37:11N 10:07W negligible wind NW2-3, motoring at 7.5 knots, gentle swell 1.5
metres, sunny, 1017mb
Out of the low pressure weather system now, we're into more Med weather
where the boat is soaking wet with dew in the morning. BxWx sent us a
message saying he was signing off - a very good sign indicating easy weather
and no clever forecasting needed at all.
We're approaching the shipping lanes off Portugal, planning to cross them to
the Idiots Traffic Zone (ITZ, could be Inshore Traffic Zone, not sure) and
head on SE towards Gibraltar.
I had another Raymarine nightmare yesterday. I try not to let Raymarine
spoil things, but it does. This time it's the radio. To bring others up to
date, the Rubbish And Yewsless Marine company (hence RAYmarine) supply the
specially-manky electronics gear for lots of boats. I think they must
supply it dirt cheap to boat manufacturers, cos nobody in their right mind
would chose any of this stuff. Raymarine make sure that (for example) when
you use the dim-switch on the chartplotter screen, the screen then often
flashes as though it's going to go bang. Raymarine deny this happens, and
say they use the gear in the ARC, you know. Yeah, and there's pages of
faults reported in the ARC office with Raymarine gear (lots of it "screen
flashing on low brightness" amongst other faults) and the dealers all say,
yes, they all do that and Raymarine deny there's a problem, and Raymarine
support will write nice letters denying there's any problem too. It works
nicely in the lab here, sir. Yes, I bet it all works fine everywhere except
on a boat at sea with ordinary 12V not out of a special-smoothy oscilloscopy
thing, other electrical things connected to the batteries, and salty air
too.
If things do go wrong here's a so-called Raymarine Worldwide Warranty. Hah!
This requires that you have the original receipt (difficult if the boat
builder didn't give you the receipt) and that you ship it to them (and back)
at your cost, even if it's dead on arrival. They'll have a look at it, but
if they can't replicate the fault - hard luck, which means it's more like
Not Worldwide At All And Worthless Warranty.
On top of all this the gear is quite rubbish - the chartplotting software
can't show what course or speed you're doing over (say) the last hour or
even the last minute - just what it is each second. The true wind needs a
stupid paddlewheel input, and so on and on. Other people have found more
daft and rubbish features, and yesterday I tried to do something about the
outside waterproof VHF speaker being broken due to er, having had some
water on it. Turns out you can't just swap the tinpot speaker - you have to
swap the whole hardwired loop all the way back to the unit in the bowels of
the boat. Four hours of boat-dismantling and rebuilding later we have just
one handset instead of two, and the radio is still rubbish. Yeah, I tried
to call the Raymarine helpline, that's rubbish too - it says "there is one
person ahead of you" however long you hold. You can leave a number but they
didn't call us back. Are they still in business?
My long-term goal in life is to de-Raymarine this boat, and what a wonderful
day that will be. Meanwhile, if anyone knows of a decent VHF radio brand I
can buy and fit (and which works which the AIS etc) please let me know.
But the radio didn't spoil the rather fantastic dinner Marc made yesterday,
a Tuna feast followed by pear/blue cheese combo and a chocolate fiesta. We
played bridge afterwards - some work needed on the crew's haphazard slam
bidding.
The navigational plan for Tuesday was for it to be Wednesday today, and that's
worked out very well indeed. No news today from Nova Scotia though, I wonder
what the weather is like there? Perhaps it's raining, or maybe not. One or
the other.
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