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I remember the dockmaster’s
phone call to my Dad from the east marina at Point Lookout, New York.
I was a kid, and the weather was horrible. I don’t recall precisely
if it was a Nor’easter or hurricane, but whatever it was had damaged
my family’s boat. The doubled-up, heavy-weather lines had held, but
one of the cleats had let go, and the boat was now in a position to ram
up against a bulkhead or, in the event of an extreme storm tide, even
come down on top of one and hole herself. The dockmaster and a phone line
was all the technology we had that day, and if that call had not come,
my family might have lost our boat.
Fortunately, things
have gotten better. Today, there is a no-strings-attached technology that
is the equivalent of having a dockmaster watching your boat 24 hours a
day, seven days a week and which can provide detailed information about
the status of your boat and its systems. It’s available from a growing
group of companies, more than can be covered in these few pages, so I’ll
focus on a few that provide this service, each using slightly different
means.
The Wireless Watchman
works off a two-way data communication frequency called reflex 25, a narrowband
personal communication services (PCS) frequency that Wireless Watchman
purchased from the FCC fives years ago. Although satellite communications
are abundant and may be considered en vogue by some, Wireless Watchman
likes to keep things close to the planet. Product manager Mark Buhrig
says that the company may employ satellite technology down the road, but
its current intra-atmosphere method minimizes the unit and service costs
of the Wireless Watchman. The basic system runs from $700 to $1,295 with
two monthly service plans available. Basic service is $9.95 a month, and
an additional $2.95 a month provides voice response and e-mails of what’s
going on with your boat.
The system consists
of a black box tied to an array of sensors and usually mounted and concealed
somewhere near the helm console. The only visible component is a dual-band
antenna for the unit’s internal GPS and communication channel. Once
installed, Wireless Watchman will keep tabs on boat location, battery
voltage, engine hours, the presence of fire and smoke, and boarding, the
latter via contact sensors installed in doors, hatches, and deck. It can
also monitor temperature, bilge pump activity (the number of cycles),
and shore-power status. According to Buhrig, "Everything that’s
coming into the box can go to a [password-protected] Web site and send
a message to active voice response."
Next page >
Wireless continued > Page 1, 2,
3
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