We, I'm finally learning about blogging, thanks to my computer-geek-friend Andy! Since it takes me so long to figure things like this out , he volunteered to get me started. I don't seem to hang out on computers very much, so a lot of this is new to me.

I intend to use this blog to describe our boats, projects we are doing on our boats, and places we go on boats.

Kevin J. Quade

Create Your Badge

We bought Bristol Star, a 1983 Bristol 41.1, in late 2009 from our friend Dave Wright of St. Barts Yachts. She was Dave and Carol's personal boat. Dave and Carol took great care of Bristol Star, but we decided that we want to perform a few updates.

Recently we decided to update all the electronics including the radios. This made it necessary to remodel some of the cabinetry at the nav station to accomodate the new equipment.

I like installing equipment myself, but since we can't get to our boat as often as we like (some of us still have to work), we hired Pete Waterson of Seacoast Marine Electronics to do most of the work. Pete is good at Electronics as well as custom cabinetry. Pete is one of the few guys that can actually take an electronic device apart and fix it. He came highly recommended by several friends.

So far, we have installed all Furuno electronic instruments. These include a MFD 12 chartplotter at the helm station, autopilot, wind, depth and speed instruments. There is a repeater down below. Sirius weather, a fish plotter, and a new radar unit were added too.

We installed two new Icom radios. These are a new M802 SSB, M604 VHF and a Yaesu FT 8900 2M/440 ham radio to make use of the repeaters in the area. A pactor III modem was added as well. We are keeping the Standard Horizon VHF that came with Bristol Star for a back up VHF. The antenna for this back up radio will be installed on the stern antenna tower in case the mast mounted antenna would get damaged somehow.

To install all of this equipment, we needed to change some of the cabinetry. I said to Pete that "I want the cabinetry changes to look like they were installed at the factory, not added later". Pete said "no problem". Pete took on the job and made the changes. They look great.

Pete is also installing a WiFi repeater for us. Since there will be a lot of antennas, we are installing an antenna mast on the stern. Garhauer Marine, which is one of our favorite companies, is making it for us.

Elizabeth from Down East Canvas redid most of our cushions down below. They are looking great. We used a pseudo leather material. I can't tell the difference between the material and real leather except it doesn't do the bad things that leather can do.

Later, we plan to add solar panels and a wind generator too.

Well, we started on the solar panel project. So far we have installed a Sanyo 230w panel on the dinghy davits. Along with this we replaced the three 4D batteries with seven group 31 AGM batteries that we bought from SVHotwire.com. These guys are great if you ever need solar or battery products. later we will put two smaller panels on the Bimini top as well. The Sanyo panels put out so much power because they can make electricity from the top side as well as using reflected light to make power on the bottom side of the panel. Our friend Reg is installing all this equipment. On the Bimini top, we will use the Cyocera panels later.

We are replacing all the tank monitors with the SCAD monitor system, as well as the inverter/charger. We are adding a galvanic isolator soon too.

We have all the instruments in now. We just replaced the 3) 4D batteries with 7) group 31s. We should have enough battery power now! We were able to get them to fit in the place the 4Ds were in. One battery is under the cabin sole too. Hopefully we'll get the solar panel connected soon.