Excellent and surprising news, I think: As of yesterday, the widely respected racing/navigation program Expedition supports Navico's Broadband Radar straight up, no Navico MFD required in the system unless you want one. This means a lot for the serious racers who favor Expedition, and it may well mean a lot for the rest of us...
How does the old expression go..."He who giveth can also be an annoying butt?" Here's my problem: Last week Lenny Rudow wrote one of the most imaginative electronics pieces I've seen since, well, Lenny himself started flushing handhelds, but I think the premise is flawed. Before contemplating my two cents, though, please check out the article yourself, offered gratis by Mad Mariner...
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...
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 backlighting that dims down more than the originals, and backlit keypads. And the big mama 15" touch screen 7012 and 7015, which will retail for something like $7,000, have a feature that's a first for MFDs, I think -- VGA input, so a user can use them as a monitor for a down below PC. Interesting! They also have four regular video inputs, and I'm told that all the new machines can display video input full screen (which was a problem). Though it's not in the press release, I also understand the 6- and 7000 series will have limited distribution, which means they're mainly meant for installer/dealers, a crowd Garmin has slowly been winning over. Garmin's new Class B AIS is no slouch either...
I first heard about SailTimer -- a set of algorithms for calculating sailing tacks, including total distance and tacking time to destination (TTD) -- back in 2006. And it did indeed become a very interesting feature of NavSim's SailCruiser. But developer Craig Summers was not done there. His Indepth Navigation company now offers a free, and very simplified, iPhone version of SailTimer as well as the $14 app illustrated above. Frankly, even the paid app doesn't seem as full featured as the online SailTimer demo yet -- you don't see what your calculated speed is, for instance -- but I know Summers is working on it. In fact, SailTimer 2.0, with tacking lines drawn between those pins on the map, is due out this week. And then there's the "Sailing GPS"...
It took Furuno and MaxSea quite a while to actually ship Time Zero software in the U.S., and it took me a while to clear enough disk space to load it on that oldish HP laptop, but the long wait did not end in disappointment. My first impression is that TZ charting and radar run beautifully, and with amazing responsiveness even though the laptop barely meets the suggested minimum specs. The photo above is also another testament to the DRSD2's close range resolution; not far beyond my bow you can see the two boats on floats and shrink-wrapped schooners that are being cleanly targeted. And don't presume the GPS is off because Gizmo seems to be ashore...
Check out all the vector arrows around Dan Corcoran's Raymarine E-80 boat icon, as he steers Breeze Pleeze through Huntington Harbor as a storm closes in. Red is for heading, green for COG, blue for current, and yellow for wind. High performance sensors have made these vectors valuable for situational awareness of the current where he's about to dock, and more, as Dan explains:
I am writing about the Airmar H2183 solid state heading sensor (covered in Panbo here) after my experience as a beta tester. Raymarine gets honorable mention in the title above for its role in making this compass especially useful at a time in recreational navigation when its too easy to cruise all day without taking a compass heading.
In Part I of this series, Dan Corcoran, and many commenters, got into not just the value of accurate boat speed, but the true meaning of True Wind. Click on on Dan's illustration above and check out Part II...
Though it's been a while since I wrote about the radome testing, I still feel overwhelmed with what I've learned to date, and not done yet. And at this point -- harbor emptying out, cold and dreary -- the images are becoming nostalgic. On the beautiful day above I was off Camden as the area's fleet of "dude schooners" gathered for the Windjammer Festival. Besides enjoying the scene (note the gentle sailing breeze, and also the indication that True Wind and Ground Wind are indeed different, as recently discussed), I intended to use the fleet as MARPA targets. But I got sidetracked by a feature that partially does the work of MARPA without having to cursor around and select targets. Click on the screen above and I'll explain...
Guest Entry by Dan Corcoran
My family and I took a road trip to the Annapolis Boat show this weekend, where I took up a challenge from Ben to write on some products I find, and do so with a conservation of words (rather than my normal verbose style). Disclaimer: These are not my normal on the water reviews, everything appearing below has not been evaluated or researched by your humble correspondent in the slightest bit!
