Ahoy fellow cruisers!
There is no better way to kick off the new Pimp My Boat series than by telling you about our cinema & entertainment system onboard Nuvem Mágica 🍿🌤️.
2️⃣ Two setups#
If you are like us, you will be hosting friends non stop. After all, happiness is only real when shared 🙂 . In addition to the joys of sailing and fishing, we added some entertainment options.
📽️ Trampoline boat theater#
This one looks really cool and shows the versatility you can get on a catamaran.
How we achieved this result:
- We used a halyard and lines passing through the spinnaker blocks to create the points of tension to keep the necessary screen vertical;
- We installed the Canopee to give the whole setup a a bit of a cozy feel;
- This setup works best at nighttime ✨, but putting a bedsheet behind the screen gives it an additional layer to reflect the light, so that you can start your session earlier in the day 😉.
- We passed the projector cable through the portlight next to the nav station…
- …And used the steps to the mast as a base for the projector.
The drawback of this approach is that it takes a bit of time to set up and you can only use it in lightwind.
A lot of folks ask us about the projectors we use and how good the resolution is.
However, the reality is that there is a more important feature: lumens. A lumen is a measure of brightness emitted from a light source, like your projector. You want to look for the white and the color lumens of your projector. In general, the higher the better, because you want to be able to see the picture clearly.
A good screen will also help reflect the light in a way so that you get better picture quality. We started with a cheap (20€) Amazon cloth screen but, since then, we’ve upgraded to one of these and works much better.
We got a Cosmos Max projector from Nebula. Since then, they have released the Cosmos Laser 4K (see a table comparison here). We believe both of these offer the best bang for your buck 💸. They are also packed with good speakers, which adds to the overall quality of the experience 🔉
🎞️ Cockpit weather-protected film station#
After we used the trampoline boat theather a few times, we realized that (1) the time needed to set everything up and (2) the requirements for good and calm weather days were limiting our ability to use our cinema setup. Thus, we sought a new solution, this time in the cockpit/external saloon area.
We are very excited about the new setup we have in the cockpit. It is much easier to handle, is more sheltered (can be fully protected from the elements) and makes use of the couch area!
💡 How we use our setups#
🍿 Watching Movies#
It feels so good, on one of those lazy nights (once we feel we got the best out of our anchorage/marina nighttime activities), to just make some popcorn, sit back and relax while watching a good movie 🍿.
💃🏽 Dance parties#
One of our crew’s and guests’ favorite passtime is to shake that money maker! by playing “Just Dance”. Pairing a Nintendo Switch with the projector has enabled us to host some fun parties and run some Mario Kart tournaments, another croud favorite 😀.
🕹️ Game nights#
For the young and the grown, gaming brings folks together! Game nights become especially useful when you have to entertain lots of kids 👧🧒👦.
🍹 Extending the hangout space#
By creating a secondary entertainment space in an area that often is just dark and empty, we extend our hang-out space to the full extent of the catamaran. We have had parties with 50+ people onboard and it worked because of this (although it was slightly funny/terrifying to watch the waterline… keep those hatches closed!)!
🤿 Reliving scuba dives together#
This is something we only started doing recently and we love it! After a dive with friends, we popped up the projector and went through our action cameras’ footage, sharing all the fun stuff that we saw. This is a perfect way to include folks that couldn’t make it to the dive.
🔮 Future upgrades#
We are pretty restless when it comes to thinking of new ways to make our spaces more multifuncitonal, ergonomic and useful, leveraging all the bits and bobs we have available.
One of the things we know we want to do is to route an optical audio cable from the projector to the Fusion speakers. This will enable us to have Nuvem Mágica’s sound system on full blast to watch our movies. Why we need this? Well, right now, we’d have to use Bluetooth and, unfortunately, it adds a delay to the streaming, which creates an issue when watching a film (OK when listening to music though).
That’s it! We hope you enjoyed learning about how you can augment your boat space with fun stuff for all.
Until then 🖖