We are planning to install new electronics, including chartplotter, wind, speed, depth, and radar on my 1991 Catalina 36, as my wife and I are planning to head south from Boston next year. We have an autopilot(ST 4000) that is working fine so we will not replace. I am looking at B&G, Simrad, and Garmin. From what I see all three have a great reputation. Now we are starting to compare the cost of each system. I really like the 8 inch Garmin display, but it does not come in touch screen. Aside from personal preference, are there any benefits to either touch or button? Are there any opinions on Garmin, Simrad, or B&G? And, the main reason for my inquiry - Has anyone installed sonar? Seems like it would be useful in unfamiliar waters, as well as anchoring. We have not got to the cost yet, but it looks like a usefull tool.
Thanks,
Dave Mariano
Let It Ride
Dave,
We did something similar. We replaced ouyr Raymarine with an all Garmin system. I also like the new 840 unit. We used the 740, now a 741 touchscreen. Send me an email and I will send pictures of our installation. We also have an ST4000, which we kept. No problems, why switch? Bruce
Bruce Campbell
Evergreen Dreams #1409
Hi Dave,
Just want to point out for you and others that searching the Forums is a great way to get answers to your questions, and, just to keep future search results pithy, should be attempted before posting a new topic. You are of course very welcome to post a new topic if you don't find an answer to your question.
For example, using your exact subject line as the search term, I found three threads from the last four months discussing major electronics suite upgrades.
Good luck!
PS: My $0.02 - IMO speed instrumentation is a waste of money if you have a GPS chartplotter. Plus you have gps on your phone, a hand-held back-up gps, etc etc. The little paddle wheel is impossible to keep clean, and if there's any current you will be relying on your GPS for speed info anyway.
Nick Tonkin
*Former* Website Administrator, C36/375IA
*Former* owner, C36 tr/fk #255, Santa Barbara, CA
I'll add my $.02 as well, I am old enough that much of this modern day electronics were not available and I used dead reckoning as the only means of navigation. I learned in my earliest years that a knot meter was nice to have, but after a short while I could determine my speed by the wake I was creating. Still can!
Gary Bain
S/V "Gone With The Wind"
Catalina 36', Hull #: 1056, Year: 1990, Engine: M-35
Standard Rig
Moored: Boothbay Harbor, Maine
Home: Auburn, Maine
Dave
I fond here in Southwest Florida where we have a lot of skinny water that the dept gage was my most important instrument. If I was replacing my electronics I would upgrade them to the same make as I already have because I am experience with the old equipment. Don't let price be your only prerequisite, a lower price (or higher price) may not be what you are looking for. You are going to use the instruments for several years so if you figure what is cost per day it only comes to pennies. I use my electronics every time I leave the dock to keep me familiar with them even if I am just going over the fuel dock.
__/)__/)__/)__Capt Mike__/)__/)__/)__
Punta Gorda Florida
1990 Std WK M35 Hull #1050
Just replaced my old C80 with a new Raymarine e127. There are a lot of great choices out there that can meet a great many needs. These are just my opinions. :)
1. Touch screens are easy to use at the dock or motoring down the ICW and challenging to use in even moderate sea states. Be wary of units with touch screen only. I like my touch screen for dragging the picture around but it's hard to hit what you're aiming at when it's moving - seriously. Having just a touch screen and just a little 7-8" would probably never be repeated. To me, Raymarine had the best manual controls that complement the touch screen. I do not believe that Garmin has a hybrid touch/manual control unit but their manual controls are nice. B&G uses the same controls as SIMRAD and my suggestion is to try to operate with just these controls and no touch and you'll get the point quickly.
2. Small screens make it very challenging to navigate and you will need paper charts to get the big picture. On my 8" C80 it was nearly impossible to effectively follow paths on the ICW to determine which fork to take. We ended up using paper charts which were really nice for ICW travel. A 12" screen allows for a lot of flexibility and the split screen is really handy for the ICW or navigating passes allowing you to zoom one screen close to have awareness of where you are and the other screen you can zoom out and scroll for a bigger picture. Paper charts relegated back to storage. :)
3. Good luck on finding a B&G unit to fiddle with in a store. Sure you can find the SIMRAD's targeted at power boaters but not the B&G. I was heavily seduced by their features but B&G requires a huge leap of faith.
Gamin has some good stuff and if I had not already invested in a Raymarine EV-200 (love it) Garmin would have been a strong contender. As usual, it just depends on what you are looking for.
2000 C36 MKII 1825
I replaced all the 1993 electronics on Serenity 2 years ago with Raymarine i70, i60, p70, x5 Autopilot and an E7D with sonar. Iuse the sonar for anchoring and channels that are skinny. Very happy with the Raymarine stuff.
PS: The integration from the E7D to the x5 wheelpilot is VERY nice!
Stephen Noe
S/V Earendil, Oriental NC, USA
1985 Endeavour 42
Stephen,
Did you replace the transducers when you performed the upgrade?
Rob Kibler
s/v "Meander"
2003 C36 MKII #2124
Had to get a xducer for the sonar and temp in the E7D, left the paddlewheel and temp for my old instruments unhooked.
Due to budget, I held off on the DST800 smart transducer until the next haul, but the sonar depth sounder takes more power and is a bit noisy to sleep over the tick tick tick over a soft bottom. The i70 can be configured to get the temp & depth from the E7D until I get it.
My plan is and was to take advantage of the DST800 frequency of 235mhz in tandem with the xducer for the sonar.
Stephen Noe
S/V Earendil, Oriental NC, USA
1985 Endeavour 42
I am looking to do a electronics overhaul on Meander. I haven't explored deeply enough to determine if I need to replace the transducers to support the new Raymarine equipment. Thanks for your quick response.
Rob Kibler
s/v "Meander"
2003 C36 MKII #2124
I have to take issue with a statement by Capt Nick, a person with whom I ordinarily would agree whole heartedly. That speed sensor, basic and troublesome though it may be, is the only sensor you have on the boat that can tell you what your speed through the water is. It is essential instrumentation on a vessel. At least for anyone who cares about seamanship and proper navigation.
Not all of us sail on a lake without current. Many of us navigate waters with significant current, and knowing speed through the water allows you to manually (or with a wind speed anemometer at top of the mast) compute True Wind from apparent wind. Logging true wind speed and direction is essential for a properly sailed offshore passage as it enables you to validate gribs and OPC isobar drawings. Many of us race (not me...I'm a lover not a fighter), and how else can you know how fast your boat is going *through the water*? Oh, somebody will say that the GPS's speed to the next waypoint is all that matters. Well, thatmay seem the case on race day, but how did you obtain the knowledge of optimum sail selection, sail trim, polars, etc, that you need to make sure you're sailing as fast as possible to that next waypoint?
Speed through the water is really important information to have at hand. Fortunately on our boats the crud that builds on the wheel after a couple weeks idling in the slip is very easy to clean up. I just grab a handful of Q-tips and in less than 5 minutes I can have the sensor out, cleaned and back place in again.
Larry Brandt
S/V High Flight #2109
Pacific Northwest, PDX-based
2002 C-36 mkII SR/FK M35B
Larry: I have to take partial issue with your last statement. " knowing speed through the water allows you to manually (or with a wind speed anemometer at top of the mast) compute True Wind from apparent wind."
While the paddlewheel will let you calculate current, True wind actually should be calculated using course and speed over GROUND (GPS) not speed over water(paddlewheel). Raymarine however, does use the paddlewheel in the 'true' calcs, so you don't get 'true wind' readings from the instruments without the paddlewheel. This is probably a holdover from the good old days when that was the best data you could get.
Unfortunately, if there is high current, then the 'true' readings from the instruments will be off. Consider for instance, setting a course to the Bahamas over the gulf stream.
Sailing due east, 5 knot north setting current (at the center of the stream) on a 6 knot sailboat. A knotlog will not have the correct data to assist the instrument in calculating true wind.
Stephen Noe
S/V Earendil, Oriental NC, USA
1985 Endeavour 42
After sailing with a speed transducer for a decade, I tossed mine about a decade ago in favor of just GPS. Apparent wind speed and angle from my wind vane is what I trim sails to and GPS tells me when I'm making way most efficiently, inclusive of all external influences.
When moored in a river I've wondered about the strength of current to gauge the level of effort to paddle ashore, so this is not to say that real-time knowledge of current is without value. Larry mentions the ability to validate weather isobars during an offshore passage as an important use case.
Nick Caballero
Retired C36/375IA Mk II Technical Editor
I surrender, but only because such discussions make my head hurt. Panbo.com (Ben Ellison's blog) had a thorough airing of this topic a year or so ago - still available by searching on his blog site - and I agree that what the knotmeter is reading and what you're calculating with an anemometer perhaps is, or is something other than, "true wind" (ie wind over the sea bottom). I can't argue because I have only a fraction of a brain remaining after editing a book for the last 5 hours.
Nonetheless, I believe that knowing speed through the water is important. I'll tell you more after I get back from Alaska later in the year. I'm intending to make the *slowest* Inside Passage trip in history, so an indication of speed through the water is important to achieving that goal.
In any event, for offshore weather analysis the value that you need to put into the ship's log at the synoptic times is the best guess/calculation you can achieve for true wind speed and direction. And of course a highly accurate barometer reading. It's from that info that you'll be assessing any satellite weather downloads (gribs and SA's) and making careful judgments about tomorrow's weather. If you're paying a weather router then let them do this, but I don't think you're allowed professional routing advice in the TransPac or Pacific Cup. Are you???
Larry Brandt
S/V High Flight #2109
Pacific Northwest, PDX-based
2002 C-36 mkII SR/FK M35B
Oh I agree that the log is a valuable aid to nav, just disagree it is the correct data to calc True Wind. Ii is a sore point with me that Raymarine can integrate GPS into the bus but cant update their latest (i60) electronics to calculate true wind from SOG and COG from the GPS when available on the bus.
Stephen Noe
S/V Earendil, Oriental NC, USA
1985 Endeavour 42
I have to agree with Larry. I think a Knot meter and a GPS are important tools. By knowing exactly what's going on helps the skipper make good decisions.
Some times with a GPS only you wonder why I'm slowed down? It is current? I'm I getting headed by the wind? I'm I dragging kelp? Is there something wrong with engine, on and on. With a Knot meter, all this can be verified with a simple glance. The boat S/B doing X at X rpm.
Most of the these scenarios are during motoring.
I had a boat for 15 years using only GPS. I have been dragging kelp with a following current going faster than normal. If I had a Knot meter I would have seen I was really moving slower (through the water). I might picked up a 1/2 knot?
Just the other day I was sailing and felt I was moving fast enough. GPS said 7 knts but knot meter was saying 6.5 Knots. I found I hadn't placed the trans in reverse to fold the prop. I picked up to 7 knots of water speed and 7.5 SOG. I would have never know I had a following current. I might not of helped the trans either.
Now I have both. I have seen currents and moved one way or another to better my SOG.
Of course a knot meter alone is not going to get you SOG
My 1.5 cents
Chuck Lennox
97 MKii Ventura Ca
Island Girl Hull #1611