Priority electronics?

[Spinner]

PNW cruising, single-handed:

Chart plotter and A/P and Radar and depth sounder and VHF (mounted and hand-held) and InReach
AIS (send and receive) and accurate compass
PLB
Remote for my bow and stern thrusters
Wind Instruments

 

[Transaxial]

To me, #1 is actually a group of devices for any sort of cruising. They are like heart, lung, brain. You need them all, and without one you are dead. Now of course you won't die without these things on your boat, but I consider them minimum equipment.



So my group 1, must have minimum equipment would be:


GPS and Plotter
Depth Sounder
VHF radio


Then is priority order, and this might vary based on where you cruise...


Radar
Autopilot
EPIRB / PLB
AIS
Wind Instruments
Remote Camera(s)


I think the only things on the list that I would consider "optional" would be Wind and Remote Cameras.

Interesting thread and thanks for posting everyone. I come from the totally inexperienced end of the spectrum here but have been keenly interested in what I "think I need" based on lots of reading and talking to locals. Always better to have more tools in the box! My boat is located in the rocky waters of Vancouver Island and my interest is heading north up the coast. One of the first things I think about is running into rocks that could be absolutely anywhere/everywhere. In fact there is a huge rock (Oregon Rock) less than 100 yards from my slip right in the main entrance channel that claims half a dozen boats yearly. Forward scan sonar with a shallow water alarm set seemed like a really important piece of equipment for cruising in this part of the world. Just wondered why that one hasn't come up in this list. I am certainly not rich but for $600 as part of a Simrad package it seemed like a necessity. My boat had 40?? year old radar, auto pilot and depth sounder which worked so I am leaving them as backup. I agree with the "package" concept and like the idea of redundancy where it does not break the bank. Not in any order but part of the package I have is 2 MFDs networked with GPS and Navionics charts, 2 specialty transducers (HW chirp and Totalscan), and 3G radar with overlay. The main depth sounder is linked to an old commercial MFD stand alone unit. I have an old VHF radio and would like to add a new DCS and AIS capable VHF as the main radio. What would be a good alternative to VHS when in the remote waters of northern BC and Alaska? And a source of weather info like Sirius? I added a good backup cam and really like it as my visibility is almost zero to the back. The boat has a good compass and a barometer. I added a hydraulic bow thruster and find it makes turning the 6 foot deep keel in tight quarters quite enjoyable. For the odd time when you have to run late to make harbor in these log infested waters, I wondered about adding a couple 1000 watt halogens that could run off the genset. Also could I add a new Simrad RPU160 auto pilot and AP42 controller to my existing Wagner hydraulic system to utilize the tracking features of GPS and still have the Wagner as a backup?

Thinking about ranking the importance of all these tools is difficult without knowing the circumstance. They all play an important part of navigation at different times, when one works better than another, but using all the components together you have more information which seems to be the way to make the best decisions.

 

[angus99]

“All I ask is a large iPad and a battery to charge her by.”

(with apologies to John Masefield)