Is Raymarine in the right hands??

[Hurricane]

Ahh - thats the reason then - we've stuck to the good old ST60s.
And that means that the pilot was the older ST6000 series as well.
Tried and tested over the years.
Personally, I prefer the looks of the older displays as well.

The only drawback is that I cant use the "Dodge" facility on the G Series wireless keyboards.

I did think of upgrading but I'm a great believer of "if it ain't broke - dont fix it"

A better solution that I've been tempted to add is a smart pilot - just plugs into the old Seatalk bus and gives all the instrument AND pilot information/control onto a separate remote control - not expensive -I might even ask Father Christmas for one!!

 

[jfm]

A better solution that I've been tempted to add is a smart pilot - just plugs into the old Seatalk bus and gives all the instrument AND pilot information/control onto a separate remote control - not expensive -I might even ask Father Christmas for one!!

The smart pilot is excellent Hurricane. Easy install as you say because its receiver box plugs into ST1 bus and you're done. It shows all the ST1 bus data on screen, and you can steer =/- 1 degree or 10 degrees from the sunbed if you want to tweak your course when on long passage.

 

[kcrane]

The smart pilot is excellent Hurricane. Easy install as you say because its receiver box plugs into ST1 bus and you're done. It shows all the ST1 bus data on screen, and you can steer =/- 1 degree or 10 degrees from the sunbed if you want to tweak your course when on long passage.

I found it a nice to have and it fits in the tried and tested category. Can't remember when it was released but as we had one on a 2005 model year cat it must count as steam powered to those on the bleeding edge

 

[aquapower]

With the exception of these Raymarine stuff that has been tried and tested is good but I'd avoid anything newly released.

I can remember about 3 years ago fitting one of the first HD radars and they were happy to sell it but it would not work because the software was not yet available for it, so after a bit of a battle we had a test version and then got the actual tried and un tested version about 3 months later.

I have done well over 3000 miles using Raymarine pilots/plotters and find them very user friendly but have to agree that the Simrad kit is nowhere near as easy to operate and when faced with using it I have to get the book out.
Not had any experience with Garmin yet at sea but have installed a couple of plotters and managed to set things up without looking at the book so would say they are very user friendly and the displays are very clear.