THE FATHOM DRONE HAS ARRIVED

It's an exciting day. I made a post back in 2017 about an underwater drone called the Fathom One. I purchased one sight unseen. In fact it had just graduated from a Kickstarter funding project to the initial development phase when plunked down my money to buy it. Originally the unit was supposed to be available in June 2017. But the development and testing took a little longer than expected.  It finally arrived at my front door today.

I opened the box and attached the three motors to the main body of the drone and put it on the bench. I also wired up the antenna to the WIFI module and attached the tethered cable to it.

I'm charging the Lithium batteries and soon as they are charged I'll give it a bench test.

I have been putting off pulling BIANKA out of the water for the season waiting for this drone to arrive. I want to get at least one under the water test before the sailing season ends. I'll be making a video on the setup and testing of the Fathom drone soon. Stay tuned!

I BOUGHT AN UNDERWATER DRONE

I made a post a few weeks ago about an underwater drone geared toward fisherman that I thought might be useful on board BIANKA if the price was reasonable. Since it is over the one thousand dollar mark I scrubbed that idea. But, doing further research I can upon an alternative underwater drone that was in an acceptable price range for my budget. The only problem is it has not yet hit the market and will not be available until at least June. So placing an order for a non existent product is somewhat a leap of faith. But, I have been there before. Like in 2007 when I decided to convert BIANKA from having a diesel engine to installing electric propulsion. Not a lot of sailboats had done such a conversion at that time. So I had no real models to follow. Though since this drone is considerably cheaper than the EP conversion it is a much better risk. At around $500 the Fathom One drone is the right price for my budget and so I decided to take the leap and buy one sight unseen.
I'm looking at the drone as another tool to have on board not a toy. My primary reason for buying it is to use as a visual check on how BIANKA's anchor is set.  The five hundred dollar price seems worth it if it helps me know that my much more expensive boat is anchored well so I can sleep at night. It can also help me see what the anchor might be hung up on if I sould have trouble raising it. Another use might be to find an item accidently lost over board. Of course it might also be fun to see what lies below the boat too. But, checking the anchor will be it's primary use. I will post more details and show how the Fathom One works out once I have it on board and can test it's abilities. So stay tuned.