Finding a place to mount all our navigation equipment has taken some measure of doing. Calypso’s chart table is a stand up one, with more than half of it tucked under the side deck.

Our navigation equipment runs to the electronic. Between the VHF radio, the AIS transponder, the GPS unit, and the tridata (wind, speed, and depth), there’s a whole lot of gear that needs to fit in a small space - plus we need to be able to see a lot of it when we’re in the cockpit. Don’t forget the iPad for charts. What to do?

The tridata is easy: one head is installed on the starboard bulkhead in the cockpit. Yes, we have a second head which we have yet to mount permanently down below, but at least we can see it when underway.

The VHF base is tucked under the deck; the external command microphone plugs into the cockpit and has a set of commands on the mic, meaning we don’t need to be at the base to do things like change channel or volume.

The AIS transponder similarly is tucked into the chart table area; we don’t need to access it really at all.

Then, we added a radar. Which needs a chart plotter. Which also needs to be mounted. But where?

We’ve really loved the solution for the iPad (a mount that attaches to the dodger frame.) It’s a bit like a mount you might use in your car to hold your phone, with pressure sides that snugly hold the device at an angle you can control. We’ve especially liked that the mount makes the device removable; as opposed to finding a permanent spot somehow in the cockpit and worrying about things like rain or theft, we can just move the pad down below, no screwdrivers required.

The chart plotter is quite a bit heavier than the iPad, plus it needs to be wired into place. This means some kind of mount in the cockpit, under the dodger, isn’t really feasible. As we’re a tiller boat, we don’t have a binnacle space for a NavPod. Mounting the plotter below would make using it while underway an exercise in a lot of up and down the companionway, not especially ideal in tight navigation situations.

Our friends Wendy and Johnny on Luna, a Kelly Peterson 34, are in a similar pickle. Small boat, limited bulkhead space, modern navigation technology. They showed us what they’ve done - a foldable arm Ram mount.

We’ve loved Ram mounts for a long time. We’ve used them for phones in the car, the GPS and iPad on the boat. I think we incorporated some of the mount solutions they offer into our barbecue set up on board. I can’t believe we hadn’t considered them for the chart plotter, but maybe it was a matter of needing to see it to even be able to envision it.

The company offers mounting solutions of all kinds. You can start with what you’re clamping on TO, like a rail or a flat surface. You can start with what you’re trying to mount, like a GPS or a chart plotter. You can buy ready-to-go kits that include the bracket as well as the mount, or you can build your own with components. The choices can be overwhelming, I’m not going to lie.

Jeremy bought a double arm kit for our plotter, emulating what Luna has, though he wasn’t completely excited about how much vertical space it took up inside the boat. A few iterations of fit and test fit again, we realized that by moving the paper towel holder from its bulkhead space in the galley, we can fit a securely mounted block in just the perfect place to be able to use just one of the arms that came with the kit. The chart plotter can swing into position to be visible easily from the cockpit, yet swing away neatly without impinging on head space in the galley.

No photo yet, in large part because it’s not set up yet. I’ll add one here when it’s all installed!