What are the disadvantages of a 6'-7" draft?

[Exile]

Good to know this technology has some real world application for cruising boats. I prefer to try and not think about all the money I've wasted over the years on boat stuff that either didn't work, underperformed, or was cheaply made. Seems like it all too often falls in the "safety" category. I only hope I can eventually sail to some unexplored and less than ideally charted waters, and by then there will be some decent options. Wait a minute, there's the approach to Bimini I'm done all too many times while biting my fingernails off! Too bad about Garmin but maybe they have something new in development.

I take it that both your respective units use their own separate displays? Even if available, it may not be ideal to have sonar info displayed on a chartplotter, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Dan

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Exile

Good to know this technology has some real world application for cruising boats. I prefer to try and not think about all the money I've wasted over the years on boat stuff that either didn't work, underperformed, or was cheaply made. Seems like it all too often falls in the "safety" category. I only hope I can eventually sail to some unexplored and less than ideally charted waters, and by then there will be some decent options. Wait a minute, there's the approach to Bimini I'm done all too many times while biting my fingernails off! Too bad about Garmin but maybe they have something new in development.

I take it that both your respective units use their own separate displays? Even if available, it may not be ideal to have sonar info displayed on a chartplotter, but perhaps I'm wrong.

Dan

Actually we're able to show it on the chartplotter, although generally we choose not to. But we use Transas for Navigation and they did an integration with FarSounder. We have the choice of which monitor but I personally find it distracting to have too much on the same screen. Also, most of the time the sonar is just available but not really being used.

I also was under the impression Furuno had worked on some integration but I'm not sure how far that went.

I should have noted up front as Jim did that our system is not for most people here. It's largely a commercial system. But then this is what will eventually come more to the mainstream. There are systems developed for commercial boats for security, to detect underwater intruders. It even detects diver bubbles. Now most of us don't have that need but in developing a system that can do that (and commercial vessels in parts of the world do need it), if you can get that level and quality of detail then ultimately it will come down to the pleasure boating community.