Among many projects planned for Kairos, the upgrade of the electronics package has taken the most planning.  The equipment that was present in February at the time of our purchase of Kairos we call multi-generational.  Some of it was original, from 1998 and subsequent additions were made in 2003, 2008, 2012.  None of the equipment at the time of our purchase communicated well with each other. The autopilot was not receiving NMEA 0183 input from either of the helm chart plotters.  The radar was the original Furuno, with green CRTs for control and visualization.  All of the wiring from prior installations were left under the helm and in the chases, many dead-ended and taking up valuable space.  There were many nonfunctional interconnection junctions for both navigation and communication hardware that had been previously removed.

 

Temporary installation

The first step of the project was the temporary installation more advanced navigational equipment for Kairos’s trip to Rhode Island from Burr Yacht Sales.  This new equipment included a Digital Yacht AIT 2000AIS transponder, a Coastal Marine Wifi Range Extender and Ethernet backbone, an NMEA Starter Kit, a Simrad NAC-3 autopilot computer and a ruggedized fanless PC connected to one of two 21″ widescreen marine displays, which were temporarily surface mounted.  The original navigation equipment was kept in place for the transit north with the exception of the new autopilot which could be controlled from the navigation PC.

The Navpixel NPD 2118 displays are the main interface for the entire navigation system. We wanted our new monitors to have marine grade construction, having experienced some electronic malfunctions due to corrosion in the past using residential grade electronics in prior installations even in interior installations.  These particular displays were chosen as their form factor allowed the largest possible display to fit in the existing helm center console, leaving less than two inches to spare on either side of the installed displays and are a perfect fit top and bottom with no additional room nor any need to modify the console dimensions. They are IP65 waterproof,  shock and vibration resistant, capacitive multi-touch capable, and have multiple video inputs allowing for connection simultaneously to the Simrad system, the navigation PC as well as up to six cameras between the two monitors. They are among the brightest monitors available on the market at 1600 nits.  Additionally they were obtained at less than half the cost of similar (less well fitting) displays sold by any of the mainstream consumer marine electronics companies.

We chose a fanless PC, all solid state, with no moving parts in a sealed case to mitigate any likelihood of corrosion that would inevitably occur long-term with either a laptop or desktop PC with exposure to salt laden air.  This powerful compact PC is capable of driving multiple monitors and has multiple USB and serial inputs as well as having wireless capability if needed in the case of a failure of the boat intranet.  It is protected by an AC Uninterruptible power supply against brief power losses occuring during power changeovers between shore power, inverter, or generators as well as spike protection.

Demolition time

The day following our arrival at Wickford Shipyard I began the more permanent electronics project with the careful removal of all the prior electronics with their associated wiring (for possible resale later) as well as about 100 lbs of the dead-ended wiring that could be safely removed, freeing up space in the chases for future use.

Reconstruction

With the help of Ray Rondeau, the existing cutouts in the helm were then filled with wood and epoxy and new cutouts were made for the remaining and new equipment to be installed.  Teak and matte black laminates were cut to finish the surfaces where modifications were made at both the pilothouse as well as the fly bridge helm.

With the first stage of laminates completed the new navigation/communication electronics were fitted.

Permanent Installation

We chose, because of our prior good experience with the brand, to construct a Simrad system using a NSO EVO 2 processor as the primary processor.  High definition pulse compression digital radar has progressed rapidly and we had had an excellent experience with Simrad 4G radar on Knot Alone, so we chose to go with the HALO-4 open array Radar.  It has particularly good close range resolution and sensitivity and will have a soon to be released Velocity Track software upgrade.  An Airmar 150WX WeatherStation along with a Simrad IS42 instrument display were easily added to the NMEA 2000 network. An ICOM 506 was added as a second VHF to complement the Matrix 2100 that was previously installed.  Finally the data from the  NMEA 2000 is easily transmitted to the navigation PC, running Coastal Explorer using an Actisense NMEA 2000-USB gateway and an iKommunicate gateway for redundancy if the Simrad system fails.

Finally, as all the environmental, navigational and positional data is transmitted over the boat network, any of the data is accessible with a tablet or PC connected to the Kairos network, allowing for display of data with a multitude of applications and control of the Simrad system from anywhere on Kairos with the GoFree App.

As the technology continues to evolve I am sure that there will be further modifications….but we have many more projects in line to make Kairos the boat that we really want her to be…..