Another new start for Helmsman

We understand that our new boat will come with 3 lines and 3 fenders so we plan to buy at least 3 more of each before we take delivery. We plan to find out the size and color of both so we can match them.

New Members Here...

Nancy and I (Rick) signed a contract for a Helmsman 38e this past Friday. We are expecting a Sept./Oct. 2022 delivery. Boat construction should begin about April 2022.

We are located in Port Townsend, WA and expect to spend 5 or 6 months a year cruising the San Juan Islands, Canadian Gulf Islands, Inside Passage and South East Alaska.

We would be very interested in any pictures of boats under construction and in hearing the reasons why others have made the decisions they did on their boats.

Rick

**Hull number 56

PT Bay Watcher said:

Nancy and I (Rick) signed a contract for a Helmsman 38e this past Friday. We are expecting a Sept./Oct. 2022 delivery. Boat construction should begin about April 2022.

We are located in Port Townsend, WA and expect to spend 5 or 6 months a year cruising the San Juan Islands, Canadian Gulf Islands, Inside Passage and South East Alaska.

We would be very interested in any pictures of boats under construction and in hearing the reasons why others have made the decisions they did on their boats.

Rick

**Hull number 56

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Congratulations. Lots of reasons cited above, but if you have any questions, ask away.

PT Bay Watcher said:

Nancy and I (Rick) signed a contract for a Helmsman 38e this past Friday. We are expecting a Sept./Oct. 2022 delivery. Boat construction should begin about April 2022.

We are located in Port Townsend, WA and expect to spend 5 or 6 months a year cruising the San Juan Islands, Canadian Gulf Islands, Inside Passage and South East Alaska.

We would be very interested in any pictures of boats under construction and in hearing the reasons why others have made the decisions they did on their boats.

Rick

**Hull number 56

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Welcome aboard! What options did you guys select? Several of us have listed options in earlier posts. It would be great to hear your approach when you get some time.

Helmsman said:

Welcome aboard! What options did you guys select? Several of us have listed options in earlier posts. It would be great to hear your approach when you get some time.

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Here is the list of options on our contract:

• Kingston gray hull
• Prewiring for generator
• Hydronic heating
• Radar Arch
• Extra helm seat on flybridge
• Modify boat deck handrail
• Cockpit side entry doors
• Swim platform staples
• 650 lb LP davit
• 3 additional house batteries
• 3 solar panels
• 120 an 12 volt outlets in cockpit
• 1 1/2 galley sink
• LED under counter lighting
• Add seacock for watermaker
• 1 towel bar in day head
• Hinged storage under bed
• Grab rail under cockpit cover

That is pretty much it, barring any changes...

PT Bay Watcher said:

Here is the list of options on our contract:

• Kingston gray hull
• Prewiring for generator
• Hydronic heating
• Radar Arch
• Extra helm seat on flybridge
• Modify boat deck handrail
• Cockpit side entry doors
• Swim platform staples
• 650 lb LP davit
• 3 additional house batteries
• 3 solar panels
• 120 an 12 volt outlets in cockpit
• 1 1/2 galley sink
• LED under counter lighting
• Add seacock for watermaker
• 1 towel bar in day head
• Hinged storage under bed
• Grab rail under cockpit cover

That is pretty much it, barring any changes...

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That looks much like our list except being on the east coast we opted for a gennie and HVAC’s. We got a 110 volt outlet in the cockpit. Just curious, what will you use the 12 volt in the cockpit for?

We met with Scott yesterday to go over final details. We added lights on the radar arch, a 120 volt outlet in the cockpit and Caesarstone at the center cabinet (wine bar). Scott put us in touch with Eddie Legard of C & L Marine who sent us an electronics proposal today that meets our requirements perfectly. “Alba Bella” gets more real every day.

Helmsman said:

That looks much like our list except being on the east coast we opted for a gennie and HVAC’s. We got a 110 volt outlet in the cockpit. Just curious, what will you use the 12 volt in the cockpit for?

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The further North you go up here the better the shrimp taste but they are a couple of hundred feet deep. So a 12 volt Scotty crab/shrimp trap line puller makes it so you don't have the work so hard for your catch...

Doug_Snider said:

We met with Scott yesterday to go over final details. We added lights on the radar arch, a 120 volt outlet in the cockpit and Caesarstone at the center cabinet (wine bar). Scott put us in touch with Eddie Legard of C & L Marine who sent us an electronics proposal today that meets our requirements perfectly. “Alba Bella” gets more real every day.

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Would love to know about your electronics package. I haven't even started thinking about that yet. Maybe I should get started...

Rick

Scott suggested that we move ahead on the electronics because of current supply chain and semiconductor shortage issues. We were leaning toward Furuno but my wife’s brother, a marine electrician and certified captain, recommended Garmin. The proposals we received were for Garmin and Simrad. We’re leaning toward the Garmin based package that included the following.

16” multi function displays
Autopilot
Garmin Fantom radar
Chirp sonar
Forward looking sonar
AIS transceiver
Fusion entertainment system
Rear view camera
Modular VHF system

We’ll probably downsize the fly bridge MFD and add an engine room camera.

PT Bay Watcher said:

Here is the list of options on our contract:

• Kingston gray hull
• Prewiring for generator
• Hydronic heating
• Radar Arch
• Extra helm seat on flybridge
• Modify boat deck handrail
• Cockpit side entry doors
• Swim platform staples
• 650 lb LP davit
• 3 additional house batteries
• 3 solar panels
• 120 an 12 volt outlets in cockpit
• 1 1/2 galley sink
• LED under counter lighting
• Add seacock for watermaker
• 1 towel bar in day head
• Hinged storage under bed
• Grab rail under cockpit cover

That is pretty much it, barring any changes...

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Where will the solar panels be located and how will they be mounted? Considering installing some on top of the pilot house but concerned about glare when running from the flybridge.

PT Bay Watcher said:

Would love to know about your electronics package. I haven't even started thinking about that yet. Maybe I should get started...

Rick

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I attended four days of NMEA 2000 installation workshops last week. In the past I have installed my own electronics. I am putting the order together and will have that completed in the next week or so. I plan to go largely with Furuno. All of the big four do a good job with electronics for the most part.

I installed Raymarine on my last boat, was happy with the performance, unhappy with some of the needlessly complex screens to get things done, and unhappy that they sunset my two year old plotter.

Garmin has pretty good service but sunsets their equipment too quickly for me. Simrad has a forum reputation for poor service. I have zero experience with them, so really don’t know if the anecdotes on their service are one offs or not.

One thing I am pretty sure I will do is go with a Vesper Cortex (Sotdma B AIS with VHF capabilities). It also has the capability for sensors and when accompanied by access to the web, has a remote anchor watch and sensor reporting.

The rest of the electronics are a WiP but will be ironed out over the next couple of weeks. If there is interest I will post the build chart for it when completed.

The Vesper Cortex looks interesting. Any real world experience with it?

bowball said:

The Vesper Cortex looks interesting. Any real world experience with it?

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There are reviews online at SeaBits and Panbo.

Here is SeaBits https://seabits.com/vesper-cortex-first-impressions/

Sizing for 3 additional house batteries

We are looking at a very similar setup.

Interested in how you sized the load for adding 3 additional house batteries. This would provide about 1000 amp hours i think.

We would love to not get the Genset for both cost and maintenance reasons so are thinking about the battery sizing to help avoid. Let me know how you sized the load.

M

PT Bay Watcher said:

Would love to know about your electronics package. I haven't even started thinking about that yet. Maybe I should get started...

Rick

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Yesterday we finalized our electronics selections. C&L Marine Electronics, Helmsman’s preferred vendor in Seattle, had given us two proposals, one for Garmin and one for Simrad. My wife’s brother is a marine electrician and has been recommending Garmin. He has installed a lot of systems and has Garmin on his Hatteras 48 LRC. We opted for the Garmin system with a few tweaks my brother-in-law recommended. Our package includes:

GPSMAP 86xx Series MFD (16” in pilot house and 12”on the fly bridge. )
Garmin Fantom Radar
Garmin Panoptix front looking sonar
1000 watt CHIRP transducer
AIS transceiver
Garmin modular VHF
Garmin autopilot
Garmin marine camera in cockpit
Fusion Apollo marine stereo system
NMEA 2000 displays (stateroom and salon)

C&L offers a 10 percent discount and a special labor rate for Scott’s customers.

Doug:

Looks good.

Two transducers? The chirp for fishing?

I am trying to untangle options in that arena.

Doug_Snider said:

Yesterday we finalized our electronics selections. C&L Marine Electronics, Helmsman’s preferred vendor in Seattle, had given us two proposals, one for Garmin and one for Simrad. My wife’s brother is a marine electrician and has been recommending Garmin. He has installed a lot of systems and has Garmin on his Hatteras 48 LRC. We opted for the Garmin system with a few tweaks my brother-in-law recommended. Our package includes:

GPSMAP 86xx Series MFD (16” in pilot house and 12”on the fly bridge. )
Garmin Fantom Radar
Garmin Panoptix front looking sonar
1000 watt CHIRP transducer
AIS transceiver
Garmin modular VHF
Garmin autopilot
Garmin marine camera in cockpit
Fusion Apollo marine stereo system
NMEA 2000 displays (stateroom and salon)

C&L offers a 10 percent discount and a special labor rate for Scott’s customers.

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Did you consider Furuno? That’s what I’m going with on a 55’. I much preferred their radar and it was less expensive to boot. (Unless your discount is only Garmin).

bowball said:

Did you consider Furuno? That’s what I’m going with on a 55’. I much preferred their radar and it was less expensive to boot. (Unless your discount is only Garmin).

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We are also going with Furuno on our 38. Much prefer their reliability, customer support and the way the system works. Bowball, where did you order yours from?

Nancy n Larry said:

We are also going with Furuno on our 38. Much prefer their reliability, customer support and the way the system works. Bowball, where did you order yours from?

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Mine is going on a Fleming, so installed by their authorized service center.

FWT said:

Doug:

Looks good.

Two transducers? The chirp for fishing?

I am trying to untangle options in that arena.

Click to expand...

The Panoptix has its own transducer. The traditional sonar that comes with the MFD requires a transducer. We're adding a third transducer to keep track of our depth at night while at anchor.

We looked at Furono but deferred to my wife's brother who will probably be maintaining our electronics. He highly recommended Garmin over the other choices.

Probably overkill but I had two helms and the the space (and wanted the transducer to stay on the nmea 2000 network and didn’t need forward sonar - not convinced it’s limitations make it useful- and didn’t need my transducer for fish.

The big differentiators for me were Furuno’s NXT radar compared to others and the satellite compass.

TZT19F (x2)
DRS6ANXT/4 Radar
FA50 Class B AIS Transceiver
NAVPILOT 711C Autopilot
FI-70 Displays (x4)
TZT16F (x2) flybridge helm
GP330B GPS Receiver
SCX20 Sat compass
DST810L Smartducer

bowball said:

Probably overkill but I had two helms and the the space (and wanted the transducer to stay on the nmea 2000 network and didn’t need forward sonar - not convinced it’s limitations make it useful- and didn’t need my transducer for fish.

The big differentiators for me were Furuno’s NXT radar compared to others and the satellite compass.

TZT19F (x2)
DRS6ANXT/4 Radar
FA50 Class B AIS Transceiver
NAVPILOT 711C Autopilot
FI-70 Displays (x4)
TZT16F (x2) flybridge helm
GP330B GPS Receiver
SCX20 Sat compass
DST810L Smartducer

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Thank you for posting the list. We are including many of the same things albeit smaller screens. Really impressed with the TZT System and how it works. We are Including most of the other items as well and not interested in forward sonar either.

Nancy n Larry said:

Thank you for posting the list. We are including many of the same things albeit smaller screens. Really impressed with the TZT System and how it works. We are Including most of the other items as well and not interested in forward sonar either.

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And the radios are Icom.

Doug_Snider said:

Yesterday we finalized our electronics selections. C&L Marine Electronics, Helmsman’s preferred vendor in Seattle, had given us two proposals, one for Garmin and one for Simrad. My wife’s brother is a marine electrician and has been recommending Garmin. He has installed a lot of systems and has Garmin on his Hatteras 48 LRC. We opted for the Garmin system with a few tweaks my brother-in-law recommended. Our package includes:

GPSMAP 86xx Series MFD (16” in pilot house and 12”on the fly bridge. )
Garmin Fantom Radar
Garmin Panoptix front looking sonar
1000 watt CHIRP transducer
AIS transceiver
Garmin modular VHF
Garmin autopilot
Garmin marine camera in cockpit
Fusion Apollo marine stereo system
NMEA 2000 displays (stateroom and salon)

C&L offers a 10 percent discount and a special labor rate for Scott’s customers.

Click to expand...

Doug,

I think you will be very happy with Garmin. Their service levels are thought of as good. Their chart plotters are pretty intuitive also. I heard an analogy that might fit for Garmin from one of guys in the workshops I was in. He said he viewed Garmin somewhat like Apple, in that the most successful installations with Garmin are those that use all Garmin equipment.

It sounded to me like Garmin doesn’t encourage “mixed” systems and makes it difficult and sometimes impossible to use other vendor products within the system.

They do stop service in sun setted equipment so it might be a good idea to look at where the equipment you are buying is in its’ market life. I ran into that issue with Raymarine and is one of the reasons I won’t use them in the future.

Doug_Snider said:

The Panoptix has its own transducer. The traditional sonar that comes with the MFD requires a transducer. We're adding a third transducer to keep track of our depth at night while at anchor.

We looked at Furono but deferred to my wife's brother who will probably be maintaining our electronics. He highly recommended Garmin over the other choices.

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Thanks for the reply. Please be patient with my confusion, but am interested.

I was wondering about 2, and now its 3.

I understand the Panoptix is the forward looking transducer. Check.

Can that not produce a simple depth reading for the MFD, eliminating the need for the basic transducer?

And what is it causing the need for some different dedicated transducer for an anchorage reading that the other 2 cannot do?

I guess the simple question is, why not just the Panoptix alone and call it day? What is the limitation leading to more?

The PS51 would not cut it as the only transducer for a number of reasons. Reason one is it only shows 2 views for discriminating what is in front of you and not a true downward facing view. Second is because it looks forward only and is susceptible to water aeration and disturbances.

Paired with an additional transducer like a GTM51 you will get traditional, chirp, and side scan.

I have this exact setup on our boat

If you care about side scan and are installing new electronics check out Furunos 3D. I personally don’t need as I don’t fish but the image is cool.

bowball said:

If you care about side scan and are installing new electronics check out Furunos 3D. I personally don’t need as I don’t fish but the image is cool.

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Will do! Could be interesting.

The transducer for the traditional sonar has a wide beam. The Panoptix is a narrow beam intended to show obstructions ahead. The sonar that is built into the MFD does some really amazing things like finding fish and bottom mapping. We went with the forward looking sonar after Scott told us about a 38E that hit a rock and sank. He said that forward looking sonar could have prevented the loss. If it keeps us off the rocks, it is money well spent. Groundings seem to be a frequent occurrence in our waters.