[NYCAP123]

Had a feeling you were an old guy. We seem to be the only ones who think of things like practicality.lol. I used to captain a 51 Bertram that never dropped a line in the ocean. New boater/ first boat. Me, I started on a 14 footer.

[FISHTIGUA]

Old...OLD... I'm only 41! (oh I see what you mean) Yeah, nice to meet other ones who's Daddy never let you have an outboard till you rowed until you had arms like a linebacker. Yep, I was that kid holding a line over the side of 13' Whaler getting nothing. My first real fishing job was on a Crabber running 9 strings of 30 pots for the guy who also was Cox (Skipper) of our local Lifeboat (RNLI.UK). Here we have 30' tides twice a day, pretty good fun for a 16 year old collage kid.

Dave

[NYCAP123]

I've got a couple of years on you, but yeah, you're old. These days daddy is buying the kid 30' Cigarettes before they even know what a spark plug is. 30' tides twice a day. Wow. Bet that taught you about spring lines fast.

[FISHTIGUA]

NYCAP123

Oh boy, its fun when the freshmen to our waters come and tie-up along side, come back from the pub from a nice meal and find their boat hanging from the lines 10' above the Marina. See who works in the yard with the only Travelift. Shucks!

[NYCAP123]

Seen that many times, but never even close to that extreme.

[brian eiland]

Originally Posted by NYCAP123

... Sport fishermen are fanatics who salivate at the words blue marlin, and would trade the wife and kids (OK maybe just the wife) for a shot at a swordfish. Dying doesn't matter. Passion!

There are quite a few 'fishing' boat jokes here:

[84far]

NYCAP123 u just seem to be filled with knowledge, so u might know this one . when did the pod come in to play, thats another thing all battlewagons have in common, where the wheel and throttles are located on a pod coming off the console? who ever came up with that needs a medal, it makes reversing a pleasure, even more so with twin screws .

[NYCAP123]

Originally Posted by 84far

NYCAP123 u just seem to be filled with knowledge, so u might know this one . when did the pod come in to play, thats another thing all battlewagons have in common, where the wheel and throttles are located on a pod coming off the console? who ever came up with that needs a medal, it makes reversing a pleasure, even more so with twin screws .

Thanks for the compliment, but I'm continually awed by how little I know. Some things can't help but catch with enough years though. By pod I guess your referring to that box under the wheel in your photo. DK, but I suspect SF captains had something to do with it as with bundling the gears to one side and the throttles to the other. Both situations just make it easier to face aft and operate by feel while backing down. As for timing I'll guess in the late 50's or early 60's. Again though this is just guesswork. You really need someone even older than me.

[Capt J]

I think Rybovich was the first to come out with a pod and "palm beach" controls.

[NYCAP123]

Ibelieve you're right and more info can probably be gotten by googling their history.

[FISHTIGUA]

I skippered one boat that had MicroCommander electronic controls on 92DD's.

No touch. No instinct.

You cannot 'feel' what you are doing, on a proper boat you just know where to place her, even though you are standing back to front and useing the wheel with your bum.

Thats why I like your set-up

Fish

[brunick]

this isn't meant to be mean, but i'm 22

just following the conversation...

[NYCAP123]

Originally Posted by FISHTIGUA

I skippered one boat that had MicroCommander electronic controls on 92DD's.

No touch. No instinct.

You cannot 'feel' what you are doing, on a proper boat you just know where to place her, even though you are standing back to front and useing the wheel with your bum.

Thats why I like your set-up

Fish

Had these on my last ride. Although I prefer the feel of manual controls these are excellant. DK where using the wheel with you bum comes in unless you were walking her, butt I don't think I'll ask. When electronic controls first hit the recreational market around here in the 90's the first couple sets I worked with had no stops so you could go from full speed forward to full speed reverse without feeling anything. My first time using them was spinning into a slip with a 46' Dancer in about 50' between bows with a 3kt. current going across. One of those days you never forget.
The MicroCommanders had a great feel and, if you looked, neutral was where it belonged. Best electronic controls I've used.

[Capt J]

Originally Posted by NYCAP123

Had these on my last ride. Although I prefer the feel of manual controls these are excellant. DK where using the wheel with you bum comes in unless you were walking her, butt I don't think I'll ask. When electronic controls first hit the recreational market around here in the 90's the first couple sets I worked with had no stops so you could go from full speed forward to full speed reverse without feeling anything. My first time using them was spinning into a slip with a 46' Dancer in about 50' between bows with a 3kt. current going across. One of those days you never forget.
The MicroCommanders had a great feel and, if you looked, neutral was where it belonged. Best electronic controls I've used.

I like the feel and detents of the cat, electronic controls. The microcommanders are too soft and detents are too slight for me.

failure #1-I've had two different failures with microcommanders. One yesterday where the flybridge control had no stbd foward, it had neutral and reverse took 5 seconds to engage. Had to replace the control head.

failure #2- was approaching 17st bridge in ft. laud in a 70' azimut, a boat was going very slow through the bridge so I put both engines in neutral 100 yards from the bridge, stbd went into fwd at 1200 rpm's and stayed. I put port in reverse at 1400rpm's, spun the boat there in it's space and started heading back into the port and shut stbd down and assessed the situation. Had to run the boat all of the way up the New River on a busy Sunday blowing 20 knots from the lower station.

I also have lost one set of Man rex/roth controls on a yacht pulling out of the yard. Kept losing port, I'd have foward for a second and then neutral and no fwd anymore

I have lost all throttle on a glenndenning control on a 65' Mckinna. Had to have the FB control head replaced. It reverted to slow idle, but did have reverse, neutral, and foward. Bad news was it was in 4-6' seas. Had to get towed into the inlet for safety reasons. I have also had 2 other glenndenning controls where you'd go to neutral and it would go into reverse and vise versa when they had those recalls on them back in 2003 2004.

Cat controls. I have run lots and lots of boats with these and never have had an issue with them to date.

But I miss the days of Cable controls, you knew when they were stiff and going to fail, although they are a pain to use day in and day out. Hynautic controls aren't bad either and pretty reliable.

[NYCAP123]

Guess they all have their problems, and we've all probably faced most of them at one time or another. Like you I'll take manuals anytime. The cable snaps, sticks or comes lose of the linkage. Maybe a set screw in the controll backs out. Not much else. Easy to deal with and easy to fix. I used to run a 56' LCM with direct linkage. The shifters were 3' bars/handles. You'd put your whole body into it to get it into gear then turn it for throttle. Work in close quarters for a day and it was better than going to the gym.