Camera fun

I have posted previously one shot from the Axis camera system on board. Yesterday I got to use them while driving the boat for my first time! We had a pretty extensive sea trial to accomplish. 

I found it quite useful to have a nice large display of what is behind us, while running. Here I'm driving through the Montlake cut.  Very cool!

That's Steve D'Antonio (www.stevedmarineconsulting.com).  He is conducting one of his reviews on our boat. I'll have more about that in upcoming posts. 

The two ER cameras were really helpful doing our various tests. Steve would tell me certain things to do with the boat, and observe in the ER. We had a little signal system. Worked great and saved a lot of time. 

Both side decks are monitored as well. Using the Axis software on the PC, these cameras can record basically anything. And you can even set up zones, for example outline the side deck area, and it will record if there is movement there, but not people walking by on the dock.

Ladies and gentleman, yours truly docked Mahalo for the very first time! 

(Well, with some expert help from Robert Fiala of HYG.)  As I slowly thrustered onto the dock, the port side deck camera was amazingly helpful. We could really see exactly where I needed to be. Most of the time on Hamptons you would do this from the cockpit driving station. But when you are back that far you lose sense of where the bow is. 

Perhaps with the camera we can do more docking from the pilothouse. 

Although I didn't show it, you can display any of the cameras together on the screen in basically infinite ways.

It was a great first day!