Panbo

The Marine Technology Hub

Yearly Archive: 2025

10

Wireless & Apps / Network & control / Safety & SAR / NMEA 2000, 0183 & Signal K / Monitoring & Tracking

NMEA 2025: Digital Yacht Bilge IQ

Last week, the National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) held their annual conference in West Palm Beach. This year’s conference featured quite a few interesting product introductions. I had the opportunity to see most of them while helping judge the NMEA’s Best New Product and NMEA Technology Awards. I plan several articles covering the various product introductions, though I’ll have to be quick about it as IBEX begins next week. Digital Yacht’s Bilge IQ is a NMEA 2000 and WiFi connected bilge pump control and monitoring system. The clever system monitors bilge pump activations, runtime, and current draw. My fellow judges and I thought enough of it to give it the Best New Product award. What did we see that intrigued us enough to award it? Let’s take a look.

31

LiFePO4 / How-to / Electrical & Engines

Don’t murder your batteries, tips for winter storage of LFP batteries

In recent years LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries in boats have morphed from a slightly mysterious luxury to commonplace. The perception has gone from an expensive and risky modification to a widely accepted, game-changing, and comfort enhancing upgrade. As such there is great excitement when it’s “your turn” to upgrade your boat. Marinas and boating forums are full of stories from the recently converted about their newly installed LFP system and the resulting improved and simplified boating. Those still using legacy lead for house power may be feeling left behind.  At the same time the prices of converting to LFP have dropped significantly.

7

Mobile Apps / Wireless & Apps / Navigation / Handheld

Orca and Raymarine Axiom integration, easy route sharing from tablet to chart plotter

Tablet navigation has come an extremely long way in the decade and a half since Ben Ellison started covering it. However, for as far as the apps have come, integrations between navigation apps and chart plotters remain remarkably frustrating. Some in brand solutions, like Active Captain with Garmin equipment and TZ iBoat with Furuno plotters, work quite well. However, cross platform options typically involve clunky, multi-step export and import routines. Often, these routines require ejecting and inserting physical memory cards, a task made more complex as memory card slots move to the back of slick, all glass chart plotters. Raymarine and Orca have broken with recent trends and offer a wireless integration that allows for remarkably simple sharing of routes between a tablet running Orca and a Raymarine Axiom chartplotter.

4

Mobile Apps / Press Releases / Navigation / Handheld / Charts

Aqua Map route planner: Hybrid route planning for smarter navigation

Aqua Map is pleased to announce the launch of Route Planner, a multifunctional route planning tool that offers navigators enhanced control and flexibility. By combining Automatic and Manual planning modes, Route Planner allows seamless switching between them within the same route. This hybrid routing capability enables users to customize and combine manual and automatic segments, or fully manual or fully automatic routes, providing precise control.

20

Stabilization, trim, and roll control / What's on board...

Smoothing the seas, pitch and roll control systems compared

There are numerous systems that control a boats pitch and roll. These systems use a variety of in water devices to control the flow of water and alter how a boat runs through the water. In recent years quite a few systems have been introduced and updated including Lenco Pro Control, Seakeeper Ride, and ZipWake. With numerous options and different technologies, how do you decide which system is right for your boat? I put together a fleet of test boats to try and answer these questions and compare the systems performance. Read on to see the results and determine the best fit for your boat.

12

LiFePO4 / Electrical & Engines / The Trade

ABYC publishes updated battery and electrical standards

ABYC published updates to their E-11 and E-13 standards. E-11 covers the basic requirements for AC and DC systems on a boat. E-11 is a mature standard and the revisions reflect that maturity. This is the first revision of ABYC’s E-13 lithium ion battery standards. The first publication of E-13 incorporated most of ABYC’s technical note TE-13 that previously provided recommendations for the installation of lithium batteries on a boat. Hence, the updates to E-13 are more extensive.