Electronic suite replacement

As many others we use our two depth transducers to find out which side of the boat has deeper water. Has been useful in the ICW so far.
Our thought with the side scan sonar was to extend what we see from a single point of data to a picture of whats on either side giving us more information as to depth on either side.

No Mast said:

4712: what is it that leads you to feel that Garmin is more geared to day boaters?

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I can tell you that.

Garmin did and still sells a line of almost portable and hand held plotters. I have one on my snow machine. I had a little 3" plotter with intergal antenna on my first boat.

Garmin has since had seemingly great success with its larger plotters, and in my opinion seeing the equipment on the docks has gained significant acceptance and market share with the larger boats, and the commercial market as well.

Furuno, Raymarine, Simrad, Sitex have always competed for the commercial and large boat market. They have really never produced small screen products geared towards the trailer boat, ATV, and backpacking markets.

Thanks Ksanders. I was curious, because the full suite I saw running at the boat show was certainly as complete (first impression) as those of the other major manufacturers. That explains it thou.

No Mast said:

Thanks Ksanders. I was curious, because the full suite I saw running at the boat show was certainly as complete (first impression) as those of the other major manufacturers. That explains it thou.

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They have done well, but large boat people have to overcome the stigma if you will of being associated with the consumer grade market.

This is the same stigma Bayliner buyers have to overcome. Just like the garmin large electronics line has no resemblance to the same brand equipment carried by a backpacker, my 47' Pilothouse has no resemblance to a 16' $16K Bayliner runabout.

Same thing in other industries. Remember the cheapo Emerson brand TV's of the 80's? Well today Emerson network power is probably supplying the power equipment to most data centers in America.

Another thing to note is that Garmin doesn't make a Nav program that can access all the data that the plotter can like radar and sounder. They do have Homeport which is a planning software.

4712, I would say that's something against the garmin suite.

ksanders, See i guess coming from the aviation side I did not appreciate the stigma on the marine side.

I've certainly picked up some points from this thread that will help us as we continue to look at our options over the next few years.

If I were replacing my electronics today one thing I would look at is time in market for that product line.

You don't want to buy in too early or you become in essence one of the beta testers. Buy in too late and you run into a situation where you cannot for example expand your system a couple years down the road due to end of life issues.

My take on this, disengage chart plotting from the chart plotters. Whether Furuno, Garmin, Simrad etc they all are lousy plotters when compared to a laptop based plotting system.

So the primary question is best answered by comparing the base unit's radar, depth sounder, weather, camera, AP, screen sharpness, NMEA 2000 tie in capability and ruggedness. This comparison led me to 2 Furuno NN3s 4 years ago.

For plotting if I were to push aside my XP supported Nobeltec VNS it would be with a low cost Dell touch screen laptop running either Rosepoint or Trident. Then I can fuss about how much I care to tie together the two plotting systems.

BlueYonder said:

I don't know what the Furuno does so much better that it makes the Garmin suitable for amateurs and day sailors only. I'm pretty sure Garmin, Raymarine, and Furuno all make a decent product.

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They do make good stuff, but the one thing that Furuno radars have that the others do not are "true wakes". With these, targets that are stationary, such as marks, do not have wakes, while targets that are moving have wakes that are proportionate to their speed. This feature, once you have used it, is just compelling. You can glance at your screen and easily see what is worthy of attention. I won't buy a radar without it.

No Mast said:

As many others we use our two depth transducers to find out which side of the boat has deeper water. Has been useful in the ICW so far.

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Won't the Navionics Platinum, running in a compatible chart plotter give you the same information with one transducer? (ie Running on a Raymarine E series will give you all the contour lines and even shade them to show a graphic image of the bottom. Running with the chart information (Split screen) this would tell you pretty much all you need to know. I'll admit that side scan is really neat! (I use to have one that I used for peeking under kelp paddies, looking for Yellow Tail)

SteveD said:

They do make good stuff, but the one thing that Furuno radars have that the others do not are "true wakes". With these, targets that are stationary, such as marks, do not have wakes, while targets that are moving have wakes that are proportionate to their speed. This feature, once you have used it, is just compelling. You can glance at your screen and easily see what is worthy of attention. I won't buy a radar without it.

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Raymarine used to have wakes I believe...mine now has vectors which I haven't played around with.....not sure if it is the same or a new feature by Furuno...but if on older models say 5 or more years old...I'll bet it is the same.

Compared to MARPA that works...not much of a feature...though slightly useful if not constantly monitoring a target or two in my bag of tricks.

No Mast said:

As many others we use our two depth transducers to find out which side of the boat has deeper water. Has been useful in the ICW so far.

Click to expand...

Won't the Navionics Platinum, running in a compatible chart plotter give you the same information with one transducer? (ie) Running on a Raymarine E series will give you all the contour lines and even shade them to show a graphic image of the bottom. Running with the chart information (Split screen) this would tell you pretty much all you need to know. I'll admit that side scan is really neat! (I use to have one that I used for peeking under kelp paddies, looking for Yellow Tail)

Codger2 said:

Won't the Navionics Platinum, running in a compatible chart plotter give you the same information with one transducer? (ie) Running on a Raymarine E series will give you all the contour lines and even shade them to show a graphic image of the bottom. Running with the chart information (Split screen) this would tell you pretty much all you need to know. I'll admit that side scan is really neat! (I use to have one that I used for peeking under kelp paddies, looking for Yellow Tail)

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Not at all. One shows me what the depth reported at some fixed time in the sometimes distant past was. The other shows me the actual current depth.