mvweebles
Guru
- Joined
- Mar 21, 2019
- Messages
- 7,724
- Location
- United States
- Vessel Name
- Weebles
- Vessel Make
- 1970 Willard 36 Trawler
MVW, you have a lot more time with the older Furono gear when you were delivering Nordhavns up and down the coast than I do with the gear as a recreational boater. I believe you mentioned earlier you have Simrad now? I used it for 3 years on a prior boat (express cruiser), and overall was not impressed with some of the features including their Marpa, which basically didn’t work. Another TF member on here has written about it. It may be resolved now, I have lost track. I still think all of the modern systems out there are fairly comparable and appreciate why some people chose one brand over another. Bottom line for me, the hard core cruisers (people who travel much farther than me) and commercial fisherman use them, newer generation systems as well, which was a key reason I chose it. Lastly, the old salts I worked for as a kid on fishing boats all had Furono, so I knew if I ever got to the point where I could pick the system, that would be the one.
I really can't disagree with anything you've said. I haven't used the Simrad system much as my boat is still undergoing a refit. I have used the same system on a friend's boat, but I really learn the system on long passages where boredom forces you to read the manual and futz/learn features. One feature that is important to me is ability to customize range rings on radar - in my quick search, I was not able to locate that on the Simrad so either I gave up too soon, or they assume whatever the factory default is works for everyone (personal preference, for trawler speeds, I like running at 6-mile range, offset about 2-miles giving about 8-9 miles in front, with 1-mile rings). It sounds like a minor thing, but over the years, you get used to driving a boat in a certain way. I'll be disappointed if I can't get it figured out, but that's about 6-months away).
I haven't gotten to MARPA yet, but wonder if AIS obviates that? I always found MARPA/ARPA only partially useful as the swing of the boat seemed to change the readout. It was nice to tag something just to see if it was moving at all, but data was pretty coarse information. Still, it's a feature that's been around forever and should work - I agree that if it should not be a gap on any modern system and would make me wonder what else is missing/incomplete/incorrect.
I mentioned TheHullTruth.com. I had a great conversation with Thataway (I knew him from the old PUP/T&T forums) who also strongly urged me to Furuno. He's also on this forum, though rarely posts. When he does, I listen. I've never met him in person but he's the real deal. Still, I decided to go the Simrad route.
Anyone who hangs around boats has heard the selection criteria of Furuno because all the fisherman use it, and who would know better than they do? I'm barely old enough to remember when Raymarine was Raytheon, and it was a Ford vs Chevy discussion between them and Furuno.
For a large, expensive installation with a fair amount of real estate available, I'd go with Furuno. But on a smallish 36-footer, and some semblance of a budget (barely), I decided a more a compact system. I had a hard time detecting functional differences between the various systems - Garmin, Raymarine, Furuno, and Simrad. It's a much more competitive market than 15-years ago when I went into my boat-coma.
And I do believe it's much more about software now than hardware. Granted my buddy's boat is only a single data point (correction - it is the newer TZ Touch system, not the older NavNet2), but it was really instructive to me. The tech working on it was pretty sharp and struggled with some of the deep configuration items. Granted, it's a 4-year old $2m yacht with $200k of electronic gizmo's so way beyond what I would allow in my life, but it should not have been as hard as it was. It was really difficult to get the Furuno system to not usurp concurrent networks on the boat. Now, one of my rules in my refit/equip is to reduce/eliminate IP Addresses, but most folks seem okay with it as long as they can run their boat off their iPhone. If that's your goal, you better chose your equipment wisely - I doubt its a selection criteria for commercial fishermen. Given the range/depth of the Navico product lines (Simrad, Lowrance, B&G), I felt they probably had better R&D and software development than Furuno, but that's just a hunch based on what I saw.
In the end (and at the end of a very long post - sorry), I just decided electronics had advanced a quantum leap from where I left them 15-years ago. All the systems are pretty good, and the base package seemed to suit my needs fine. I love the look of a 4-foot open array, and I might miss not having one when I'm trying to weave through squalls in the tropics. But the base systems are fine. And they are roughly disposable - I just didn't want to spend a ton of money on something that I would swap-out in 8-10 years for the next generation of electronics.
Apologies for the long post but since it's roughly what the OP asked, I thought I would pause for a longer answer. Just how I arrived at my decision.
Peter
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