Navman Wind Instrument--Opinions

[halyardz]

Would appreciate hearing from anybody with experience with Navman line and in particular their wind speed/direction unit.

[exposure]

I have used the Navman 3100 instrument set for about a year and have nothing but good things to say. I really like the way they mount with one large "nut" on the back and a built in gasket. The navbus works well between instruments and to the repeater. They also support NMEA outputs. Be warned that the NMEA outputs are all independent. Data from the Navbus is not output via NMEA, just the data from the instrument you are reading from.

I have the electronic display wind instrument, not the analog. For my cruising sailing style it works just great. They also make a neat little color fish finder that I have just bought and am installing in place of the depth sounder. It is just small enough to fit in my panel and has an great display. I am going to put the depth display down as a repeater in the nav station. I also plan to buy a second wind display to put at the nav station. It will provide a back up and be easier to read that the repeater that is strictly a numerical read out.

Woody

[Firesail]

I installed a full set of Navman insruments at the start of this season and have nothing but great things to say about them. The Navbus works well as well as the NEMA outputs to other things like my GPS plotter.

Sorry for the long delay in answering.

[halyardz]

I got this feedback from other sailors that installed Navman gear. I'll keep the ID private as I didn't get their permission.
"We purchased Navman 3100 series for our 2-year cruise. Multi, wind, and GPS/Plotter. We have had problems with ALL of the units. GPS would freeze up when passing waypoints. They FINALLY replaced it after mush runaround and difficulty. The speed log is always off, and the wind direction is totally fictional. We're not at all impressed, wither with the units or with thier customer service. Wish we'd spent a little more for Raymarine. "

Not sure where to go with purchase. You guys said great, they said not so great.

I currently have Raymarine ST60 Tridata and Ray Autohelm autopilot.

[Talbot]

I also know of a boat with mega problems with their Navman wind/log etc. However we both have nothing but praise for their plotters 5500/5600,

I have Silva instruments (budget range) and think they are extremely good)

[exposure]

My 3100 system is stiil doing fine. I hope the troubles that others are having is not a sign of things to come. FYI, I use a Garmin GPS.

[Thermal]

I bought Navman's "combo" ( wind 3150, speed 3100, depth 3100, and 3100 repeater). Haven't installed the depth sounder yet - waiting till my next haulout for that. Had a problem with the speed sensor in that the output wire was potted into the sensor such that it was perfectly in line with the holes for the safety clip. That was a malfunction waiting to happen so I wanted it exchanged. Then I discover that Navman had just be acquired by Brunswick Technologies, and as is usually the case when this happens, customer service was dismal. Eventually got the replacement sensor, then everything worked great. Hasn't seen much use yet, so I'll just have to wait and see if it holds up in the long run. Ironically, I picked Navman because I got the impression that they were a smaller company specializing in marine instruments and usually find this sort much more responsive to their customers that the large conglomerates that hire "customer service specialists" or even outsourcing customer servive to India - so you wind up talking to someone that knows absolutely nothing about the products they are supposed to be representing. Enough ranting on that subject, but I would recommend doing some further investigation on the customer service you can expect as you will probably be dealing with then sooner or later.

[Alan Wheeler]

The Navman instruments are made here in NZ. The speed and depth transducers are Airmar. I presume the Mast head and GPS transducers are Navman, but not sure. I just bought a package myself. I look carefuly at Tacktik and Navman and wen't with the Navman range in the end. I love the Analogue wind instrument. So far reliability has been fine, but it's still early days. I hope it stays fine. I found installation to be one of the easiest of anything I have worked with. Epsecially the wiring aspect. I could have bought a GPS unit that was cheaper than the Navman, but with Navmans "Navbus" wiring system, everything talks to everything else in the system with no complicated setups and eacdh instrument is connected together by just two wires and each talks to each other and shares information. It was simple. My setup has one masthead unit, connected to the analogue in the Pilot house another analogue at the outside helm along with a speed log at the outside helm and the 5600 GPS at the pilot house. I get all info I reguire on any instrument and the GPS is connected tot he Autopilot via the NMEA.
I like the looks, I like the ease of use and install and I sure hope it works well for years.
By the way, the distributors in NZ are excellent to deal with. Distribution can make or break a product.