Raymarine E-Wide hands-on #1, & money talk
... written for Panbo by Ben Ellison and posted on Nov 23, 2009
Raymarine product manager Mark Garland and marketing manager Jim McGowan kindly came to Maine last Thursday and swapped a new E140 Widescreen for the C140W I used for radar comparisons all summer. They were lucky in terms of testing-on-the-Bay weather, but not so lucky in terms of dire sounding Raymarine financial news that I felt compelled to drill them about. I'll save that for last, though, as the E Wide is definitely worth top billing...
Of course the big deal about E Wides is the "hybridTouch" interface, which I took to fairly easily. I don't mind that a few functions, like zooming, can only be done with keys (and hence you don't have to constantly see Garmin-like + and - keys overlaid on the screen). But I did quite naturally adopt touch for picking an active screen, selecting a MARPA target, laying down waypoints, and querying POI data. And I suppose if it had been really rough, I could have gone back to the keys for those tasks.
This screen shot of Gizmo entering the harbor -- pretending to be a sailboat, icon wise -- illustrates a few things. For one, the 3D implementation is much better than it used to be, and I think it will be used a lot more. Raymarine does need to let users move the boat icon down the head-up 3D screen, or put it there permanently like Garmin does (because you don't need maximum detail of what's behind you), but it does let you tap POIs for info, which Garmin doesn't {Correction: I'm told you can tap/select nav aid detail on a Garmin, which I'll have to try again}. This E Widescreen can not overlay radar on 3D (like Garmin, Furuno, and now Simrad), and Raymarine's making no promises in that regard, but I saw it demoed on an apparently rogue beta unit in Lauderdale, so I think we can hope. The reason the radar shown on this screen looks somewhat messy is that I have it set in "Bird Mode", which I found surprisingly useful in the outer harbor and Bay. It picked up some mooring bouys that other presets didn't, but declared its uncertainty with that light blue "may be noise" color.
In the screen shot below I tried to duplicate the Furuno NN3D and MSTZ image recently posted. The detail is fairly similar (given that one of the two boats on floats dead ahead is no longer there). Incidentally, all the controls screen bottom work by touch -- Radar Overlay control excepted -- but the soft keys just below them are just as easy to use, probably easier on E Wides with smaller screens. I think I prefer using the rotary control for settings like that overlay, as oppossed to having the full vertical screen percentage bar Garmin's all touch 5000 series has. A combination of buttons and touch may be the way to go.Further screen note, and credit to Navionics: At least for Camden, its latest P+ color photo maps are a few years fresher, and appear slightly higher res, than Furuno's, which I thought to be the best. But that may vary up and down the coast and elsewhere, and both photos -- the "latest" available -- show Gizmo sitting on a granite wall that was taken down during the winter of 2006-2007. You've been warned!
I'll be testing the E140 Widescreen some more, to be sure (though Gizmo's time in the water runs out soon), but thought I'd close Hands On #1 with a screen showing the neat manual built into the units. It seems quite well done, and useful, and I'm not sure any manufacturer has done this to such graphic detail before? 
Now the business stuff. Last Thursday Raymarine again reported down sales and bank covenants
violated, plus the rumored buy out by Garmin has not materialized. The
London Times seems to have a thorough overview of the situation, but it's Reuters that quotes a British analyst saying, "Insolvency is the most likely course, if I were a betting
man." Ouch! But let's note that the analyst has a sell rating on Raymarine stock, and may even be making money as the stock plummets. At any rate, his focus is stock value, when in fact stock value and actual business value are two separate things. Observe the history of Iridium Satellite and many other companies that have come back to life fine though their original stock did not.The people I know at Raymarine, like Mark and Jim, don't seem to know much more about this situation than we do -- which is how it's supposed to work at public companies -- but they point out that the banks have extended their possible loans another 15 million pounds, which Raymarine has not exercised but does not seem like what a smart banker would do if a company was close to "collapse", as IBI puts it. Heck, even the "sell" analyst who's quoted everywhere added, "If you strip off the debt, this is quite a good company. It should be chucking off cash." And, while I'm no business analyst, 92 million pounds of debt does not seem that big a negative given Raymarine's place in the marine electronics market, and its current product assets. When Raymarine visited last week, all six boats still afloat where Gizmo is tied up at Wayfarer -- a very diverse little fleet -- are Raymarine equipped, and Garland told me that about 1,000 E Widescreens are already on order.
So I find it quite hard to believe that Raymarine will collapse as in no products being sold or serviced. Change likely, stock holders screwed probably, but collapse like that I doubt. But if I was Raymarine I'd sure be worried that potential customers are passing them by because they're worried about such a collapse. I don't know what British security laws allow -- have you ever heard of a U.S. company board having to tell its stockholders that it's unlikely they'll realize any value? -- but this would be a good time for whatever assurance is possible.
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I strongly agree with Ben "I find it quite hard to believe that Raymarine will collapse as in no products being sold or serviced.".
The prospect of Stockholder value being wiped out hurts of course, I am sure that includes many Raymarine employees, but debt gets renegotiated and life goes on in companies less well positioned than Raymarine.
What may be a little different here is that the R&D moves made by Raymarine are really substantial and appear to be very successful across multiple product types including hybrid touch chartplotters (you only need a few minutes with one to feel how different they are from the Garmin's), ST70 displays (I have first hand experience with these), and HD scanner's (a leap in radar image quality is a priority for me over AIS)
Ideally Raymarine�s debt would be renegotiated six months ago and the bad news not lingering so long, but it must be especially difficult to figure out the right transaction for the debt holders given all the new product coming out and the economy making it difficult to forecast how much would be sold.
Maybe the Christmas season will answer some of this. I am quite giddy about the prospects Raymarine product will be under my Christmas Tree next month (An HD Scanner please Santa), and I can't think of a better gift for others than a single color ST70 display to compliment the cockpits of a ST60 equipped power or sailboat.
The ST70 is very cool by the way, and may belong on your Christmas list. It's simply for the wife to purchase (just one part number E22105), simple for her to understand what it does and why you would like it, low risk (it will bring an instant smile to the owner of any ST60 equipped sail or power boat), easy to install (seatalk or, ahem, N2K), and in addition to blending in well with existing ST60's (after you purchase the matching $21 sun cover part number A25004-P) it's fun to actually use as you explore and configure your boat's data to be easily viewable / come to life while underway better than your chartplotter does (sans cartography).