It’s interesting that Johnson Outdoors, makers of Humminbird electronics, announced the acquisition of GeoNav a few days ago. I’ve long thought that GeoNav gear was noteworthy, as noted recently, but never wrote much about it because it was never marketed in the U.S. The reason? GeoNav was owned by Navionics, which had made the decision some time back not to compete with their many OEM customers—Raymarine, Lowrance, Northstar, etc.—in the States. Now it looks like that restriction is finished and, though I have no idea of Johnson Outdoor’s plan, I wouldn’t be surprised to see some rejiggered GeoNav products come to America. One particularly interesting unit to look for is this GeoNav 3, an amazingly powerful but tiny handheld.
So they’d run out of press kits, and there’s nothing on the Web about them (yet), but there they are—a half dozen or so new Raymarine autopilot models that will be known as the SPX range, and look like replacements for the current range. New features? “Every SPX system comes with rate gyro” included; “Quicker install—no rudder reference required”; “over 10 dedicated fishing patterns” (note some at bottom of photo); and “Access to SeaTalkNG (aka, NMEA 2000) information via the ST70 color autopilot head.” So, given this week’s Garmin announcements and the new Simrad systems, I think we just went from zero to three brands of N2K-talking autopilots!
It’s still in prototype, “but close to done”, and close enough that I’m sure this entirely new Fusion marine stereo design is going to make some boaters very happy. Particularly those of the iPod orientation. This stereo doesn’t just work with the iPod’s stereo jack; as you can see below it has a complete iPod dock tucked away behind the faceplate, where your precious player will be safe from spray and bumps. Should you want a model with a CD player in this spot, then a separate weatherproof iPod dock will be an option.
I’m exhausted maties, but thought you might enjoy this pic of the new Garmin GMI 10, reported on a bit this morning. Garmin now has more detail here, and press releases on all the other new kit here. I’ll try to add more about my imressions in the am.
Good day. My fourth METS show in six years (starts tomorrow), but the first with my (fairly) patient wife along, and the first day that I’ve gotten out on the Amsterdam canals or even seen much blue sky here (in November). We got a ticket for a Blue Boat tour with our B&B, and that turned out lucky too. They seemed the most handsome and woody of all the tour boats, and our particular skipper hardly used the computerized “guide” (the mini PC screen upper right) in favor of his own patter and custom mix tape, both slightly cracked. His nav equipment? A Furuno GPS mainly displaying SOG, and a VHF that he used to keep in touch with the home office or, above, query an arrogant tug who cut him off cold. And mind you he’s driving a single screw vessel about 60’ long—no thruster, no deck hand—negotiating lots of traffic, and numerous bridges with barely a foot or two of leeway either side. His main safety tool seemed to be that rear view mirror over his left soldier and the mirrors strategically placed at many of the blind canal intersections. Not that a collision would cause any real harm. Great skipper; good day. And tomorrow, like Tuesday a year ago, should begin with a passel of Garmin press releases. What do you think…15” displays?…instruments?…Garmin branded auto pilot?
So Simrad has introduced two new auto pilot control heads, the AP 24 above, and the larger AP 28. As best I can tell they both enable the same rich suite of AP features, which include steering patterns and steering to a contour (both appreciated by trolling fishermen), ROT control (which I think means turn rates adjusted for G force), virtual rudder feedback (i.e. rudder sensor not needed for outdrive installs), and “No Drift Course” (even if you just set a course, the pilot creates a virtual waypoint and corrects for current and leeway). But the really big change from previous Simrad models is that these heads use SimNet, a cable modification of NMEA 2000, to communicate with new AC12 and AC42 pilot computers as well as with SimNet rudder and compass sensors included in Simrad’s new IS20 instrument series (which also looks interesting).
After Tim Hasson (of TechYacht) sent a head’s up about how neatly this year’s Carib 1500 rally is being tracked, I had a look—the whole fleet seen above this morning, a couple of days out of Norfolk, VA—and agree. You can see for yourself here, either in Google Maps or Earth. The company responsible for collecting and presenting the data is Magnalox.net, while the fully automated GPS communicators on the boats are made by Axonn. The whole set up is quite a change from past rallies, as Tim notes: “In the past, I collected everybody's position via Single Sideband, then passed the info on to the web site guy for posting on the web (a rather tedious chore, you can imagine). I’ve been replaced by robots, and couldn't be more pleased.” But the funniest line, I think, goes to Rally organizer Steve Black, who was quoted thusly in a good Cruising World article about the Axonn tracker:
And apparently, it's even been "sailor-tested." Nothing is required of these self-contained transmitters, so no one needs to touch them. "That type of reliability becomes extremely important," says Black, "when you're dealing with a group of people who like to fiddle with things."
Axonn, incidently, seems to be quite involved in the SPOT Satellite Personal Tracker, discussed here in August and now actually available. Doug Ritter has done some great research on SPOT, and I think it may become quite popular with boaters. In fact, I’d be testing one right now if it weren’t for a certain PR company that seems to be having a hard time locating its elbow, if you know what I mean.
I’ve been trying ClearPoint High Definition Weather for a couple of weeks now, plus I talked to some of the team at FLIBS. This is a very ambitious operation. The ClearPoint goal is to provide the richness and simplicity of dedicated XM and Sirius satellite weather anywhere on the globe, delivered by Internet. Plus they’re aiming to provide more exotic data—like 1 kilometer wind forecasting of certain sail racing hot spots and game fish revealing altimetry/chlorophyll imagery—for certain niche marine markets. And they seem to be working with numerous nav software/hardware developers to provide integrated packages, even automated weather routing. At any rate, check out the full size screen shot of ClearPoint’s PC client software above. The icons at the top—wind, fronts, lightning, hurricanes, and text forecasts—show what I’ve chosen to display on screen. With the window lower right I can page through those various elements, clicking for specific places on screen. And the icons below show other data types I could add to my mix. I like the interface quite a lot and some of the data, like far offshore lightning, I’ve never seen in any weather product before. But buying the ClearPoint service is not trivial, and that does not include the cost of offshore downloads, which could be in the .5 meg per hour range (there is a low bandwidth mode, and ClearPoint is working on total download size controls). Interested? There is a free trial; please report back!
I always make some time to get to the furthest reaches of the Fort Lauderdale and Miami Boat Shows. These are back rooms so far from the real action of these big shows that the new exhibitors you find there often think of themselves as exiled in “Siberia”. But I have sometimes found a really good product there, and have then helped make the product known…which is a thrill for me. But I’ve also seen some pretty weird scenes in Siberia, like when I turned a corner in the FLIBS convention center last month and found the four people above laying back in chaise lounges with goggles on and their mouths glowing blue! And apparently, bigger picture here, they’d paid $149 a piece for the privilege. I think it was the lab coats that cinched the deal. And that’s as serious as I’m going get, as my day of the year has rolled around again. At least I can look back at the last year and take pleasure in my coming out as a true propeller head.
So you know I think the new Raymarine G Series and Furuno NavNet 3D are pretty big deals on the high end of marine electronics. But they are computers, aren’t they? Interesting question. I don’t see Raymarine using that term on the G Processor pages, nor Furuno on the NN3D MFDBB pages. But they both have hard drives, they both handle lots of data and graphics very fast, and NN3D even supports conventional USB mice and keyboards. In fact, if you ask the guys who designed these machines, they’re not shy about what’s going on. The G Series run on Linux and NavNet 3D runs on Windows XP Embedded. So, yes, I think these are computers, even if built for the purpose (does the G above look rugged, or what?), and thoroughly locked up against normal PC software/hardware compatibility issues. But does even a heavy-duty locked-up computer make you nervous on a boat? I’ve heard some worry about the drives but mind you these are heavy duty shock mounted units, and, besides, it’s easy (if costly) to build redundancy into either system. Both are essentially headless, with all major sensors like radar connecting via Ethernet hub. And both, I think, automatically copy created routes, etc. to all processors on a network. Sounds pretty reliable to me, plus I like some of the Windows related interface features seen on NN3D screens like the fishfinder setup one below. What do you think?
