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Old 13-08-2018, 08:08   #31
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

I worked on commercial fishing boats in my youth; Furuno was well regarded and very reliable.

Currently I have Furuno radar; B&G wind, depth etc. which I found easy to install and configure, and (so far) reliable; icom VHF (with built-in receive only AIS); and a separate Vesper Marine AIS, which has been excellent.

I agree with the separation of systems concept; none of the common sailing instrumentation brands are particularly robust in my experience, and sooner or later one or more components will fail. Better if this doesn't cripple everything...
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Old 13-08-2018, 08:26   #32
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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Originally Posted by Siberian Sea View Post
I own a commercial fishing vessel in Alaska and here the industry standard is Furuno. When it came time for electronics on the sailboat I opted to stay 100% Furuno except Icom for VHF radios. Never had a problem with Furuno.

===


One of the reasons I purchased our Furuno system is because all of the commercial fisherman seemed to be using them. It was a good decision - 14 years and 50,000 nautical miles later it's still the most reliable gear on the boat.
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Old 13-08-2018, 08:36   #33
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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I still like raymarine for the basics, both performance and aesthetics wise. The new fancy stuff seems a bit of a waste for most purposes when you want speed, depth, wind to have their own displays that are always in one place. For chartplotting/ais and fancy stuff I prefer to go with IPads as they are so much better value and have other uses, as well as higher resolution displays. And they mean that an iPhone is an instant emergency substitute. I do have a small raymarine a-series chartplotter as a secondary device but mostly for use as a radar display. Redundancy and simplicity, with many solutions for basic gps/chartplotter in case of failure in any or multiple devices.
Tillsbury....on your iPad. How did you set it up ? With apps ? If so where did you download them from. I like your thinking and your system....thanks
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Old 13-08-2018, 08:50   #34
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

I have Simrad (Navico) chart plotter and 3G radar and have been happy with the performance of both. I installed them myself, and neither has needed service, so I can't speak to customer service. I agree that Furuno was my first choice, but the benefits of the Simrad broadband radar for a sailboat (the only one available at the time of installation) plus the cost of the Furuno gear weighed heavily in my decision. Virtually all the major brands now have similar technology (plus Doppler) and I might make a different choice today, but I just returned from a month cruising in Maine with lots of fog and am still happy with my Simrad system. I use a TacTic AWI and wind speed system and a Airmar depth transducer (wired directly to the chart plotter).
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Old 13-08-2018, 08:57   #35
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

I installed Gramin GPSMAP7400 because I thought the sailing features would be useful. Unfortunately the Garmin manual is not very good and I couldn't find anyone at Garmin who knew much about the sailing features. They must be all power boaters. If any one on the forum uses this unit and understands it sailing features (not so much the racing features) I would like to be able to talk to you either via email or telephone.
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Old 13-08-2018, 09:00   #36
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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Originally Posted by Pepperberrybleu View Post
I worked on commercial fishing boats in my youth; Furuno was well regarded and very reliable.

Currently I have Furuno radar; B&G wind, depth etc. which I found easy to install and configure, and (so far) reliable; icom VHF (with built-in receive only AIS); and a separate Vesper Marine AIS, which has been excellent.

I agree with the separation of systems concept; none of the common sailing instrumentation brands are particularly robust in my experience, and sooner or later one or more components will fail. Better if this doesn't cripple everything...
One component making everything useless.
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Old 13-08-2018, 10:56   #37
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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...what brand of marine electronics members have had success with?
My B&G Hercules system (for sailing instruments) is 40 years old and with sort of frequent repairs, still performs terrifically. I don't like fixing it but it would cost me close to $10,000 to replace it with a new system of any brand with similar capabilities, which I don't have. Some day though.

My Raymarine x5 autopilot system replaced a previous Autohelm 4000GP, and both worked flawlessly, excepting that the drive units have a life of about 5 years working hard on an ocean going sailboat.

My ancient Signet Depth Sounder has been working for over 40 years, but I replaced the transducer once 25 years ago.

My Lowrance Chartplotter/Depth sounder is now about 25 years old, but screen issues have twice required me to replace it with duplicate (used/ebay) units.

My West Marine VHF's (now Standard Horizon Matrix) and West Marine AIS connected to my Windows PC running OpenCPN have worked perfectly since 2010 installation except the Standard Horizon's AIS alarm functions are stupid, almost useless, which S.H. admits.

I had a Ray portable VHF floor unit I got off of West Marine's bargain table in 1987 for $79 which was still working in 2017, although the battery had, at that time, a short duty cycle.

We've used a tablet computer with various apps, including Navionics, but I consider them to be toys, not robust enough for navigation. I have a Rugged RT7 tablet running a SailRacer app connected via Bluetooth to the B&G and that is proving to be useful but it crashes.

So you see the trend here? I think I have had good luck with almost everything, but they all have had problems of one sort or another. I'll say this though, I haven't spent very much money over the years and I've always had good instrumentation, and I've never been let down on a passage.

Note: I don't have radar or an expensive, integrated Chart Plotter, and no one "single point of failure".
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Old 13-08-2018, 11:47   #38
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

The age of handheld (or strapped down with weather protection) iPads or iPhones has arrived. Three boats with varying chart plotters. Note that Garmin just bought Navionics. Navionics plus through Fagawi will usually play on any format but Garmin.

So every one of your crew and you has the navigation of your boat in their hands.

I do like the Garmin 740s chart plotter because you have radar interface on the touch screen. But strictly as backup with G2 charts.

Inavx into the Baltic Sea from the North Sea and Gulf to Caribbean Sea its wonderful with the sonar tracking(updates are a thing of the past with current subscription).

If you have the Inavx app on your handhelds with the great resolution you can be below, ontop or fishing at the stern and redundancy is not a problem.
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Old 13-08-2018, 12:15   #39
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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Furuno seems to be mentioned by a few members here. I like the idea of simple, rugged and reliable.
Have friends who would be happy to 'mention' Furuno autopilots. They were heading from Mauritius to Richards Bay, SA when their A/P quit working and flashed the message 'Contact your Furuno dealer'. They had a second Furuno A/P installed and quickly switched to it. It gave the same message. They had seven days of hand-steering in the 30 to 40 knots that seem the norm in that part of the ocean to consider the reliability of Furuno. I think all modern gear is just fine except when it isn't.
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Old 13-08-2018, 12:32   #40
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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...They had seven days of hand-steering in the 30 to 40 knots that seem the norm in that part of the ocean to consider the reliability of Furuno. I think all modern gear is just fine except when it isn't.
Despite what I said about the reliability of my Raymarine/Autohelm gear, in actuality we used the windvane 99% of the time while cruising instead of an autopilot..

The windvane was pretty reliable, more so than any autopilot I've known, and steered the boat very well.

So, for anyone who doesn't have an Eiffel Tower 10 ft. in the air on the stern, having a windvane and using it regularly is good insurance against having to hand steer.
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Old 13-08-2018, 12:33   #41
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

I will never buy anything Raymarine ever again... burned twice it won't happen again.
all service related issues.
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Old 13-08-2018, 16:03   #42
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

The Nova Scotia fishermen have a saying:
"Furuno is Numero Uno"

I have used their service and help people extensively (more than that). Simply without equal. (Yes have comparisons)

tw
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Old 13-08-2018, 19:03   #43
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

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Originally Posted by AiniA View Post
Have friends who would be happy to 'mention' Furuno autopilots. They were heading from Mauritius to Richards Bay, SA when their A/P quit working and flashed the message 'Contact your Furuno dealer'. They had a second Furuno A/P installed and quickly switched to it. It gave the same message. They had seven days of hand-steering in the 30 to 40 knots that seem the norm in that part of the ocean to consider the reliability of Furuno. I think all modern gear is just fine except when it isn't.
So what was the underlying problem that effected both units?
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Old 13-08-2018, 19:31   #44
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

Over the years I've had about all the brands mentioned here.
Garmin was OK, but not intuitive in it's human interface, and when a power supply pin broke on my 4 year old unit they told me they no longer supplied the part. That pretty much put them off my list, after having several iterations of their equipment.
I've been trough the whole electronics evolution, starting with an RDF, then on through the whole evolution.
Raymarine has support issues too, is overpriced (IMO), and doesn't have cracker jack tech support.
I've had Furuno radars in the past and was pleased with them, simple, rugged, dependable, but their not up to speed with the current technology, yet.
I could go on, but I recently completely reconditioned my boat, from the bottom up in a very involved refit. After extensive research I went with B&G, for sailboats they have the most finely tuned package, at this moment. The development curve is such that the top companies all have an edge at one point or another, but my past experience with B&G tech support was above average for the marine industry.
This includes the latest digital radar, auto-pilot, multiple chartplotters, and wind instrument package, only the AIS is a different brand. Of course I still have two other chartplotters as backups, they are a generation behind the new stuff but perfectly functional, so the wiring and plug ins for those will remain, but they will be stowed unless needed.
The reason I went with B&G is that at the time they had the most advanced features for the period, as well as a fairly decent human interface for the instruments, as well as a fair price for what you get. Yes, there is a big setup learning curve to set up the multiple features to your needs, but this is the reality of modern electronics. They have so many features that you need to pick and set up the ones you need. Otherwise, if your not ready to do that your better off picking a simpler system that has less bells and whistles. The reality these days is that the main units have all the features built in, the manufacturer does not know your particular needs, so they include all the features in their units, this makes sense from the manufacturing end because they can't carry 100 different units for every niche user. Instead it's up to the end user to set it up for their needs.
Remember, when you buy electronics your looking to get something that will fulfill your needs for the next ten years, not just for the next season, sooo, you want the latest iteration of a given manufacturers gear, not a product at the end of it's development cycle, and they all have a planned development cycle, that way you can usually count on tech support and parts support for at least that long. Not like some companies that short cycle their product support. If you want to put an electronics sales guy in an uncomfortable position just ask what their planned product support life is for the product your buying, why would you shell out serious money for something with a short shelf life?
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Old 13-08-2018, 21:24   #45
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Re: What brand of marine instruments

Thank you Lifeofreilly, maybe good reasons to buy B&G, but I spoke with the headhoncho in Oz/Pacific a few weeks ago, discussing problems with a Hydra 3000 system and his comment was..... "we have not sold that product line for 5 years...." and problem was not resolved.
On edit: one Hydra 3000 problem was resolved by me after good advice from the guy, another problem was not.

I am with you that most of us expect to get at least 10 years of an electronic navigation setup......

Like others on this thread, I am wondering what to upgrade to and when.
I have lots of experience with Furuno, pre 2000 to 2011, Raymarine 2000 to 2012, Simrad 2011 to 2016, some experience with B&G, Garmin: no other than handhelds, Lowrance: only with one plotter.

I can’t find any website that compares various navigation equipment. If I were to buy an SLR camera, a car or a motorbike: plenty of sites, but nav. gear….. I cannot find any. Can anyone provide a helpful link?

Minimum requirements:
- One plotter (GPS with charts), ie 16”
- Autopilot
- Depthsounder
- Boatspeed
- Wind direction and angle
- AIS (send and receive)
- Radar
Being able to:
- Add 2nd plotter
- Add 2nd autopilot
- Connect computer that runs OpenCPN, for planning/weather/routing purposes

When comparing and considering different systems, I value:
- Ease of integration, the less wiring the better, but not wireless connections
- Ruggedness and reliability
- Low power consumption
- Both touchscreens and knobs (have you ever tried to use a touchscreen on a bouncing boat?)
- Intuitive menus
- Lack of gimmicks (the manufacturers call them “features”)

Or, if going with all separate units (to provide redundancy) what are the options?

My current gear is Raymarine from around the 2008 era, and hehehe, who knows, a complete system coming up for sale soon.
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