouncing. I tried to make the saddle as rigid as possible with what I had but I guess it wasn't good enough. It was still like a spring.
And we now have AIS and extra VHF antenna's. 

Part of the package was a Garmin 6208 MFD/plotter to run the radar and plotter in an overlay. Also the AIS was suppose to integrate in also but there are GPS antenna conflicts I need to solve first. Seems to be a software problem.  Pictures to come later. The boat is over 600 miles away now. See new post "Passage to San Francisco".


Also added in a GMI 10, which was great for an electronic compass and keeping distance records. 


The AIS is a Vesper XB-8000. Picture to come later.  

The use of the Wifi to the iPad worked out really well. I was able to bring it up into the cockpit and check for contacts occasionally. I believe there is an alarm but haven't gone into the usage that well yet.


More to come as it progresses...............