I now have access to the boat's camera system, from my phone! So while sitting in my home office, I selected the PTZ in the cockpit, rotated it to look at this area, while watching live video. Then snapped this picture.
Technology is cool, eh?
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The couches and chairs are made here in the USA. Now delivered! Also all of our cushions for exterior areas are in and look great. Cushion for my desk chair didn't fit, boo hoo. Really wonderful screens for all three doors on the main deck. When they are tucked away you can hardly see them. Take that, you damn bugs. DCS BBQ. Room for mouse and keyboard. I neglected to spec these items and so this is what we are starting with. I will swap these out for something smaller. No need for a numeric keypad. I saw a really cool Logitech unit with integrated track ball at the boat show this spring. But anyway, main point is, my strategy of leaving open space at the helm really worked. Oh and hey now, that's a Maretron screen being displayed on the Garmin MFD. Sweeet! I didn't go crazy with Maretron monitoring, it is so easy to add new items. But all the tanks, the batteries, the pumps and so on will be monitored. Someone gave me the idea of monitoring the freezer temperature. If it stopped working for some reason we could lose hundreds of dollars of food, not to mention the food itself. I also added a sensor for the swim step lazarette door, so I can know whenever leaving the dock/anchorage that this door is closed. This is a super basic screen, we will make it all pretty. The happy boat owner to be. We get so many compliments on the reverse rake front windows. Really suits this boat.
Work is going on all over the boat. Most vendors are trying to get done by the third week of June. A lot of work is going on under the helm area. The Yacht Systems NW guys (www.yachtsystemsnw.com/) really appreciate the large access door we built. That blue taped area is where we will put the remote mounted mic's for the two radios. Note the spaces on each side of the Garmin displays. Each side will get a computer display. More on this below. Icom radios are in! Although most of our electronics are Garmin, Icom radios are the best in the business. The one on the right is their new flagship, the 605. It can handle two remote mic's, which are full functionality, including intercom back to this main unit! One of the remote mic's will go right here in the flybridge. Hey, that's me drilling my first hole in the boat! Something says it won't be my last. The other remote mic will be located in the man cave, er, lazarette, so I can listen to VHF when working down there, and also be able to intercom up to the PH or flybridge. There are various locations where we have these Garmin GMI-20 displays (the one on the left). They can be configured to display just about anything, and you can switch from "page to page" with the buttons. Here we have a wind speed/direction feed. The flybridge hardtop already has a plethora of antennas! The one at the very top (sorry about cutting it off a bit) is the Garmin wind unit. Comrod VHF antennas. Radars are in. Ready for the domes! Regarding the two helm PC displays I mentioned above. They are going to be driven by an Intel NUC (Next Unit of Computing). That's it on the right! Tape measure there for size comparison. This is an i7 PC with a 512gb SSD. I'm not sure I have ever seen one of these in person? Incredible! We will use the PC displays for the Maretron monitoring, Coastal Explorer, and camera displays. I sent this picture to my techy twenty-something son and he said "That's sick, dad!" So if you want to impress a millenial, when you think something is "cool," say "oooh, that's sick!" Every system and component must be tested, even the appliances. I have never had an induction cooktop before, but I'm looking forward to it. Brought one of our new pots over and tested all the burners. OMG these things can heat up so fast (boiled water in about a minute). Down in the lazarette, the custom built freezer (from www.seafreezeinc.com/) has been located in the space we built for it. The condenser unit is remotely located in the cabinet you see below with the louvered doors. (Trim and door not mounted yet). This is a 24v for efficiency, and not a frost free type unit for superior long term storage. Finishing up today's post in the engine room. There's quite a bit going on in there as well. HYG doesn't approve of the standard exhaust blanketing provided in China. So they have blankets custom made by West Coast Insulation and Waterjet ( www.wcinsulation.com/). They look spiffy in black too. It's this kind of extra attention by HYG that makes owning a Hampton such a great experience.
More next week I'm sure. Can't wait to get back on the boat and see the progress. If you have read the "who we are" page you know that the bulk of my experience in large trawlers is on my friend's 70' Delta. I have been crewing regularly on this boat since 2001 and have over 7,000 ocean miles. His favorite place in the world is Alaska and this year he is doing an extended tour. He is now over in the Kenai peninsula area. This year for the first time he bought a drone, and he's quickly mastering it. Today I'm sharing one of his videos, a favorite place of his, College Fjord. Gorgeous footage. And the yacht ain't bad either! A few blog readers that are interested in possibly owning a Hampton have been in touch with me. I was speaking on the phone yesterday with one and he said "are you really as happy with everything as it seems, reading your blog?" I have to say that I kind of downplay how stoked we are. I don't want to seem like a "fanboy." But things are GOOD! I think today I'll give you a few more glimpses of what it is like being at the factory in Shanghai. The factory is a very modern building with all the necessary departments, offices, conference rooms and so on. That building in the back is Hampton's "dorm." Workers can stay here for free, and meals are provided. Just to give you a little perspective on the size of the buildings. That's Robert Fiala, the managing partner of HYG Seattle. One of the advantages of being at the factory is designing various elements in real time. This is one of the standard masts offered, but it only has room for one radar. As we have two, we got to decide exactly how it would be made. Left to right, factory owner Jeff Chen, Scott Hauck of Seattle, the guy that makes the masts (!), and foreman Lu Wenquan. When we got to the boat, they had already finished out the area under the kitchen sink. We plan to put a garbage can there, so we did a quick redesign with old fashioned binder paper. For all the important stuff, CAD drawings are created. Lu is a CAD master! We would often talk about some modification, and literally minutes later we had a new printout. This shot is kind of random, but as I was going through my images for this post, I realized I never mentioned the cedar lined closets before. Awesome. There is a mix of modern and old tools around the factory. This one is a beauty. Giving the turtle ohana some love. All the granite and marble was sealed and polished at the factory. Yaay, one less thing for us to do. Checking out the beautiful veneers made at the factory. One of the first things we did during the April visit was go through every line in the specifications contract and our change notices (only 3!). Scott Hauck suggested this. It's great having someone like him looking out for our best interests. We indeed found a few items that had been missed, which the factory quickly rectified. We found the Chinese to be very agreeable, gentle, and quick to laugh. They all got a kick out of my t-shirt. What's it say? Hey, it's not my fault if you can't read Mandarin!
There's a lot more I could say about the factory experience. I hope some of you can experience it yourself. As always many thanks to Jeff Chen and everyone at the HYG factory. |
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