HR 352 | Electronic upgrade?

[preinmann]

Hi all

I recently bought an '86 Hallberg-Rassy 352, fully equipped. As we plan to cross the atlantic in a year or two, we are thinking about upgrading the electronics. Everything still works flawlessly, but I figure there must be newer (maybe better?) technology available. Most of the stuff ist about 20-30yrs old - but I'm pretty sure newer gear (especially the radar) is less power-hungry. Below what we have right now:

Anemometer: Nexus NX2 Wind Data
Sonar/Log Nexus NX Sea Data
VHF Handheld «ICOM»
VHF-Telephone «Ship Mate RS 8000»
GPS Plotter «Ship Mate»
GPS «Standard Horizon»
Navtex «Nasa-Target»
Radar «Furuno» (I don't know which model…)

As mentioned previously, most of the stuff is about 20yrs old…What would you recommend we change? Do we need to change anything?

Thanks for your help,
Philipp

[dougweibel]

If you are going to upgrade you should think about if you are just going to do a few pieces piecemeal or if you should do quite a bit. If more than just a couple items the first thing you should think about is replacing the majority of the cabling to a new nmea-2000 backbone. You might still be able to reuse a few things like your wind sensors and of course your handheld vhf. You are right that the new radars are a lot less power hungry. I would take a look at the major vendors and see who you like from a system perspective. We replaced most of our electronics this past year with Raymarine - the SeaTalk NG cabling is functionally the same as nmea-2000 with just different connectors. After replacing the chart plotter and radar the additional expense to replace most of the other electronics just made sense. The new multifunction displays and chart plotters are relatively inexpensive. Redoing all of your cabling however could be a significant expense (or not so much) depending on how difficult the cable runs are, assuming you hire out the work.

[KeelMe]

Congrats, those are awesome boats. First thing I would do is replace that chartplotter; you will not be able to get updated charts for it and it likely draws twice the amperage of a new model. At the same time or very very soon after I would ditch that power hungry radar and either get a solid state radome that will work with the new chartplotter or a new Furuno 1835 with the ARP11.