Gigando iPod interface, on Alexis
So what do get when a very successful software developer cuts loose on an Azimut 55? Among many other things, the biggest iPod interface I’ve ever seen. I didn’t quite get all the details but I’m pretty sure that Alexis’s super-fine entertainment system includes a Yamaha home theater system, XM Satellite Audio, KVH stabilized HD TV, a Logitech Harmony 1000, and some gizmo that transmits the tunes over an FM channel to whatever nearby radios want to tune in. But my interest in the yacht was mainly its Simrad GB60 system…
You see Alexis was perhaps the first U.S. yacht to install a GB60 system, and I visited owner Mark Levey and his family when they cruised to Kennebunk in 2007 and again in Camden last summer. Some aspects of the system were impressive from the start, like the camera system shown below, and bigger here. Starting at lower right, that’s a FLIR Navigator fixed thermal cam pointed straight ahead (down the Kennebunk river), a low light engine room cam, a stern cam, and the Levey’s special “napping kid” cam. Talk about flying bridge situational awareness.
But that first summer the GB60 a wee bit buggy. And hence I wasn’t enthused to write about it until I stumbled on the Leveys again and realized, especially in light of last summer’s Furuno fires, how they’d wisely let the system catch up to them, instead of letting themselves get caught up in its initial problems. My thinking ended up in a just-out PMY column called Early Adopter that’s a little headier than my normal fare. I’m curious if you early adopting Panbots think I came near the mark.
Glad to hear that Simrad has figured out their problems, but I guess I am surprised you didn't write about the problems back in 2007. The whole thing with early adopters is that we rely on them (us really) to let us know when early products are or are not ready for adoption. If early adopters and the press don't report product problems those with less technical abilities won't know about the problems.