Friday, June 2, 2017

Susie Goodall prepares for Golden Globe Race

Obi One Kenobi of AV… talks Custom Remote Management

lang: en_US

AV Programming

We are pleased to bring Patrick Murray in as regular feature in Superyacht Technology Magazine.

Right now, somewhere in the Med, a power supply is about to die and there is nothing anyone can do about it. It could provide power for any one of those little black boxes that are strung together to make up your AV, lighting or some other system. No one will know about the failure until a guest decides to watch some TV. They will press a shiny button on an iPad and – nothing will happen.

Remote management is a good idea for almost every type of system. Being able to login to a dashboard from anywhere gives you the power to know what the status of your systems are and even control them without getting on a plane. Email and text notifications can be automatically sent when certain thresholds are met or when devices go offline, giving you a chance to act before things get out of hand. Data collection is an overlooked feature of the cloud that is shrouded in mystery, fear and misinformation. Location tracking and video monitoring are also cool features that may or may not be a good idea depending on your situation.

There are many remote monitoring systems available. They usually require some hardware to connect to the vendor’s cloud application. The cloud dashboards are adjustable to some degree, but for the most part the look and feel is limited.

No two boats are the same though. On many vessels the mix of systems and functions are one of a kind. That’s why an enormous amount of time and effort is spent designing custom touch panel interfaces. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all interface for comfort and entertainment systems on luxury yachts. While remote management may be thought of as something only for engineers, the uniqueness of your yacht could make a custom application something to consider.

Cloud services from Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and others make deploying custom applications in the cloud cheap, scalable and accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Encryption keeps your data private while in transit and new programming tools make the job of creating a cloud application more approachable than many expect.

Monitoring and Control

The most useful monitoring dashboards tell you at a glance if everything is working properly. A big green check mark and a few words like “All Systems Go”, is what you want to see most of the time. Drilling down to the system, sub-system and component levels gives you more detail of the current status. A pre-configured dashboard can never predict what that menu structure would look like, so the most useful dashboards should be custom-made.

And what about actually controlling things remotely? Does that ever make sense? If you are the guy on the other side of the phone trying to help troubleshoot a problem, it actually helps a lot to press the button yourself and observe the result. Exposing controls on a cloud based dashboard protected “only” by a username and password is something that needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis. What do you think?

Notifications

Remember that power supply that caused all of those problems? What if you monitored the online status of the device it was powering? You would have been immediately informed by email or text that something went offline and been able to take action before the guest ever noticed. Cloud applications also make it easy to change who gets notified without touching the on-board systems.

Data

When collecting data with a custom application, you retain control and ownership of your data. Your agreement is directly with the cloud provider and usually says that they will only store the data for you and never view, analyse or share it with anyone else.

So why collect data? To analyse and improve. In the heat of the battle, your main concern is getting everything running again. But looking at a performance graph over a cup of coffee at the end of a busy season may give you the insights needed to prevent some of those battles the next time around.

The easiest way to improve the user experience is to find out what is never used and remove it. If a lighting scene or an AV source is never selected, you can remove those buttons and your system immediately becomes easier to use. At the beginning of a project, it is hard to predict what is actually needed, so many systems tend to include as much as possible. In real life, there are parts of every system that are never used. Collecting data tells you the truth in black and white and helps you make better decisions.

New Opportunities

Custom Remote Management Applications are a great opportunity for Shipyards and AV/IT Integrators to actively monitor their customer’s systems 24/7 and provide world class support. Emergency site visits can be dramatically reduced. And when a technician needs to make a service call, he or she can arrive prepared with the proper replacement equipment and tools in hand.

The power of notifications to pro-actively address issues before end users are aware of them can strengthen and maybe even save some customer relationships. Technical support means you have someone to call when something goes wrong. Real-time support means they call you.

Improvements in the user experience gained from data-based decisions are yet to be seen, but the only way to take advantage of them is to start collecting data now.

Patrick Murray
LearnAvProgramming.com

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OmniAccess: We talk to Jordi about their Plexus Controller System

lang: en_US

Plexus Networks is OmniAccess unique, integrated, IP-based data network, providing a resilient, future-proof infrastructure upon which to run all your superyacht systems, such as telephony, audio and video (AV), security CCTV, Internet, IPTV and much more. We talk to Jordi to found out a little more about its features.

Francis: We are here with Jordi the product manager for Plexus Controller with this the all in one network management tool. Jordi is going to give us a demonstration of the features of it.

Jordi: This is our tool for bandwidth management, it’s what we have and what we provide to customers so they can have fast access to their networks. As you can see, the screen shows the main dashboard. You can easily and quickly see what is happening to your VSAT connection.

You would know your position, you will know your signal strength and you would know the blank spot that you may have. You can easily see if your modem is failing and if it’s not failing it’s working fine. If you are having the connection that you are paying for and this is a really nice tool and it’s it goes with the philosophy that we have for the Plexus Control and the Plexus family of brothers, to have a simplified tool that covers your requirements.

Francis: It certainly looks like something that will be a great advantage to the users onboard the superyachts, it’s a fantastic bit of technology that you are showing me here. Any other features that we need to be aware of and talk to our audience about?

Jordi: We provide a lot features with this Plexus controller, one of them is access selection, so with a single drag and drop, you can select which is the internet connection that you are using. So whenever you are in the middle of the sea, you can use the VSAT connectivity whenever you are approaching the shore. You can just drag and drop, and you’ll have the system you can access the configuration to make the traffic go through the shore connection. Which means you are going from access three or four devices by hand to a single drag and drop.

Francis: It seems a very straight forward process and I think anything that can simplify processes onboard yachts, will be welcomed.

Jordi: We also have another interesting feature, we have the real time traffic, so you can know and identify the real-time of what is happening in your local area network, and this is a feature that a lot of customers are asking for, because they want to know every moment of who is consuming the bandwidth.

Francis: So really, the high level of detail about the usage.

Jordi: Exactly, and this is the feature that a lot of customers have requested for in the past. You have a lot of crew, the owners, a lot of people on board, with multiple devices and they want to have full control of the network.

Visit OmniAccess to find out more

Francis: It seems a very straight forward process and I think anything that can simplify processes onboard yachts, will be welcomed.

Francis: So really, the high level of detail about the usage.

Visit OmniAccess to find out more

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Thursday, June 1, 2017

10 reasons Victoria, B.C. shouldn't be kept a secret

10 reasons Victoria, B.C. shouldn’t be kept a secret

Once you discover this Canadian gem, you’ll probably want to keep it to yourself.

Lois Alter Mark
Friday, June 2nd, 2017

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BoatUS: NOAA National Charting Plan looks to the future

There has been a lot made about NOAA shifting away from paper charts on this site and others. Here’s what BoatUS has to say on the matter…

Many in the boating community have recently expressed concern after learning of a proposed plan for the “sunsetting” of paper navigational charts, which was listed among the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Charting Plan, released earlier this spring.

A closer reading of the strategy however, according to the BoatUS Foundation for Boating Safety and Clean Water, reveals a forward-looking approach that sets a course to enable the Office of Coast Survey’s Marine Chart Division to continue to meet the evolving needs of boaters into the future. The member-funded nonprofit Foundation serves as the safety arm for the more than half-million member Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatUS).

“The way we access data today is different than how we accessed it 10 years ago, and we believe there’s a good chance it will be different 10 years from now,” said BoatUS Foundation Vice President Susan Shingledecker, who serves as the boaters voice on the 15-member NOAA Hydrographic Services Review Panel, which advises the federal agency on the nation’s navigational charting needs. “The National Charting Plan shows that NOAA is looking to evolve its products and use its resources efficiently to meet the changing needs of its users. Having nautical charts available in a range of formats is key to boating safety, and we don’t expect paper charts to go away anytime soon.”

To ensure concerns were recognized, comments filed on Wednesday, May 31 with NOAA by BoatUS Government Affairs said, “BoatUS feels strongly that NOAA’s charting products need to continue to be available in a wide range of formats. …We see some form of paper charts as an essential need for the foreseeable future.”

BoatUS also notes in its comments that charts are likely moving to the metric system and will require boater education. The BoatUS Foundation expects to increase its educational outreach as that occurs.

Among the proposed boater-friendly changes in the National Charting Plan, according to Shingledecker, are more frequent chart updates – weekly, instead of long intervals, and the better integration of data with other agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Coast Guard, which could mean integrating the latest channel depths and aid to navigation positions. The plan also allows NOAA to focus attention on underserved waterways, such as resolving chart discrepancies in areas of importance to recreational boaters.

“We see a more efficient chart production that allows more frequent updates of obstructions, discrepancy resolution and exploration of using crowd-sourced data,” said Shingledecker. “Boaters on the Intracoastal Waterway, for example, need to know what the channel depth is today – not what it was last year. The plan is simply a starting point to get us there.”

NOAA also responded to boaters’ concerns in a blog post today, ensuring boaters that, “The draft plan does not offer a timeline for ending the production for NOAA paper charts or (Raster Navigational Chart) data. We expect this process may take decades to complete, as user communities continue to adopt electronic navigation and our production system and products continue to improve.”

Dragging Anchor…our last days on the Loop

Crossing Lake Michigan, heading to Washington Island from Northport, MI.

Why does it feel like when vacation is coming to an end, the last days fly by faster than all the others??! Well, this is exactly what is happening over here. We traveled 76 miles to Washington Island (The Inn at Jackson Harbor) for 5 days to spend our last bit of the Loop in a remote location, just relaxing. This couldn’t have been a better spot for us to do that. We enjoyed dinghy rides to Rock Island, walking the island, going for a freshwater swim with my husband and no crocket. We were one of only 3 boats here, just how we like it! There is no water here (it’s well water, we do not fill our tanks with that), so we have to conserve our water intake (or is it really out-take?). Washing dishes, showers and drinking water all come from our tanks. So, the lake provided some of the showers and the bottled water we have had on board was being used. I also let the dishes pile up a bit, which is hard for me to do, and would do a very controlled mass washing.

We see land!

The beautiful bluffs of Rock Island, look close you can see the lighthouse

Rock Island Lighthouse from land

F/V Seediver, M/V Lady Sam and M/V Jammin Jane, the green roof building in the background is a soup/sandwich shop new this year.

We stayed at the north end of the island putting us about 8 miles from town. We knew this and came totally prepared to be self contained but we lucked out tremendously. The owner of KK Fiske Restaurant let us borrow his truck for several days. We of course used the vehicle to dine at his establishment. We enjoyed eating the fresh Lawyer (burbit) and whitefish that Ken (owner of KK Fiske) caught hours before we were eating it. Even better is that Ken has his fishing vessel, Seediver, docked at the marina we were at. We loved meeting him on the dock and drooling over his fresh catch each day. Ben learned how to properly clean Lawyer and tips on catching our favorite fish from the Great Lakes…Lawyer is a white fish that prepared properly resembles lobster. It is delicious!

Crocket fishing

We woke up early to see this beautiful sunrise

And went to sleep with this gorgeous sunset

We were blessed to have our friend Max come to visit with our buddy Steve. It was a surprise to see Steve and he wins as the most seen friend along the Loop!!! We saw him in Sturgeon Bay, Milwaukee, Naples and now Washington Island…although Max wins for duration of time visited!!