Sea Trials: PASSED! Exceeded Expectations...

by Wallis & Gill

This January 2024, the 66 meter fishing boat
HUYU 907 (MMSI 701006733) left the port of Mar del Plata Argentina, and headed out into the infamous southern atlantic for a full season, about 5 months, of calamari fishing under Captain J. L. Gabbin.  Gabbin recently got back to us and reports:

Hola... bueno el equipo funcionó bien, estos 5 meses, se banco vientos por arriba de los 45ns, lluvia, Frío y todas las inclemencias del mar, en alguna oportunidad se tildaba el software, que reseteando el sistema salió funcionando de inmediato, habrá pasado 10 veces en 5 meses, como sugerencia, en el campo que figura la velocidad del viento tendría que estar en un color más llamativo, por los demás todo bien, saludos.

(Translation from spanish)

Hello... the equipment worked well. During these 5 months it endured winds over 45 knots, rain, cold and all the inclement weather conditions of the ocean. The software sometimes froze up and we had reboot. This happened about 10 times in 5 months. As a recomendacion the wind speed velocity in the virtual instrument we were using should be more prominently displayed. Everything else is fine. Cheers.

Years of Testing Paid Off

We had previously fully tested for extreme marine environments and had broken many early R&D models and even production units. We really expected to have to replace the anemometer cups and/or wind vane for sure. And even felt that the conformally coated external electronics or the less exposed WiFI electronics package might fail during a whole fishing season in the South Atlantic. Of course any failure, mechanical or otherwise provides very valuable product improvement data. But, as far as physical environmental resiliency goes, the years of prior testing and prolonged exposure to the elements, starting out with humble full submersion tests in salt water buckets has paid off. And the Hummer mast top wind sensor has passed the sea trials!

Work Needed

As reported by Capt. Gabbin, we need to work on making the microcontroller software/firmware more reliable and reduce the 10 reboots in 5 months to much less (like 0, if possible). We already have started a software quality assurance process review and unit testing design so we can also stress test this part of a wind data sensor package. Most of the issues at this time seem to be limited to the WiFi and built in virtual Websocket instruments. The NMEA2000 (Marine version of CANBUS) subsystem may well be much more stable.

Near Future

We will provide Capt. Gabbin with a NMEA2000 multi function display (MFD) and a complete Openplotter OpenCPN/Kip instrument and navigation system if he so chooses for future trials.

Fair winds and following seas!