gps/chartplotter

Hello all wise trawler owners that frequent trawler forum.com, *just was looking for some input on buying a new chartplotter for our 38'marine trader. The current gps on board is very dated and needs to be replaced (garmin 210) Looking foward to any suggestions and thank you all very much as always....brett

If you go with a dedicated plotter the only brand worth considering in my opinion is Furuno. Particularly if you want to have a radar and plotter function in one instrument.

There are some good Garmin plotters out there but if money was no object I would never take one over a Furuno. We will be installing a new GPS plotter on our 17' Arima sometime before our next halibut fishing trip next spring but we won't go with Furuno for that--- it would be way overkill. But for a "real" boat, I thing Furuno is head and shoulders above everything else in terms of reliability, functionality, and product support/factory service.

If you want to go the laptop computer-based route (or iPad or iPhone or whatever) I have no suggestions for you because we won't use anything like this on our boat.

Having had many different brands (including Furuno) of plotters since 1995 (I'm addicted to chart plotters/radars/sounders) My choice would be Garmin. Although it is true that most professional skippers use Furuno, from a recreational boater's point of view you will find Garmin to be the most user friendly. (Intuitive) Even though they are very friendly, most people will never use all the bells and whistles they employ. You will find an excellent Garmin in all price ranges.

Garmin | Products

BrettonJohn:* What boat are you looking to add a GPS/Chartplotter to?**We have been PC based for the last 12 years.* We have the room for the laptop so that is what we are familiar with and like.*

If you are going to interface multiple inputs to your plotter look at compatibility.* The new standard is NMEA 2000 and all cabling and connectors are*not created equal.* We*installed a*Simrad autopilot this summer (NMEA 2000).* It would accept NMEA 183 but the converter was $100.00 from Simrad.* We then had some issues with the heading sensor and the*Furuno radar (NMEA 183).

Larry/Lena
Hobo KK42
La Cruz, Nayarit, MX***

sorry guys i should have given you more info in the beginning, yes just a chartplotter because the radar was just replaced when we bought the boat, and both deph sounders are in good working order. one thing that has been new to us on this boat the charts are getting alot of good use without a proper gps/chartplotter on board (not such a bad thing) funny how you get used to technology and depend on it (too much sometimes) thank you all for your help again

brett

Here's another endorsement for Garmin. Very user friendly and mine has been reliable

jleonard wrote:

here's another endorsement for garmin. Very user friendly and mine has been reliable

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x2

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I have used PC based charting since my days of sail. So as to avoid weatherproofing my PC, I bought a chart plotter for up on the flybridge. It came with built-in charts that were no better than the little globe sitting on the mantlepiece at home, so I paid the extra for the C-Map chip for this local area. By comparison, the C-Map are less than half the detail of the CHS charts the PC uses. I have seen our track go over land on the C-Map, never on the CHS charts. If you can get a chart plotter that uses your CHS (in Canada) or equivalent charts, you might be happy with the performance. I am not. That and the screen size. My PC has a 15 inch screen.

I paid less than one boat buck for my little plotter and its C-Map charts. The Capn program and the CHS charts together are less than one boat buck, and I already have a PC with me for other reasons, so I don't count that in the cost of charting. To get a big screen Chart Plotter will cost you considerably more than a PC system, and you may still be using deficient charts. The later versions of the Nav program will also drive your auto pilot and display depth and radar, if you want. I believe the other PC program will do all those things too, for roughly the same price as a decent Chart Plotter.

None of the above discusses brand name. You get what you pay for in the various brand names.

-- Edited by koliver on Wednesday 10th of November 2010 09:25:25 AM

I was in the same quandary when I bough my boat (CHB Ponderosa 42) earlier this summer.

Depth was DOA and GPS dated. I went with the Garmin 740. The touch screen is great and I bought a second mounting station so I can move it from helm to fly bridge. With built in antenna (that works with no issue inside), NEMA 2000, the ability to add radar and other MFD goodies it was the unit for me.

For $1,500 plus transducer I am more than satisfied. The 740 comes loaded with charts and are great. No need (IMHO) to get the 3g chart chips.

Whats a boat buck?

Sailor of Fortune wrote:

Whats a boat buck?

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$1000

the smallest unit of money anything for the boat usually costs.

*

One boat buck = One boat unit = $1,000.

My vote for chart plotter would lean to NN3 if you are thinking of radar now or later. If no radar needed, just be sure your new Garmin etc is "expandable" for* nmea 2000 and AIS.

Sailor of Fortune wrote:

Whats a boat buck?

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We've have always gone by the Boat buck or Boat unit as:

Break Out Another Thousand (BOAT)

Larry/Lena
La Cruz, Nayarit, MX*

For me, a "boat dollar" is a five dollar bill, used mostly for tipping.* A "boat unit" is $100.00.

As for a plotter suggestion, like many others, I favor Garmin.* I installed and networked two Garmin 5208 plotters and a GSD 22 depth sounder on my boat.

One nice feature of Garmin is their "HomePort" software for $30.00 that allows you to copy the charts from your plotter, view them on your home PC, create routes and waypoints, and then upload them to the plotter.

i went to west marine today and they had a garmin 740s model on the floor, what a cool unit! after having my hands on it i will have to have one! thank you again

I like the SIMRAD plotter and radar(broadband) and one good reason...the plotter is build in New Zealand.... not China. ...............Better quality of product

brettonjohn wrote:"I went to west marine today and they had a Garmin 740s model on the floor, what a cool unit! after having my hands on it I will have to have one! thank you again."

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I did the same thing, yesterday, and played with the 740 for about 45 minutes.
The graphics on the unit is super and the re draw, etc; is really fast. One big
surprise I got was when the salesperson told me that the unit has no video
inputs. I find this very hard to believe so if anyone out there has one and can
confirm/deny this statement, I'd appreciate it. (I suppose I should Google
it but am very lazy as of this writing.)

I also checked out the Simrad NSE (NorthStar Edition) and was very impressed.
It's really "intuitive" and lightning fast. Definitely worth a look. *


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-- Edited by SeaHorse II on Friday 12th of November 2010 08:22:47 PM

brettonjohn wrote:

i went to west marine today and they had a garmin 740s model on the floor, what a cool unit! after having my hands on it i will have to have one! thank you again

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If you have more than one helm, you will want plotters for each and plotters that can be networked together and with a depth sounder.*

-- Edited by rwidman on Saturday 13th of November 2010 10:22:11 AM

I bought the Garmin 4210 with the Blue Chip and GSD 22 sounder. The screen is a nice size and the unit is simple to get to know. It will accept radar, weather and can handle two video feeds. I have one camera so far facing the stern and will put the second camera in the engine room. I think this unit will even scramble your eggs in the morning!!! Now let me see....where did I read that? I only have the one unit on the fly bridge since we have never used the lower helm but I can always add another compatible unit there if needed.

Why use a chartplotter if all you need is GPS? Go for a laptop set up and save a ton of $$ and get better charts and easier updates. I use a macbook at our lower helm with MacENC and love it thus far. I am hardwiring a 15" flatscreen for the bridge and have a wireless mouse that will work the macbook from the bridge so I can control everything from the bridge. Much cheaper, better charts it seems, quicker updates, larger screen...so far seems win-win for me.

OR better yet, have both a plotter and a laptop. None of the plotters can match a laptop based program for speed and ease of plotting a course. But laptops are no good for radar in comparison to a nice bright plotter's screen.

I have run a stand alone radar and a laptop with gps for years... as long as you have the space why not?. I use SeaClear and download the Noaa charts for the area... it works great. I also have an additional charting program that has all the charts from all over the world... it has great plotting, waypoint features etc, it does suffer on inland rivers... that is where seaclear really shines. You would need to spend 3 grand to get the clarity and screen size i have with this setup. This year I added a verizon air card and the suite is complete.... with the exception of now I need to add AIS!...... the fun never stops!

I am in the process of changing the electronics in my new boat.... I am going to add a Garmin 640 as it will fit into the dash that the old Raynav chartplotter fits into....anybody used a G640 ?
HOLLYWOOD

I agree- for radar I'd have a dedicated screen for it. However, for just GPS, as others stated, you just can't beat the features, clarity, chart quality, and screen size of a laptop system. If I was using a PC for it I would probably get a small netbook or inexpensive laptop and never connect it to the internet except for chart download for fear of viruses. Luckily, I'm running Mac so I don't have to worry about viruses so I can add internet access and email to the features of my GPS. Heck, I can watch youtube while chartplotting without any danger of crashing everything.

superdiver wrote:

I have no such electronics on my boat yet... still doing it the old fashioned way with the paper charts...

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Well there's nothing wrong with that.* A lot of boaters went--- and still go---*a lot of places totally successfully with paper charts alone.* We use paper charts every time we go out and built a chart board to sit next to the helm station.* In my opinion, nothing beats paper charts for getting the big picture fast.* And the US Navy taught my wife to*read and use charts and*it *wouldn't be right to let that expensive taxpayer-funded training go*to waste,*right?**We'd*have the ancora app raggin' on us in a heartbeat if we did.

We also have a Furuno NavNet VX2 radar/plotter (we did not get the depth finder option), and an Echotec GPS plotter.* (We have a Furuno Loran-C, too,*but now that*that system's been shut off we have to figure out what to put in its place in the panel.)

I stated earlier in this discussion that in our opinion, Furuno is the only worthwhile*way to go for radar and we think it is for plotters, too, if one is looking for an integrated system.* The computer-based navigation apps have come a long way in a short time, but navigating a boat on an iPhone screen is not anything we're interested in doing.* An iPad screen would be more acceptable.

As far as laptop-based systems go, I've had enough experience with Microsoft operating systems over the years--- everything we have at work uses them--- to know that I don't want to trust my actual well-being to anything written by the Micrsoft Kids.* Why layer one computer system--- the plotter--- on top of another one and a shaky one at that?* So we've got no use for the laptop based nav applications as slick and user-friendly as they are.

If you go with Furuno I don't think you'll be disappointed.* I haven't looked at their NavNet 3D so I don't know if it's worth it or not.* Since our NavNet VX2 is relatively new we have no reason to be shopping for anything different at this time.



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-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 15th of February 2011 08:09:22 PM

Marin wrote:If you go with Furuno I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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I believe Furuno's radar & fish finders are the best but their chart plotters are not
all that intuitive. (User friendly) This does not mean that the bells & whistles are
inferior to other brands, but rather somewhat more complicated. Pros love their
chart plotters but pros are out there using them almost every day. One of my
passions (I have three) is reviewing and operating most of the MFD units that
come on the market. Without question, I find the higher end Garmin units to
be very intuitive and the graphics will blow you away! Garmin's radar &
fish finders are "OK" but nowhere near the quality of* Furuno.



*

I wouldn't go past a PC based plotter system. (small foot print PCs for space saving)
They have so much more capacity, re tracks, waypoints etc are faster and you can run the screen size of your choice.
I have been running PC based plotters on my boat for the last 16 years and swear by them.
Have used various systems, Nobeltec for the last 5 years and previously Tsunami, and TMQ C Plot.(an Australian commercial system)
All very good, not free but then in my opinion you only get what you pay for.

I also don't like screen sharing so have dedicated units so that they can all be visible at once using full screen.
Plotter, radar, sounder. AIS is on the plotter.
Also keep the boat computer internet free.

Marin,
I see you have an Echotec plotter, used to have an Echotec sounder the best dam sounder I have ever used, CRT screen so a bit bulky, updated to a Furuno FCV 585 good sounder but still on the original transducer so this may be a performance drawback.

Benn

Tidahapah wrote:

Marin,
I see you have an Echotec plotter, used to have an Echotec sounder the best dam sounder I have ever used,

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Our boat didn't have a GPS plotter at all when we bought it, just a Furuno Loran-C.* So we installed the plotter not long after acquiring the boat in 1998.* At that time the Echotec 310MP was considered by the commercial fishermen in our area to be the best thing going.* Compared to today's plotters, it is not the most user-friendly interface--- you don't store waypoints and then combine them into*routes, for example,*you have to draw out each route separately.* But we still use it all the time along with our relatively new Furuno NavNet VX2.*

We generally split the Furuno screen between the radar on top and the steering information screen on the bottom.* We use the Echotec screen for the chart even though the Furuno's chart display is world's nicer than the Echotec's green-screen.* But we always run with the relevant paper charts at the helm, too, so we can get a better graphic view of the area*than the green screen.* And if we want a better chart display we can always switch the Furuno over.* But the Echotec has been a very reliable unit for us and it still works as advertised*so we see no reason to get rid of it.

*

Paper Charts - Yes they are important, but PCs and chart plotters rule the waves. Ipads and*their clones with built in GPS and the ability to install charting programs are a rational alternative for second units. *An Ipad's screen is bigger than my "in thedrawer" Raymarine chart plotter of only a few years ago.*

Lest you get to fast on the send button, I bet I have invested more money than most in paper charts over the past few years.

PS....before you put all your biscuits in the Apple basket. I am pretty sure all Apple products(I know iphone...don't know about iPad) use aGPS instead of true GPS. I may be wrong. But I do know the older iPhones did not use a dedicated GPS radio at all. They simply used the cellphone network and wifi hotspots to determine position...aGPS. Maybe the newer iProducts have a dedicated radio??? Just something to look into before you go feeling around in the fog.

And if you are truly going to rely on a device for navigation, I would rely on the folks that make navigation hardware and software as their main business. *Nothing wrong with having computer based software. *I would also have dedicated equipment on board as well. *I go across all consumer spectrums with this philosophy. *I buy sunglasses from Serengetti or Ray Ban....not Calvin Klein or Louis Vuitton. *Garmin makes a cellphone!!!!......I would never buy it.....but I would certainly buy their navigation hardware....you get the picture.


-- Edited by Baker on Friday 18th of February 2011 10:21:45 AM

And all the commercial vessels use computer based chart plotter systems.
and have done for years.
And you won't find a Apple among them.
Benn


-- Edited by Tidahapah on Friday 18th of February 2011 03:48:06 PM