Electrical navvy sort of question

[Moose]

Just had my offer accepted for my new boat! Whoooo!
Still not telling you what it is.
Anyway: It has no nav stuff. So I am looking at raymarine and simrad to get a plotter and radar.
Is it worth paying an extra £400 to get a CRT R70 Raymarine Instead of the RL70 LCD screen?
And ideally I would like a colour plotter, I am looking at the Raymarine 630 colour, Should I go for that rather than a smaller simrad cp32?

Or there is the Simrad CR40/plotter/radar/gps/depth. Combined, but it is a lot of money! (And what happens if the screen fails, because then you have nothing apart form compass e.t.c. At least with seperate screens you don't lose everthing at once)

 

[kimhollamby]

Where are you putting the plotter (outside or in)?

 

[Moose]

Inside

 

[claymore]

Hmmm - big problem. Well, I hope you resolve it but perhaps the odd paper chart, protractor and compasses might be a useful addition in a plastic box with a sealed lid and padlock, safely stored in a convenient place - wouldn't want you losing everything would we.?

 

[jfm]

With plotters, the Ray 630 is clearly better than Simrad CP32 becuase it is 10.4 inch screen rahter than 7 inch. But its also more £££ so not fair comparison. The equivalent sized Simrad product is CP40, which imho is significantly better than Ray630 because of the 3-windows display function (I use this Simrad).

All depends on your budget, but look at furuno 1943C. This has true colour radar, where strength of return signal is denoted by colour. It combines plotter and radar on one screen.

I take your point on what happens if screen fails. IMHO the likelihood is tiny, and you would then switch to handheld GPS as backup

It'a all down to personal preference, but imho a good plan if working to some £££ limit is to buy a cheap radar like JRC (which everyone reports works well-see other threads recently) and a superduper big colour screen windows plotter like CP40

 

[ChrisP]

Personal opinion

I prefer the radar and the plotter on seperate screens as switching between radar and plotter in poor visability can get exciting. AH I hear you say split screen display. Personally I find split screens all well and good when you are only using it for reference but when its your eyes there is nothing like a full screen display to give a full picture of whats going on around you.
I have installed and used in anger the Raymarine kit and its good stuff, Easy to install and good displays but I still prefer individual displays. If the cash is around, have a radar screen up top with the other instruments down below with a multifunction repeater beside the radar.

ChrisP

 

[Guest]

Re: agreed

in actual fog you need a radar that is dedicated and close by. Gps separate.

A very large and powerful radar will be needed on the Thames, to fry all the gawping saily types complaining at the radar which you (correctly) are ensuring will work at a moment's notice, and should check each trip perhaps even more so than vhf with no moving parts.

 

[DavidJ]

I'm in exactly the same position just having signed up for a new Sealine S37 (delivery Feb 2002)
The comments against split screen
I'm looking at the 630 and comparing prices, the best so far being onlinemarine.com at £1525 (converted from $$)
How much do I need the radar at the moment, I know at the first sign of fog I will wish I had one but I'm tempted to leave it a while.
Interested in your opinion since you are in the same boat (ha!)
I guess the boat show may give us some bargains
regards
David

 

[Moose]

Nearly the same boat, Mines an F36

 

[DavidJ]

I seriously looked at the F range but my wife was opposed to me lording it upstairs while she skuttled around the deck putting out fenders and fending off so the S range it was.

Although some of your 'repliers' seemed to be against split screen instruments, it comes down to space really and we both have that constraint. I'm thinking now of the RC631, lets see whats at the boatshow.
David