Plotters, Radar and AIS

[Keithgdgp]

Help!!! I am thinking of installing a complete new system including a new auto helm. I fancy Furuno, it's used by 90% of the fishing industry, it's chunky, and apparently reliable. What does everyone else think. I have heard that harming is quite good too.

[boatman61]

If its used by 90% of the fishing industry...
Dont touch it with a barge pole... the amount of dodging about I've had to do around France, Spain and Portugal they obviously are pretty crap....

[Keithgdgp]

Thanks for your well chosen words. What are your thoughts on garmin???

[bewitched]

Furuno certainly has a good name.

If you are truly starting from scratch, I would strongly recommend sticking with one manufacturer throughout and if you want it to last, stay away from the budget stuff.

[David M]

I have a Furuno MFD Blackbox system onboard. It is clearly not "crap". It is a very reliable and professional system. It is also expensive.

Furuno's customer support is the best by far, which counts for a lot when you have questions or a problem.

The next best system would be a Garmin system which we have on our trailer boats at work. The Garmin units are used by scientists and their grad students (non-professional mariners) who are able to figure out how to use it and so far have not been able to break any of the units either. Garmin is also manufacturing really really nice avionics for aircraft....so they really know their stuff.

I would stay away from Raymarine. I have used their equipment plenty of times and it just is not as high of quality nor does it seem professional.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by David M

I have a Furuno MFD Blackbox system onboard. It is clearly not "crap". It is a very reliable and professional system. It is also expensive.

Furuno's customer support is the best by far, which counts for a lot when you have questions or a problem.

The next best system would be a Garmin system which we have on our trailer boats at work. The Garmin units are used by scientists and their grad students (non-professional mariners) who are able to figure out how to use it and so far have not been able to break any of the units either. Garmin is also manufacturing really really nice avionics for aircraft....so they really know their stuff.

I would stay away from Raymarine. I have used their equipment plenty of times and it just is not as high of quality nor does it seem professional.

Well near me there's a lot of inshore fishing fleet with Raymarine, so what does that prove. furuno trnds to installed by lots of fishing vessels as it targets that market wheras Ray, Garmin and Simrad ( under navico) does not. That market looks for local equipped sales and service agents, pays full price with service contracts etc. The leisure market is different. Also Furunos commercial gear is different stuff to their leisure offerings. NAVNET3d is just a windows xP system in disguise , there's even a hard disk in many cases for gods sake.

Ratmarines stuff is in use by thousands and certainly in Europe they have the lions share of the market. Equally they fair very well in surveys such as the ARC.

Justify the " does not seem professional " comment. ( and then comment on garmins professionalism. ).

Equally you've completely forgotten SIMRAD. A company with a marine engineering much greater then Furuno. Their recent offerings have taken integration to new levels and the NSE NSO NSS series are very good

The fact is all these manufacturers produce compatible systems with little to choose from. Raymarine has probably the best and most complete integration, with SIMRAD close behind ( and possibly soon ahead) Garmin has the widest range of plotters and Furuno makes good radar, but it's integration is somewhat behind the others.

Dave

[Svsilvergirl]

Garmin is awesome. I have a 740s plotter and 18 hd radar and a standard horizon gx2150 VHF with ais. It all works great together. Even the fish finder. A good friend has all the latest greatest ray marine stuff in his catamaran , first time he spent some time at the helm on my boat , he commented that in an hour of playing with my garmin , he felt like he knew how to work it better than his own system that he had had for two years. Nice to have something that doesn't require holding the owners manual in one hand to use. And nice to have a whole system that cost less than his display alone cost

[speciald@ocens.]

I just redid the electronics on my power boat replacing obselete Raymarine stuff with Garmin. I put a 5212 monitor, HD dome, scaning depth finder, VHF, AIS, and autopilot on the boat. All have worked great and were a fraction of the cost of Furuno. I do use Max Sea on my sail boat for off-shore routing.

[capecuddy]

I think the best system to consider that is not mentioned is Simrad. NSS is the newest of their MFD systems and includes touch screen for rapid action and elimination of switches for reliability.

It was not available in July11 when I had to buy, so I went with Lowrance HDS-10 and have been very satisfied. Sonar, broadband 3G radar, Sirius satellite weather and radio, GPS, AIS/DSC Integration with radio, LMF-400 gauges, and ETEC engine parameters over NMEA2000 and NMEA0183 Interfaces have integrated flawlessly and survived for my 157 hours this season in New England.