Starr holds a wide variety of instrumentation. In that many of the instruments in the pilothouse and flying bridge are interconnected it is somewhat difficult to describe the units independently. A number of instruments are connected to the GPS units, so, that is where we will begin.
Chassis Ground Diagra
Counterpoise Connection Diagram

GPS

There are two Northstar GPS units on the boat. The main unit, a 941xd, is located at the navigation station and the second unit, a 951xd, is in the port flying bridge console. They are fully programmable and set up to drive the autopilot as described below. The pilothouse unit is set up with DGPS and can upload and down load waypoints with the computer system. The following notes give a general overview of the interconnections involved: NMEA Connection Diagram NMEA port 1 output A of the pilothouse GPS units goes to a selector switch at the navigation station, right side. From there the signal goes to an NMEA amplifier under the pilothouse console and is then distributed to the small radar, autopilot switch, and to the Nera NMEA connection. The RS-232 output of the pilothouse GPS unit goes to the navigation computer under the main console. From there the computer output goes to the NMEA GPS/CPU switch next to the autopilot brain box. When set to CPU, the pilothouse GPS and the computer system can swap waypoints (COM 2). When set to GPS, the autopilot can receive NMEA data from the GPS unit selected by the switch at the navigation console. This is useful if the pilothouse GPS is having difficulties. The current variation may be found in the navigation software and on the Northstar unit. On the GPS press the "*" button until the "User Customization" screen is displayed. Select the "NAVIGATION OPTIONS" menu options. The variation is found there. On the computer, select Boat Properties to find the variation being used.To upload or download waypoints between the navigation computer (Nobeltec Software) and the pilothouse GPS follow the procedure detailed below: In Nobeltec under Tools Select Options... Uncheck COM 1 in Input Ports and in Autopilot Ports Click OK Under File Click on Upload/Download to GPS... If not selected Select Northstar 941 Select COM 1 Now select the items that you wish to upload/download and do so Select DONE Reselect the COM ports unselected under the Tools/Options menu above IMPORTANT NOTE: The Nobeltec software MUST be running for GPS information to be output to the autopilot (when the GPS switch under the console is in the CPU position). If you do not see GPS information on the large computer, autopilot, or video sounder, check the software first.

AUTOPILOT/STEERING

As you can see above, the Robertson autopilot is fully integrated into the navigation system. There are control heads located in the pilothouse, and the port flying bridge console. Jog levers are located in the pilothouse, the port flying bridge station, and in the aft boat deck control station. Only one unit is active at a time. Steering of the vessel is accomplished through electrically driven hydraulic pump located in the lazarette, or by hand from the wheel in the pilothouse or flying bridge. If the autopilot is engaged you will not be able to steer the boat by hand. To allow hand steering, press the STBY button on a control head or jog lever. There is a rudder angle indicator at all stations. Rudder angle can also be displayed at any of the control heads by pressing the STBY button a second time, which will give you an indication of rudder angle on the remote unit itself. Be aware that pressing the STBY button on a jog lever will toggle between standby and follow-up modes. Always check the indicator lights. The autopilot is 24 volts DC and the rudder angle indicators are connected to 12 volts DC. The electrical connections to the autopilot system are as follows: Main power to the drive motor is supplied directly from the house battery bank via a breaker located on the starboard end of the battery housing in the lazarette. Control power to the autopilot comes from a breaker on the pilothouse 24volt panel. Control power to the drive motor also comes from a breaker on the pilothouse 24volt panel. This line runs from the breaker to a switch located forward of the engine control on the pilothouse console. This switch has two positions, a single light indicating "normal" operation and two lights indicating "fast" operation. There is more than one way to drive the boat using the autopilot. STBY mode is the simplest. This is fine at the two wheels for hand steering or if you like steering with the arrow buttons. For the other stations FOLLOW-UP mode is useful. Press the two arrow buttons at the same time and steer with the small wheel on the autopilot at stations with a control head. With a jog lever, put the system in FOLLOW-UP mode and use the lever to turn the boat. Lever to starboard turns the boat to starboard and vice-versa. AUTO mode is the next, very standard, mode of the system. It is best not to use this mode in confined waters. The reaction time of the system is rather slow. The heading is set to whatever direction the boat is pointing when the AUTO button is pushed. On a control head the heading can be modified by rotating the round knob. To change heading with a jog lever the AUTO mode must be disengaged, the boat steered to a new heading, and AUTO reengaged. The real fun begins when using NAV mode. With all of the various switches that can be set the boat can be driven by either GPS or the navigation computer system. To use NAV mode, select a route on the active GPS system or the navigation computer and press the NAV button on the autopilot. Sometimes the computer and the autopilot take a few moments to sync up. If you see "Valid data not available" on the autopilot, there is no route selected, the switches are not set correctly, or you need to wait for a moment and try again. IMPORTANT NOTE: The Nobeltec software MUST be running for GPS information to be output to the autopilot (when the GPS switch under the console is in the CPU position). If you do not see GPS information on the large computer, autopilot, or video sounder, check the software first. The autopilot has all sorts of neat, whiz-bang ways to turn, reverse course, dodge, make coffee, you name it. Basically, press the STBY button when you want to hand steer. In Nav and Auto modes the wheel will not do anything. One useful option available through the autopilot is the test mode. Some NMEA values received by the autopilot are displayable in this mode. Follow the instructions in the manual. Rotate the knob and examine the values. The proper setup values for the autopilot are as follows: NAV Source GPS 1 POS Source GPS 1 INPUT GPS 1 J300X-1 INPUT GPS 2 J300X-1 INPUT NAV 1 J300X-1 INPUT NAV 2 J300X-1 If you really want to be hard-core you can enter waypoints directly into the autopilot. You will need to change the NAV Source to AP300DLX. The oil reservoir for the steering system is located under the pilothouse console, starboard. There is a supply of ISO 32 hydraulic under the pilothouse steering pump, which may be used to top this off if necessary. Pressure in the reservoir should be checked and maintained at a maximum of 40psi. If the emergency tiller needs to be used, make sure to open the cross over valve found under the swim step in the lazarette to allow the hydraulic ram to move freely. The tiller is wire-tied to the overhead above the steering pump. Since the NMEA data coming to the autopilot can come directly from the computer, the computer must be configured to output NMEA data. This will only be the case when the Nobeltec Visual Navigator Suite is running. An indication that there is something wrong would be a lack of NMEA data being displayed on the video sounder or radar. To bypass the computer, put the autopilot NMEA input switch to GPS. See the diagram in the GPS section. A couple of items to remember. The autopilot supplies directional information to the Nera unit and to the LINK system. It is the only instrument that outputs HDT, which is required by the two systems. In general, leave the autopilot on, even when not underway. If the autopilot is on and the steering motor is off the autopilot will continue to activate the solenoids at the steering motor. For this reason it is best to leave the autopilot in STANDBY mode when not underway. It will not try to steer the boat in this mode.

ALARM SYSTEM

The alarm system is home build, based upon Mitsubishi components, located in the engine room on the forward bulkhead, starboard side. It monitors engines, bilges, fire alarms, and various other switches. There is a remote display in the pilothouse with a siren, a siren on the flying bridge, and a strobe in the engine room. At the displays there are two buttons, the left one will acknowledge an alarm and turn off the siren, and the right button will re-set the alarm once the alarm condition has been resolved. Just press both of them to turn off the very loud alarm. A "General Alarm" can be triggered by holding the right button for more than two seconds. This is a good way to test the system. If the display in the engine room should fade there is too much heat in the engine room. Once an alarm has been re-set the engine room display show a message indicating the need to scroll down. Use the down and up arrows to move the cursor until a "Return to Main" message is displayed and then use the left and right arrows to move the cursor over the plus/minus sign (if needed). Press the plus button to return to the main window, which displays the time and date. Only one alarm at a time can be displayed on the engine room indicator. There is an order to the alarms that determines which one is displayed. As the currently displayed alarm is fixed and acknowledged the next one in line is displayed. The lights in the wheelhouse display an accurate account of which alarms are active or un-acknowledged. There are a couple of special light indications. The DC BATT LOW VOLT indicator has no relationship to a low DC battery condition. Following is a table of alarms and their light indications: All red LED lights lit General Alarm - manually triggered by holding the acknowledge button for two seconds. DC BATT & yellow ENGRM bilge pump running light lit Engine room temperature alarm DC BATT & yellow MIDSHIP bilge pump running light lit Freezer temperature alarm DC BATT & yellow FWD bilge pump running light lit Lazarette bilge alarm The freezer alarm unit is located behind the printer in the pilothouse and is powered by the C-Phone breaker on the 12-volt panel. All other alarms including the engine room temperature alarm unit are powered by the alarm system itself. The display has a variety of other functions and information available. From the main screen (time and date display) scroll down using the down arrow to access a menu to turn the internal fan off and on, a menu which displays which alarms are active, a menu to enable and disable alarms, a section which shows the number of times each bilge pump has cycled since the alarm system was last turned on and below, the number of seconds delay programmed into each bilge alarm. This is really not useful for this boat but it is there. The delay can be modified. Move the cursor over the number that you wish to modify and use the plus/minus keys to modify the values. The same procedure is used to set the time and date. Time and Date Turn fan on/off Fan on/off Return to main menu List active alarms ME Water level ME Oil pressure ME Oil level ME exhaust temperature General alarm Fire alarm Forward generator exhaust Forward generator exhaust AC power loss Freezer temperature Engine room temperature Forward bilge Mid bilge Engine room bilge Lazerette bilge Enable/Disable alarms SEE LIST ABOVE Forward bilge pump cycles Mid bilge pump cycles Engine room bilge pump cycles Forward bilge delay Delay value Mid bilge delay Delay value Engine room bilge delay Delay Value Date & Time

ENVIRONMENTAL DISPLAYS

There are LINK displays in the Crew's stateroom, pilothouse, Master stateroom, and flying bridge. The units in the pilothouse are specific to speed, depth, and wind. The other units can be programmed to display any of the above data. Depth on all of the units should reflect a 2.2' offset to give true depth under the keel. Water and fuel tanks are monitored electronically with a Headhunter system. There are displays in the pilothouse, upper panel, port side, and in the engine room, above and aft of the sink. The following tanks are monitored: 1. Day tank (fuel) 2. Port wing tank (fuel) 3. Forward (fuel) 4. Starboard wing tank (fuel) 5. Black water 6. Fresh water 7. Gray water The port, starboard, and forward fuel tanks taper towards the bottom. Since the monitor simply measures liquid depth, this means that when the display shows half a tank it is really less. This is especially the case on the forward fuel tank. Each tank has a sending unit associated with two displays. A special case, the day tank, has two sending units. The second unit powers a single display mounted on the side of the box above and aft of the engine room sink. This display will give a high level alarm, whereas the other displays give an alarm on a low level condition. These alarms are not connected to the general ships alarm system. The sending units are spread throughout the boat in the following locations: 1. Day tank - both senders are located under the engine room sink 2. Port fuel tank - Access panel in engine room, port side, upper corner, forward 3. Forward fuel tank - Pump room, center, on top of the water tank 4. Starboard fuel tank - Access panel in engine room, starboard, upper corner, forward 5. Black water - Pump room, aft bulkhead, starboard of access hatch 6. Fresh water - Pump room, center, on top of the water tank 7. Gray water - Pump room, aft bulkhead, starboard of access hatch

NERA/INMARSAT B

The Nera B unit consists of a control box, interface box, and power supply found behind the navigation console. Additionally there is a handset at the navigation console and an antenna on the mast. The system allows telephone voice communications and 64k baud data communication. General use and abuse is discussed in the manual but there are a few highlights discussed here. See the basic port configurations in the back of the manual. The phone numbers can be found there too. The C-Phone system can communicate with the Nera unit by dialing "8" on any phone and then the phone number as described below. All regular phone calls start with "00" followed by the country code. Thus a call to the United States would be "001(areacode)(phone number)#". The pound sign initiates the dialing sequence. So, "0012135551212#" would dial a Los Angeles number. The handset gives a template for the required phone number format and some signal strength information. In general there should be three asterisks displayed. Fewer indicate a line-of- sight blockage or lack of satellite connection. If a data call immediately goes from BUSY back to the standard ready screen it is possible that there are no data lines available through the satellite. Dial 001234# and wait for a few seconds. If TERRESTRIAL CONGESTION comes up, no lines. Otherwise a message about HIGH SPEED DATA SERVICE will come up on the phone. This is a loop back test. Nera configuration for data calls is as follows: Set up Service Level FUNC 12 ENTER (if LEVEL not SERVICE) ENTER 5 ENTER 753951 ENTER ESC ESC ESC Hotdial (Klas card dialing mode) from Klas card uses the number stored in shortlist entry 99 FUNC 10 Enter Should see: Stratos 13*28 99 ESC ESC ESC Data enable FUNC 89 ENTER Down Arrow 4 times Should see: HS Data ACTIVE To check on various inputs and signal strength try the following: Latitude and Longitude input (NMEA) FUNC 21 ENTER Should see latitude and longitude displayed ESC ESC ESC Compass input (from autopilot) FUNC 29 ENTER Should see true heading (add or subtract variation from autopilot display) ESC ESC ESC Signal Strength and where the antenna is pointing FUNC 28 ENTER Should see Elevation and Azimuth and signal to noise ratio 400+ is a nice strength 200+ is ok 3x ESC

CAMERA SYSTEM

There are two cameras in the engine room and one in the cockpit that can be viewed in the wheelhouse on the Elbex CCTV monitor. A night vision system also can be viewed on the Elbex monitor, camera 4. The cockpit camera and the aft engine room cameras have speakers that allow reception only. All three cameras tilt and pan but do not zoom. The Night Sight unit has its own tilt and pan controls

RADARS

There are two Furuno radar units on Starr, both located on the pilothouse console. The larger unit has a range of up to 72 miles and the smaller unit to port has a 36-mile range. Additionally, there is a repeater unit for the larger unit on the flying bridge. Both radar units receive and display NMEA information put out by the pilothouse GPS/navigation computer and the larger unit also receives compass input from the autopilot to display course, and displays depth information from the Furuno video sounder. The repeater on the flying bridge is connected to the NMEA output of the flying bridge GPS unit. For proper display of latitude and longitude of targets and waypoints the large radar must be setup to accept MAGNETIC course information. The HDG SNSR menu item in the INSTALL2 menu must be set to MAG.

DEPTH SOUNDERS

There is a Furuno video sounder and a Link depth sounder. In the NAV mode the video sounder will display NMEA information. The depth shown is from the transducer that is about 2' up from the bottom of the keel. The sonar system may also be used as a depth sounder by pointing the transducer straight down. The sonar transducers are mounted just underneath the bulbous bow. There is a speaker that ticks away under the console. Minimum volume on the sonar is still too loud. If no sound comes the speaker has been unplugged from the backside of the control panel under the console. As of summer 2001 the speaker has been left unplugged. The sonar unit output can be viewed on a VGA screen on the flying bridge. Just inside the door under the flying bridge console is a 15-pin connector and box. Plug any computer monitor into this plug. The sonar unit is configured to output VGA signal, 760 x 480. This is the resolution of the Oceanpc monitor in the pilothouse.

RADIOS/LOUD HAILER

The boat carries two VHF radios. One unit is on the flying bridge, port side, and the other in the pilothouse, overhead. There is a SSB radio at the navigation station, in the pilothouse. There are two speakers for the loud hailer system. One is located facing forward, on the mast, the second located in the cockpit. The hailer may receive and transmit on one or both speakers. The front two antennas are for the VHF radios, the port aft antenna is for the cell phone and the starboard aft antenna is for the SSB.

SATELLITE TELEPHONES

The satellite telephone can be used only at the navigation station. It is an American Mobile Satellite package through the service provided by Seven Seas. The internal serial number is 19810301, the number to dial from land is (888) 216-9431 and the number from outside the United States is 1-703-716-7711 then 500-775-1468. There is an integrated C-Phone PBX system on the boat. There are phones in the crew cabin (12), pilothouse (11), salon desk area (13), and the master stateroom (14). Additionally, there are land lines (Dial 9) coming from the bow and stern and a line into the Nera satellite phone system (dial 8). The breaker for the C-Phone is on the 12-volt panel that feeds a junction strip behind the navigation console. The strip also provides power to the stove gas sniffer, the stove, and the freezer temperature alarm sensor. If a second land line is available there are connections in the bow and stern and a phone jack in the pilothouse marked LINE 2. There is also a phone jack for LINE 2 in the crew cabin, on the bottom of the phone. This is useful for computer hookups. Additional phone jacks are located in the crew cabin behind the stereo and behind the TV in the salon.