Buyer's Guide - Electronics
Sam Fortescue takes a look at three of the most common electronics upgrades ailing is a gadgetheavy sport these days, with marine electronics opening up all sorts of exciting and useful possibilities aboard. Data is the name of the game – and how you can use it. Modern instruments from Garmin, Raymarine, B&G and others can handle 50 times faster data rates than in the past, and share it around the network. So upgrading one or more of your instruments is about the most common refit for onboard electronics. We look at the options for that below – it doesn’t have to be ruinously expensive, and much of the work can be done yourself. The other two common upgrade scenarios are adding an internet connection to the boat and retrofitting a remote monitoring system. Read on for a run-down of the available products and what’s involved. There has been little to report this
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JUNE 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
Digitally enhanced year in the multifunction display world. The biggest news came from Navico, which has released a new model called the NSX in its motorboat-focused Simrad brand. They want back to first principles to build this snazzy-looking unit, which runs an enhanced version of C-Map charts that are crisper than ever. Auto-guidance route planning has been supercharged, and it supports more third-party apps as well. “Watch this space,” said a Navico spokeswoman when asked whether B&G would be moving its MFDs to the new platform.
Upgrade your instruments
Instruments have evolved since many boats were built to use a faster, more robust networking system called NMEA2000. It can shuttle data back and forth more quickly and from more sources, without the distinction of talkers and listeners which used to exist under the old NMEA 0183 architecture. There is an obvious advantage in
an increasingly data-heavy world, but a problem arises if you want to introduce a new instrument into the mix. You either have to replace the whole lot at a heavy cost, or allow for the different language spoken by old kit and new. If you’re just upgrading the chartplotter, it is easy, because new plotters generally have both an NMEA 2000 and an NMEA0183 input/output, allowing you simply to wire in your old instruments. You can view the data on the plotter, which will also multiplex the data round the rest of the network to any legacy NMEA listeners. Generally, it is pretty simple to add extra capability to the system as well – wind, or a radar, for example. If you have a modern plotter it will already have its own NMEA2000 backbone, which you can easily lengthen to include the new instrument. Where it is more complicated is with a new instrument display. Garmin’s GMI20 display has an NMEA0183 input which allows it to display data from an older
