Electronics

Coast Guard Gives Furuno $10 Million Contract for Very Cool Docking Aid

By Peter Janssen on October 22, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

The Coast Guard just awarded Furuno USA a five-year, $10-million contract to supply the company’s Doppler Speed Logs on more than 200 ships, ranging from 87-foot patrol boats to 418-foot cutters (the largest vessels in the Coast Guard fleet). The DS60 Speed Log is a precision 3-axis Doppler Sonar that provides real-time information for berthing and docking. It has a bright 8.4” color display with three modes: 3-axis speed, berthing, and detailed nav data, that show in both graphic and alphanumeric formats. The unit has the unique capability to measure the dead-slow speed that is vital for precise docking. It…

New Low-Cost, User-Friendly CrewWatcher MOB System from Weems & Plath

By Peter Janssen on October 12, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Weems & Plath just signed an agreement to make and distribute a revolutionary, low-cost and easy-to-use man-overboard system developed by PanPan and called the CrewWatcher. Peter Trogdon, the Weems & Plath president, just demonstrated it to me here at the Annapolis power boat show, and it seems like a no-brainer. The CrewWatcher system is an app-based MOB alarm using a smart phone or tablet with a small beacon that can easily fit in your pocket. It’s all automatic and requires no manual activation. When it’s dropped in the water, the device sounds a loud alarm and then on screen gives…

Garmin Big Winner at NMEA Conference with Eight Awards for Product Excellence

By Peter Janssen on October 3, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Garmin was the big winner at the annual NMEA conference recently, as the electronics giant was named Manufacturer of the Year (for the third straight year) and won eight awards for product excellence. Garmin dominated the annual Product of Excellence competition at the National Marine Electronics Association convention in Bellevue, Washington. In voting by NMEA members, Garmin won in eight categories – radar, autopilot, multi-function display, mobile application, utility, fishfinder, AIS, and multimedia entertainment. For the second straight year, Garmin won the MFD category with its GPSMAP 8624 (pictured above), a 24-inch, all-in-one chartplotter with the highest screen resolution in…

Simrad Adds Two New Chartplotters to Its Popular GO Series

By Peter Janssen on September 13, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Simrad has just added two new chartplotters with larger displays and radar compatibility to its award-winning GO series. The new GO12 XSE and GO7 XSR, now part of Simrad’s popular GO stand-alone chartplotter series, are both multi-touch chartplotters for power boats with user-friendly navigation features for cruising, fishing and watersports. The new GO12 XSE (pictured above) has a 12-inch display, while the upgraded GO7 XSR has a restyled glass-helm design, plus radar capability that was not previously available on that model. Both units have bright displays and easy-to-use interfaces. The multi-touch controls are intuitive, and probably will seem similar to…

Digital Switching Is Moving Down to Regular Cruising Boats

By Peter Janssen on August 30, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Digital switching started out on megayachts, and then moved down to some large cruising boats. I first encountered it while cruising on Dirigo, hull number one of the flagship Sabre 66, about 18 months ago; the crew was managing the fuel flow from an iPad in the salon. The system then was so new that the crew called it Hal, after the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Now it’s being used on smaller boats. Basically, digital switching is a network control system that replaces conventional circuit breakers and switches with a digital power system working on an NMEA 2000…

New Simard NSS evo3 Multi-Function Display: Easier to Read, Easier to Use

By Peter Janssen on August 8, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

The new Simrad NSS evo3 multi-function display has a lot going for it. It’s easier to read, it’s easier to navigate and it’s easier to use. It also combines a lot of features all in one unit to make cruising easier and safer. The brilliant landscape on the new widescreen SolarMAX HD display shows true colors, and the display is clear in the sun and easy to read even at a wide angle. The clarity is exceptional. You control it via the all-weather touchscreen or the expanded keypad, so that you have reliable control in all sea conditions. You can…

New High-Tech FLIR Cooled Thermal Camera Detects Targets Nine Miles Away

By Peter Janssen on July 31, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

FLIR has just introduced a cutting-edge cryogenically-cooled thermal camera that allows for early detection of other vessels, landmarks and nav aids up to nine miles away. A multi-sensor marine camera, the FLIR M500 has a 14x optical zoom lens to improve situation awareness, a gyrostabilizer to produce steady images in rough seas, and a video tracker to monitor a selected moving or stationary target. The new camera does all this by detecting small temperature variations in targets, providing greater detail even at great distances or in reduced visibility. It is the first cooled thermal camera in FLIR’s award-winning M Series…

iPad or Chartplotter: Which One’s Best for Your Boat?

By Peter Janssen on July 26, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Take your pick for your boat: A mobile, easy to take home or carry around your boat iPad tablet, or a fixed-mount chartplotter. You say you’ll take both? You’re not alone. But each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, and you’ll probably end up relying on one more than on the other. An iPad, of course, is a modern platform for navigation, and there are a lot of apps and products available to protect and even mount a tablet on your helm. But how does it compare to a traditional, fixed-mount chartplotter? Both come in various sizes, although chartplotters…

Best New Radars: New Technology, Sharper Images, Shorter Ranges, Easier Tracking

By Peter Janssen on July 12, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Choosing the right radar for your boat certainly isn’t easy, and a lot of people already have their own ideas about which brand is best, or the most user-friendly, or technologically advanced, or is most compatible with their other electronics. Meanwhile, almost all the major manufacturers keep coming up with their own technologies to produce sharper images, better tracking of nearby vessels and overall improvements in situational awareness and safety. Here’s a look at eight new radars from Furuno, Garmin, Koden, Lowrance, Onwa, Raymarine, SI-TEX and Simrad, from the editors of Marine Electronics Journal. They asked each manufacturer to supply…

Stay Connected to Wi-Fi, Cell Data and HDTV with Shakespeare’s New WebWatch Antenna

By Peter Janssen on June 26, 2017 Cruising Life, Electronics

Now you can stay connected all the time with the new Shakespeare WebWatch antenna, which brings a Wi-Fi hotspot, cellular data and HDTV to your boat. For its innovative all-in-one connectivity, the WebWatch has won a Top Product award from Boating Industry magazine. You don’t have to worry about sharing WebWatch. It shares its signal with up to 32 users, in case you’re cruising with a whole lot of your best friends. It delivers Internet with speeds up to 4G from a nearby Wi-Fi hotspot or cell network with a user-supplied data-only SIM card, and it has a greater range…

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