Are two NAV stations-cockpit and cabin-Better than just one?

[Sailon1]

I have a Simrad MFD in the cockpit, and recently acquired a Garmin MFD-Fishfinder and chart plotter. Most of my sailing is done single-handed in Lake Erie with a trip to Lake Huron and the North Passage planned for this summer.
Would having a second display in the cabin be useful or would it be more than is really necessary? I also use an iPad with Navionics and keep paper charts handy.
Your responses are appreciated!

[C420sailor]

I used to have a Garmin 547xs in the cockpit.

Old Furuno radar gave it up, so we did a big upgrade. New radar, chart plotter, all sorts of stuff. It’s all Garmin, linked via N2K and Ethernet. With a 1242xsv touchscreen in the cockpit, I moved the 547xs down to the nav station.

I really like it. It’s great to be able to turn on only the chart plotter down below at night when on the hook and plot out the next day’s route, pull up live wind and depth data, set an anchor alarm for the night, etc...all without leaving the buttoned up cabin or turning on the more power hungry cockpit chartplotter. I can also hear the anchor alarm MUCH better. I’d like to upgrade to a newer unit down below so we can get radar data—that is the 547xs’ Achilles heel. Then we can see AIS as well, and set radar alarms if required.

When I’m down below and someone else is sailing, I can keep tabs on nav.

Even with that old unit, everything but radar is shared between the units. It’s cool being able to modify or throw in a route or similar from below and have it appear on their screen—or Vice versa.

[Sailon1]

Thanks for the reply and information. Looks like having a second unit in the cabin would be a real convenience as well as add another layer of safety.I will check on compatibility of Garman and Simrad units.

[hafa]

My solution is to have open CPN with charts and routes on the weatherproof tablet in the cockpit as well as on everyone's laptop and phone so you can see current data anywhere there is a crew member's phone (we encourage crew to case their phones if they're not IPX69). Paper charts and laptops reside in the cabin for obvious reasons.

[Donnybrook]

Even with crew I find a second screen at the nav table invaluable. I find it much easier to set a waypoint from below and have the helms person follow it.

When by myself I like having access to all boat data In two places, especially alarms.

I have a Garmin Echomap 73SV at the helm and 10" Raspberry PI based screen (previously used Windows tablet) running OpenCPN at the nav table. Nmea 2000 makes networking easy.

Don't forget VHF. I have radio at the table with Ram mike at the helm.