WAY offshore safety

[why knot]

I would not recommend for anyone to get out with a single motor, I have 2 130hp Honda with less than 400 hours and on the last trip on the way home 14 miles from shore my port side engine just broke down. I was able to come home with wide open , full speed 10-12 miles with the other motor.
do not forget we had 33 albi, 300pounds of ice, lot of fuel, so the 130 hp just pushed the boat 10 miles/hour.
to get home with a kicker,,,,good lock. do not try it....

that was my hand on experience.

 

[seadna]

About needing radar... The Standard Horizon 2150 vhf has an AIS receiver in it. It places the AIS target onto your chartplotter relative to your location. You can set it with a prox alarm at several radius. It has worked like a radar sys for me all summer and there is no need to interpret the radar reflections.
just my 2 bits

I have AIS also and it's a great safety addition to the boat. However, while a few recreational boats transmit an AIS signal, for the most part only commercial vessels transmit and in my experience (at least S of the border) only about half of the commercial fishing boats transmit. Hence, it only "worked like a radar sys" for the boats that were transmitting and you missed about 1/2 of the commercial fishing boats and almost all of the other recreational boats. For me, the scariest guys on the water (e.g. the ones I want radar for the most) are the recreational fisherman who blast around in the fog at 20-35kts with no radar on their boats or with little attention to the radar. E.g. the guys who don't see me until they're on top of me. For that, you need radar.

 

[seadna]

I would not recommend for anyone to get out with a single motor, I have 2 130hp Honda with less than 400 hours and on the last trip on the way home 14 miles from shore my port side engine just broke down. I was able to come home with wide open , full speed 10-12 miles with the other motor.
do not forget we had 33 albi, 300pounds of ice, lot of fuel, so the 130 hp just pushed the boat 10 miles/hour.
to get home with a kicker,,,,good lock. do not try it....

that was my hand on experience.

Agreed. As an aside, I have twins on my boat (a C-Dory Tomcat 255) and when I bought the boat (used) it was rigged so that each of the two engines drew from one (and only one) of the two fuel tanks. E.g. the portside engine only drew from the port side tank and vice versa. When figuring my fuel needs, I figure 1/3 to get out, 1/3 to get back and 1/3 in reserve. Last year when I was about 60 miles offshore, I realized that with the original fuel tank configuration if one engine died (for whatever reason), that the fuel I had in the corresponding tank had no way to get to the other engine. If that happened while I was far offshore, my remaining fuel supply was cut in half and I already burned 1/3 of that to get out. Then I'd have to return on one engine, unable to plane and have the choice of either going about 5-6 kts (staying at hull speed to get max fuel efficiency) or going at 10kts (big bow wake, not planing, worst possible fuel efficiency). With the fuel supply cut in half, I couldn't make it back at anything other than hull speed. So over the last winter, I had a cross over fuel system installed that allows me to either have each engine draw off it's own tank or allow either engine to draw out of either or both tanks. I mention this because their may be other boats with twins where each is plumbed to it's own tank that might want to make the same type of install as I did.

 

[dak]

I would not recommend for anyone to get out with a single motor, I have 2 130hp Honda with less than 400 hours and on the last trip on the way home 14 miles from shore my port side engine just broke down. I was able to come home with wide open , full speed 10-12 miles with the other motor.
do not forget we had 33 albi, 300pounds of ice, lot of fuel, so the 130 hp just pushed the boat 10 miles/hour.
to get home with a kicker,,,,good lock. do not try it....

that was my hand on experience.

The boat looked good on the way out! I was sorry to hear about the failure you had coming home but glad it all worked out for you.

Guess you have an excuse to put a little more horsepower on the boat for next year!

 

[why knot]

Thanks the picture Dak, I am not sure yet what am I going to do for the next year, I just might get one new one or ..... I just do not know yet,

One of the guy on your boat did take some pictures at night, do you have those, can you send me,
I have some picture from you guys also but not the best ,
I will send it for you, also have some video from that day I will post it later

 

[dak]

Thanks the picture Dak, I am not sure yet what am I going to do for the next year, I just might get one new one or ..... I just do not know yet,

One of the guy on your boat did take some pictures at night, do you have those, can you send me,
I have some picture from you guys also but not the best ,
I will send it for you, also have some video from that day I will post it later

PM me your email address and I will send you some pics.

 

[Labman2]

Found these Survival suits, prices seem very good!

http://lrse.com/store/product123.html

 

[finaddict]

Found these Survival suits, prices seem very good!

http://lrse.com/store/product123.html

Yep I bought one of those. I also purchased a 6 man life Viking raft in a cannister from them for about 2/3rds of the same raft here in vancouver. They are an excellent company to deal with and I would not hesitate to buy from them again.

 

[Sculpin]

Here is a pretty extensive review of life rafts the BD crew did a few years ago.

http://www.bdoutdoors.com/forums/washington-state/133172-liferaft-research-viking-wins.html

The Seattle boat show has some awesome show pricing and worth the wait for those that are interesting in getting one. I'll be heading back down this coming January to check them out and some other things that we didn't have a chance to see this year.

Cheers,
John

 

[finaddict]

Here is a pretty extensive review of life rafts the BD crew did a few years ago.

http://www.bdoutdoors.com/forums/washington-state/133172-liferaft-research-viking-wins.html

The Seattle boat show has some awesome show pricing and worth the wait for those that are interesting in getting one. I'll be heading back down this coming January to check them out and some other things that we didn't have a chance to see this year.

Cheers,
John

Cool Thanks for that John, The Viking Rescyou 6 man was the exact one I purchased. Nice to have an endorsement (FWIW) from BD outdoors