Paul D

We spotted you as well Gordon, on your way back from Christchurch I presume. Any luck today ?

Steve, My advice would be to come along to the next club meeting and you will find there are many who will be happy to buddy up and "show you the ropes". I was in exactly the same position 3 years ago, so I joined the club and have never looked back.

My son took this video clip whilst steaming back on Friday. Nice calm conditions, beautiful sunset. Neo in action

Bob, In which case I disagree with your statement :- "If this happens at night and you have moved your battery switch to BAT2 you would not be able to use the tilt switch to bring you back onboard if the switch is wired convensionally." I assume you mean "non conventionally" ( as in your setup ).

Gordon, Yes thanks - It took me a couple of attempts and a call to Paul J to get the numbers I had given him ( long story ). I now have a number of waypoints marked which outline the wreckage. Shall have to pay it a visit again in the future. cheers Paul

Nice fish ! - I am expecting you to show me how to catch em on Sunday Gordon ( or I will put it all down to Adam's work )

I see where you are coming from Coddy. Presumably the same spike that would be caused by switching the swicth to "OFF" whilst running, you are assuming will be across the busbar and hence GPS / FF etc. ( lights wont be a problem ). I guess there is a chance that this could damage electronic equipment in this case, although the rectifier in the outboard is more likely to be damaged, since it is connected by much thicker ( and hence lower resistance ) wiring. Downside with your arrangement though is the battery will never by isolated from the busbar, therefore if you want to work on any wiring you have to physically disconnect the battery. ( also means in emergency you have no way of switching the power off ). Bob, Puzzled why you have such distrust in the battery switch ( from your bad experience I guess ) and I am not so sure your setup ( where switched to Batt 2 the engine has no battery power ) is "conventional". With a decent battery switch they can handle the starting current, so I opted for the engine connected to common and each battery positive to batt1 and Batt 2 respectively and I know not to switch to OFF whilst engine is running ( in fact I rarely change the switch whilst running anyway ). Kam, Many outboards will not run without a battery connected. ( This is actually one of the plus points of the E-Tec engines ). Mercury Optimax's for example will not start without a minimum voltage being available - so no rope starting for them ( not that I would fancy rope starting Martin's engine ! ).

Les, We were out on Friday - I noticed a trailer at Wick, so I guess it was yours. I was steaming out to the Venezuela in order to 1) find it and 2) Good excuse to get my engine run in and test new trim tabs Didn't get much fishing in ( only around 15 mins ) so managed to blank. The conditions were superb though, flat as a pancake and I was amazed that no-one else was out ( I did call on Ch 6 to see if anyone was listening ). Well pleased with boat performance now. Cruised out at around 17 knots and cruised back at between 17-20 knots. I hadn't refuelled from my earlier trip on Easter Monday with PJ and his brother in law so total mileage covered was 36.9 NM and total fuel usage was just short of 25 litres. ( ie. 1.5 NM per litre ). I presume this is reasonable ?

Charlie, DO NOT TURN THE SWITCH TO OFF WHILST MOTOR IS RUNNING. 1 - Both - 2 - OFF switches can be turned from 1 to Both to 2 whilst running as there is always a current path to the battery. However, if you switch to Off whilst the motor is running you will break the current path causing a huge leap in voltage to occur ( due to inductance ). The high voltage will potentially cause the rectifier diodes to be destroyed.

spotted link to this on the deepsea site John West Ad

Mines in the drive in Christchurch with Smart Tabs - PM me if you want to take a look.

Adam, Surely Bob was joking ? ( after all Gordon crews for you a lot and the static charge wouldn't show much on him )

Paul measure the voltage with the multimeter set to A/C volts between the two yellow wires - should read something with engine running = stator OK. The measure the voltage with multimeter set to DC volts between the red wire and earth ( ie. One prong on the rectifier pin connected to the red wire and one held to the metal casing ) - should read battery volts and then go up in voltage when engine is running.

Welcome Scott. Looking forward to seeing you out hauling the anchor

DLP, I had same though with regard to the pressure on the screws. The hinges are screwed into the hold using self tapping screws. The bracket holding the top of the actuator also is fitted using two self tapping screws, but these are a little more substantial ( presumably due to the pressure ).

Tom, They come with a cutout angle indicator to set the initial angle ( 25 degrees I think ). Seems to work OK for me. The Warrior is different as it is a fully planing boat, so tabs are sized differently ( the charts they have are for say 17 FT boat with 75HP engine which would be somewhat interesting on my boat ! )

Reading this thread reminded me I found an interesting observation the other day. Steaming from the ledge to X-Ray I noticed my GPS/Fishfinder ( combined unit ) was stating that the sonar unit was disconnected. Assuming a bad connection I wobbled the fishfinder and the connector, then recycled the GPS/FF ( ie. turn off and back on ) and the sonar was re-established. A couple of mins later, same thing happens again. Recycle the GPS/FF and sonar back again. This happened a couple more times before I realised that it was co-inciding with when I transmit on the radio..... I transmit and sonar is "disconnected". A quick think - "what is common to the radio and the GPS/FF" - it is connected to send GPS position which is not working at the moment. A quick crawl under the console and the problem is spotted. The outer earth sheath connection on the lead between my radio and the GPS/FF had become disconnected from the GPS/FF lead. Transmitting on the radio was obviously causing stray currents which was leading the GPS/FF to lose the sonar signal. Unplugged the lead from the radio and all was well again. Now I need to repair the connection and get my position sent again.

These are the ST980-40 model ( which are 9 x 8 inches with 40 lb actuator ) from here :- 9 x 8 smart tabs I emailed nauticus ( info@nauticusinc.com ) and gave them the spec of my boat and the problems I was having ( namely porpoising at speed when trimmed out ). They told me what tabs to fit ( all the calculations they have are for planing vessels, so mine didn't fit neatly into their categories ). I haven't played around with settings yet, I just installed them in the middle of the setting range and appears to be about right. They are most helpful, so I would advise e-mailing them ( and please mention where you heard about them - ie. PBSBAC web site ). Also, when fitting they give you some "sealing strips" but I used sealing compound as well to seal the screw holes ( as did Adam ). cheers Paul

and one last shot

pic 3

Pic 2

Certainly. Try these ( excuse the rust stains, must get a round to cleaning these ! )

Job done - pinned in Club Members section

John, Glad you found the site and I must say I have been extremely impressed just from my first trip out. I would also like to mention the help that I have received from Nauticus in selecting the correct tabs and in the prompt replies to my queries with regard to installation. Such service should not go unmentioned.

dunno what your talkin bout - bro