changing nav brand - what legacy stuff can i keep?

[Elessar]

I need new nav, and can't bring myself to pay raymarine any money.

I presume the obvious alternative is garmin? Which model is a similar size to a raymarine c/e 125. My dash is custom made for a C125 so it can't be very different.

My raymarine instruments and pilot are all seatalk compatible, which I know is a raymarine standard. Can any of this be made to work with a garmin plotter? And what about the radar?

It may be i need to buy second hand raymarine kit on ebay but I hope not........

 

[Whitelighter]

Why on earth do you need new nav? Did you break something?
Anyway, your pilot etc will work through NMEA

So pilot, vhf and st60/80 etc will work.

Radar needs to be same brand as screen

 

[robrennie]

Raymarine kit works perfectly well on NMEA2000, the only real difference is the cabling, so you will need to buy an adaptor cable to connect Garmin to your network - it works just fine, no drama.

The radars are proprietary though, the scanner must be the same as the display, so unless you are changing your scanner, you will need to stick with Raymarine I am afraid.

 

[MapisM]

It may be i need to buy second hand raymarine kit on ebay but I hope not........

Why not? And as Whitelighter said, why upgrade, to start with?

I've always been a Furuno fan, and still am - btw, I smiled at the recent debate on another thread about after sale support, allegedly much better for Garmin vs. Raymarine, because I've yet to meet a boater with Furuno stuff onboard who ever needed any kind of after sale support...!

But having said that, the boat I just bought was 100% Raymarine equipped (2004 vintage), and after trying everything, I decided that it isn't worth changing any bit of it.
In fact, with onboard electronics, the "keep up with the Joneses" approach is very dangerous...
Most of us have more sophisticated systems compared to many commercial boats which are out there 24/7.
And even when some of them do run aground, I can't remember any event where the reason was down to inadequate electronics! :ambivalence:

 

[Piers]

Hi, two comments:

1) my experience is that Furuno's leisure kit is a descendent of their commercial range and is therefore exceptionally good and reliable.
2) mixing manufacturers will always lose something which happens to be proprietary. Having said that, if you are careful about which manufacturers you mix and for what reason, it can be OK. You may need converters for 183 to 2000, but that's down to investigation.

Play d'eau has a mix of Furuno (Radar, Chart Plotter, Sat compass), Simrad A/P, and B&G instruments for log, depth, sea temp and wind. Yes, we use converters and some proprietary specifics are lost - but time has passed and I can't remember which! Obviously I don't miss them.