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ON AGAIN! Garmin makes offer for Raymarine 23

The Trade

ON AGAIN! Garmin makes offer for Raymarine

Garmin_offer_Raymarine.JPG

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.

BEP CZone #1, “distributed power”? 11

Electrical & Engines / The Trade

BEP CZone #1, “distributed power”?

BEP_CZone_sample_system_diagram2.JPG

I’ve been looking through a lot of material on BEP’s new CZone system, and finding it impressive. But its descriptive subtitle — “Networked Control and Monitoring System” — seems a little vague to me.  In fact, Simrad changed that to “digital switching” when they showed off their nifty CZone integration with the NSE series (covered briefly in a Miami Show entry).  It does seem like the handful of manufacturers who dare to compete in this complex niche can’t agree about what to call it, but I like “distributed power”.  You can see why in the simplified CZone sample diagram above; like the competition, those OI modules efficiently distribute an electrical system’s core power feed and circuit protection functions to where they’re needed, while networking the switching and much more. There is no central breaker panel on this boat, and a lot less wire.  The following diagrams tell more about the concept…

DY NMEA 0183 to USB, looks handy 16

Network & control

DY NMEA 0183 to USB, looks handy

Digital_Yacht_USB_NMEA_0183_Adaptor.JPG

That’s Digital Yacht’s just announced NMEA 0183 to USB adapter, all of it, and it’s just $49.  Wire it to a multiplexer, AIS, or some other 0183 RX/TX port and any 0183 message will purportedly be seen by software running on the attached computer.  The adapter has LEDs that flicker for transmitted and received data, and it can be set to either 4,800 or 38,400 baud. The included software is said to work with PCs, Macs, and even Linux-based systems, and there’s a bonus…

Garmin visit #3, WFO 11

Fishing & Sonar

Garmin visit #3, WFO

Fishing_w_Garmin_Ben_Snapper_cPanbo.JPG

Phase two of the Garmin extravaganza — a fishing trip off Texas with pro angler Bill Platt — may not have gone quite as planned, but I don’t think you need much more than this image of calm seas, blue sky, and a huge ass red snapper to know that it was truly a blast…

Garmin visit #2, GPSMap 78 6

Handheld / The Trade

Garmin visit #2, GPSMap 78

Garmin_78_industrial_design_evolution_cPanbo.JPG

Today Garmin introduced the GPSMap 78 series, an apparently major refresh of the 76 series long popular with boaters.  While I only got to fiddle with a pre-production unit for a moment, I did learn a lot about the industrial design process behind it.  The ID department in Olathe — aka “The Skunk Works” or “Area 51” —  has a tool collection that would make all sorts of craftsmen and artists drool, but I’ll save that story for another day.  What’s particularly notable about the exhibit shown above and below is how many design iterations were created and modeled for the 78, and how detailed they were…

Garmin visit #1, making stuff 9

The Trade

Garmin visit #1, making stuff

Messy maybe, but this is how marine electronics get made, and Garmin HQ in Olathe, Kansas, is all about making stuff.  The engineer who leads the hardware side of the marine department told me...

MTA Survey #1, brand awareness & perception 6

Panbo & misc. / What's on board... / The Trade

MTA Survey #1, brand awareness & perception

Panbo_MTA_survey_brand1.JPG

Please don’t jump to conclusions about this first real slice of the finished Panbo/MTA survey until you better understand what it represents. The questions quoted at the top of the table above were “open ended”.  The 950 people who spent time taking the survey (thank you all!) got no check box guidance toward their answers.  In fact, no brand names were specifically mentioned anywhere in the survey.  So the 1,558 positive responses, along with the 773 negative ones — no, almost none of you ornery cusses did as asked, naming three of each — are purely the brand names that came into nearly 1,000 minds when asked in privacy which marine technology products had either pleased or displeased them. The individual response totals then are a mix of at least three factors:  market share (how many of the survey takers own, or have owned, some of a brand’s products); brand awareness (most may remember whose MFD they use, but not necessarily whose inverter); and brand perception (the emotion that brings a brand name to mind).  And there are more complexities beyond…

Raymarine’s Virtual Sea Trial, more please 1

Zany

Raymarine’s Virtual Sea Trial, more please

Raymarine_Virtual_Sea_Trial_cPanbo.JPG

Raymarine introduced its Virtual Sea Trial system at the Miami Boat Show, and I was one of many who got quite a kick out of it.  Note the twin wide open throttles (or WFO, an acronymn that will gather more meaning next week).  When I wasn’t driving the big simulated RIB over waves off the well detailed port of Marseille, France, I tried some slow speed docking maneuvers and was pleasantly surprised to find that the faux twin outboard backed and filled quite realistically.  Of course having this high quality simulator integrated with twin E-14 Widescreens plus ST70+ autopilot and instrument heads meant you could really get a feel for how those devices work.  But boys will be boys…

Helping Heloise, to preserve digital charts 4

History

Helping Heloise, to preserve digital charts

PINS_9000_courtesy_UK_NMM.JPG

This, friends, is a screen shot from a circa 1980’s Offshore Systems PINS 9000 digital chart system. And it’s a rare image indeed.  One of the odd things about the fast moving world of electronic charting is how ephemeral it is.  To get the best historical sense of what early digital chart plotting was like you really need the hardware powered up on a moving vessel, or at least connected to some simulated inputs.  But the truth is that even decent photographs and/or screen shots of early plotters are hard to find.  That’s the problem Dr.
Heloise Finch-Boyer of the UK National
Maritime Museum has run into, and I’m hoping that some Panbo readers can help her…

Coastal Explorer & ActiveCaptain, YES! 59

Navigation / PC & peripheral / AIS

Coastal Explorer & ActiveCaptain, YES!

Garmin just announced several new products which will be shown when the doors open at METS tomorrow morning. The 6000 and 7000 series are very much like the successful 4- and 5000 series except that apparently they’ve got enough processor speed to warrant a new expression for how fast and smoothly they pan and zoom charts — Garmin G Motion. They’ve also got …