Means of Seeing what the eye brings

I made a facebook comment a few days ago about rebuilding my Aries, and have had a few puzzled queries as a result. What’s an Aries?

Aries is a brand of servo-pendulum self-steering gear for yachts, developed and produced by Nick Franklin, Isle of Wight, based upon the basic design concieved by Herbert “Blondie” Hasler. While there are modern reproductions available, and many successive generations of copies and inspirations, my Aries is an original ’70’s MkII.

Getting the Aries up an running is pretty exciting for me! While service kits are supposedly available from Nick’s daughter in the UK, the time and expense to obtain them is probably greater than that of simply fabricating the neccessary parts myself. This is facilitated by the design of the Aries, sometimes regarded as “industrial” or even “agricultural” in appearance; everything is tough, simple, and easy to work on.

Self-steering is key. With a small crew (or none at all), it is very tiring to continually hand-steer. Electronic autopilots are subject to more possible breakdowns, and consume power, while a robust windvane is usually tougher than either the boat it is attached to, or the human hands it greatly aids.

The gear rates very highly on my list of core priorites: a sound hull, round rig/sails, the Aries, and life support systems (stove, heater, tanks, etc.). It’s really that important; when other systems begin to fail, having to continually hand-steer introduces so much further fatigue into the mix that is is there that things can really break down. It’s part of my whole ethos that the boat ought to be able to “look after itself” as much as possible.

Apparently, the fam is taking this wish-list thing a little more seriously than I anyone would! In light of that, maybe I ought to be a bit more serious about it myself…

Chief on my wish list are electronics and navaids. My eventual goal is to build a small NMEA 2000 network onboard. I’ve already ordered one of the important building blocks, and the piece that needs to go in before the boat floats! This is the Maretron DST100 transducer. Next on the list is a Maretron GPS100 antenna, and then one of the display/control heads. I’m leaning towards the Maretron units (DSM200/250), but with so many interesting units coming out in the spring (like Furuno’s FI-50 displays), and with the flexibility of an N2K network, I’m holding out until I come across the “just right” solution.
Next on the list are a chartplotter (not picky, as long as it’s N2K compliant), AIS (ditto), and radar. In a recent online comment, Steve Dashew stated that he’d choose AIS over a liferaft, a feeling I’m inclined to second. Radar is pretty cool, and with the right networked plotter already in place, it’s not too expensive. Still, these are things that will probably have to wait.

Besides electronics, everything on my wish-list is either: too large/heavy/awkward to ship here, or not available here. For all that, I’ll just delay my shopping (and wishing) until I’m back in civilization.

I was just talking to my mom on my new phone, and among other things, she suggested that I put together a little wish-list of boat parts, now that Christmas (and incidentally, my launching) is coming up.
Right now, I’ve been pretty focussed on “the essentials”; those things that get me up and running, let alone all the extra bits that help out, but aren’t necessarily mission-critical. As such, my immediate list of wants overlaps closely with my usual to-do list.
Right now, it’s pretty short:
– 300′ of 9mm 1×19 Type 316 stainless wire (for standing rigging)
– 300′ of 10mm Sta-Set-X line (for halyards)
– A head gasket, freshwater pump, exhaust flange, and exhaust gasket
– An Airmar NMEA 2000 Triducer
That’s really all I need to get sailing, along with a few misc. sundries.

Buuuuuut, if there’s any benevolent fairy-godparents out there, I might expand the list to include:
– Anchors: a pair of 35lb Delta Fast-set, a 75lb three-piece Luke fisherman
– Sails: a main, an asymmetric reaching spinnaker, a lapping daisy, etc.
– A Maretron N2K control head
– A chartplotter: Raymarine E-series or Furuno NN3D
– Radar
– Ummm… Hard to come up with more… 🙂