The Marine Electronics Hub
While walking the floor of the Miami International Boat Show something caught my eye in Si-Tex / Koden’s booth. I saw what looked like a PC screen running Coastal Explorer but with a radar display shown. It turns out this is a new version of Koden’s RADARpc that interfaces nearly any Koden or Si-Tex radar with a PC running Coastal Explorer.
Digital Yacht’s iAISTX is a lower cost AIS unit specifically designed for those boaters who navigate primarily with their mobile devices. The $650 list price — Digital Yacht says they expect a $500 street price — unit comes without a NMEA 2000 interface but with WiFi built in
It’s always exciting when a new series of MFDs is announced and Furuno’s Time Zero Touch 3 is no exception. As you can see Furuno is promising quite a few improvements with TZT3. Furuno has also announced higher powered open-array, solid-state radar units and the availability of their SCX20 and SCX21 satellite compass.
Signal Filters introduced a NMEA 2000 connected fuel filter at MIBS. The filter head alerts the boater to the presence of water in their fuel by raising a message on the NMEA 2000 network. Most systems for alerting to water in fuel use a small sensor that connects to a bowl in below the filter. But Signal Filters explained…
The Seakeeper 1 is the newest and smallest member of Seakeeper’s lineup and though a smaller model of a product isn’t always exciting I think the Seakeeper 1 deserves attention. With a $15,000 list price and a target boat size of 23-29 feet the Seakeeper 1 aims at a high volume segment of the boating market and brings the price down to about 10-20 percent of the cost of the boat.
The Sharrow propeller design definitely has the potential to revolutionize propellers. Sharrow says — and BoatTest’s independent review agrees — that their MX-1 propeller can increase efficiency by up to 15 percent. But they also say the prop will increase top speed, reduce vibration, improve handling, and plane at lower speeds.
We know how dangerous lightning can be to a boat and its crew, but to see it actually strike is something else. After a multi-year DIY refit, the 1978 Bristol 29.9 Perseverance lays at a Dorchester float completely ready for a challenging offshore race, but one second later she’s damaged beyond repair. Fortunately, the owner was not on board, and now he and the CCA have made the lightning damage details available to all of us who should be aware of how perverse and pervasive they can be…
For me, the Craftsman tool brand mainly harkens back to my dad’s garage workshop more than half a century ago, so now I’d love to see his reaction to this cordless electric screwdriver that knows what you want it to do. You too may amazed at what can be mass-marketed for $25 these days, and how useful it can be around a boat…
Garmin’s latest release of MFD software has added support for digital switching. With this update they’ve leapfrogged from the rear of the pack to class leading digital switching support. I was surprised to find the ease of configuring control on Garmin’s MFDs, so I’ve prepared a video that shows how to configure digital switching control.
I think it’s neat that Brunswick showed off its latest marine technology at the huge Consumers Electronics Show (CES), though it’s a bit disconcerting to see the lowercase-“e”-for-electric model designation on a sport boat with three 450hp internal combustion engines hanging on its stern. But then again, the electric component of the Sea Ray SLX-R 400e really is a valuable concept that deserves more attention from all sorts of boaters…
