Category: The Trade

I don’t recall why I had my hand up like that, but do remember the scene — Furuno showing off NavNet on some sort of military grade head’s up display, I think — as one of many geek moments I’ve enjoyed at NMEA conferences.  In my experience, there’s no concentration of marine electronics expertise and enthusiasm anywhere that compares to the Conference’s trade-only exhibition hall.  But the affair became a dite more stressful for me last year when I got involved in the NMEA Technology Award, which went to Navico’s Broadband Radar with honorable mentions to Maretron’s N2KBuilder and Navionics’ Mobile (PDF here).  This year may be even harder…

I like this picture of Chuck — found on his personal web site, along some truly touching memorial material — because whenever I saw him at boat shows he was almost invariably decked out in a blue blazer and tie.  Now Mr. Charles Husick certainly had the gravitas to support a bit of formality; he was an accomplished electrical engineer who had also managed serious companies, written hundreds of magazine articles, and been a important advocate for sensible marine technologies…and he knew more about many subjects than many of us know about one.  But he was also a real boating enthusiast, and in this picture I can sense that large, curious intellect that must have had so much fun geeking out on his ketch Bonne Étoile…

While a Panbo logo is still a work in progress, check out the sharp name plate Gizmo is sporting thanks to Garmin’s industrial design department.  Gander too at how much electronic goodness I managed to squeeze onto the boat’s latest flying bridge dash, and note that a wider view would also show a Furuno MFD12 and a Raymarine E140 Wide with room for more!  It’s quite the testing platform and you’ll be seeing lots of pictures and screen shots taken here, but today let’s tour that amazing design shop in Kansas…

I don’t like what some Japanese companies, supported by their government, are doing to whales, but I’m smart enough to know that a reasonable alternative to Sea Shepherd’s nasty headline above might be: “Furuno won’t give (or sell) Sea Shepherd a new radar because its government asked it not to.”  Or: “Furuno won’t support protesters who ram Japanese ships.”  Or maybe: “Furuno wants nothing to do with an arrogant jerk like Captain Paul Watson!”…

“We are all very happy here,” reads the email I just got from a contact at Raymarine, and that sure makes sense. The agonizing process of getting sold is over, and in the end they were bought by a strong company which is not a direct competitor but is “very serious about commercial and recreational marine.” That phrase, already demonstrably true, comes fresh from Lou Rota, FLIR’s VP for Maritime Business Development.  Rota also told me that there are no plans to move or substantially change Raymarine operations, and that FLIR is very hopeful that it can continue to work closely with manufacturers like Furuno, Simrad, and Garmin in terms of integrating its thermal cameras into their navigation electronics. I suppose that Garmin, which recently made a very public bid for Ray, may be unhappy about this turn of events, but…

Amazing!  Garmin just announced a very public and serious offer for Raymarine.  The Wall Street Journal has the 30 page (!) announcement here, but this London Stock Exchange link is easier to read. Garmin is offering 15 pence per share, which is way up from what we’ve heard recently (see comments here), and it’s waived any further due diligence.  The only way this deal won’t happen is if either Raymarine’s board or the European anti-trust regulators don’t like it.  And by being so public with the offer, Garmin is expressing a lot of confidence that both those parties will find the offer acceptable.  Maybe it’s time to think about a marine electronics world where two of the biggest brands are one.