The Cable Guy

hen we acquired our new project boat, a 1987 Pearson 39-2, it was evident that she was in need of much TLC. Not only had she been sitting forlorn and unloved in a boatyard for a couple of years, but those of her systems that were not original were a couple of decades old. Virtually everything was in need of overhaul or replacement, including her elderly suite of Autohelm sailing instruments dating back to the early 1990s, connected by the original Seatalk network. The speed and depth seemed to work fine, as did the autopilot—as far as I could tell—but the wind transducer at the masthead was frozen and the C80 chartplotter at the nav station was not only in the wrong place but a good 10 years old—a museum piece by modern standards. Oddly, there was one piece of modern tech in place—a Seatalk 1 to Seatalk NG converter—which surprised me, as there was