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From: sail_nutter (no email)
Date: Tue Sep 16 2003 - 18:27:56 EDT
Hi John,
I've used Raymarine equipment (Autopilot and Radars) for the past 4
years on two different boats and have not encountered any major
problems with any of the items. The one exception to this was the
remote ST600R which failed a couple of times due to the wire leading
into the base of the remote unit being continually worked back and
forth and eventually causing a dodgy connection.
I'm also in the process of speccing out a large catamaran as well
(snap with the Yanmars & saildrives) and after a long consideration
on the B&G Hydra/Hercules equipment have decided to go with
Raymarine autopilot and instrumentation again. One very experienced
sailor friend of mine refers to B&G as standing for "Broken Gauges"
and the serious increased cost just doesn't justify having a cool
looking (OK very cool looking) display unit. I'm going to go with
the new(ish) ST290 displays and more importantly the 400G corepack
with the "AST" and auto learn functions. Brad Van Liew used these
with great success in the Around-Alone and claimed that he didn't
crash-gybe once even when sailing in conditions that autopilots find
difficult to deal with. Apparantly Brad has been praising the
Raymarine equipment to friends and acquaintances and not just in the
glossy magazine ads.
In terms of Radar, I'm definitely going for a high spec Furuno with
a decent sized "old-fashioned" CRT display rather than a mini LCD
screen. I'm using a laptop for all computerised chart work so don't
place any value on the ability to turn the radar display into a
chart plotter, and the wonders of MaxSea mean that I can overlay the
radar returns on the charts anyway.
I've only had experience with Simrad in the VHF area - and those are
were very reliable and easy to use units.
Sorry to babble, but hope this helps.
--- In , "John Bickforc"
<jcbickford at a dot dot dot > wrote:
> *** Just noticed a typo in my name as it appears in the "From:"
block
> above - the last letter is a "d". I'll have to see about fixing
> that. jcb ***
>
> A bit about myself: I'm 54 years old, live in Eastern Washington,
> USA, and am looking forward to a second retirement in a year or
two,
> after which my wife and I anticipate transitioning to cruising. I
> learned to sail at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, in 1967
and
> have dreamed ever since of having my own boat to sail around the
> Caribbean, carrying charter cruisers wherever they wanted to go.
In
> June this year we sold our Ericson 30+ that we had for 20 years to
> move up to something with a bit more room.
>
> In about two weeks I will be taking delivery of a new 43 foot
> catamaran equiped with two Yanmar saildrives so the discussion
thread
> a few messages ago was quite interesting. (The story of buying
this
> new boat is rather long so I'll save that for posting to a web
page
> somewhere).
>
> The second part of the subject of this message relates to this new
> boat. The factory installed RayMarine wind, depth, and speed
> instruments so I was thinking about sticking with that brand for
the
> radar and navigation (GPS/chart plotter). However, the
electronics
> sales manager at the yard that will be "commissioning" the boat
tried
> to steer me away from that brand towards Furuno or Simrad.
>
> Does anyone have experience with any of those brands, either good
or
> bad?
> Should I listen to the dealer or stick with the same brand for
better
> integration? (This question could start a whole new discussion
thread
> about the merits of integrated units vs individual components.)
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