modern hi tec navigation and instrumentation

[TSB240]

small extra amount......thats a joke right?

OK a more direct price comparison with no UK support.will save you a lot of the difference.
KP-39A 7-Zoll-Farb-LCD-GPS-Diagrammplotter mit GPS-Antenne und integriertem Transponder der Klasse B Ais Combo Marine GPS-Navigator - AliExpress 34

No joke as far as I am concerned.
The Onwa is way better than a reboxed HP 33A replacement. The 528A probably uses the same 10 year old circuitry and has redundant ais technology given the advantages of B+.

 

[Dutch01527]

I have had new or nearly new Navionics MFD chart plotter on my new and last boat and both are hardly ever used. It is laggy, has overly complicated menus and an average display. I keep it because it is there as and useful for its ability to configure bespoke displays such as speed over ground and through water, depth, true and apparent wind speed all on one screen. I do not pay to update the charts and would not buy another if it failed.

My essentials would be:

- Navionics on rugged android tablet, phone and ipad with good mounting and battery charging at helm and under spray hood
- Reliable autopilot with wind angle option for down wind sailing, does not need to be linked to chart routes
- Depth
- Wind instruments
- Ais transmitter/reciever with WiFi link to Navionics on tablet ect
- Access to the main masthead antenna vhf at the helm ( not yet sorted on new boat)

Other desirables
- cockpit anchor controls with chain counter
- rudder angle display
- forward looking sonar
- engine and fuel monitoring data on displays

 

[ylop]

Furuno do a wifi only one. It’s one of the reasons i walked away from a boat i was buying, i cant think of anything worse. I’m sure it was cheaper to buy than a proper set.

I think Orca have some sort of radar offering - but I say that as someone who neither has an orca core/display nor radar but I’m sure ive seen an overlay. No idea if it would be too cluttered to be useful.

 

[Parabordi]

I think Orca have some sort of radar offering - but I say that as someone who neither has an orca core/display nor radar but I’m sure ive seen an overlay. No idea if it would be too cluttered to be useful.

all that is - is the core which is an overpriced GPS. You can plug a Radar dome into it and use without a MFD. But i have done that with a $50 Raspberry Pi. I like the Orca application and the presentation of their charts but i am not spending 500pounds on a GPS sensor

 

[ChromeDome]

all that is - is the core which is an overpriced GPS. You can plug a Radar dome into it and use without a MFD. But i have done that with a $50 Raspberry Pi. I like the Orca application and the presentation of their charts but i am not spending 500pounds on a GPS sensor

I started evaluating Orca app to potentially replace the old Lowrance HDS.

At first I didn't want to connect all at got their app on my 12.4" Samsung tablet. And my phone (included in the subscription). It is next gen. in some aspects, and they add features, updates etc. frequently.

Stumbled over an Orca Core second hand for £140 an am now planning to make the switch.

User Group on FB, blog on their gertorca.com site for those interested.

 

[ylop]

all that is - is the core which is an overpriced GPS. You can plug a Radar dome into it and use without a MFD. But i have done that with a $50 Raspberry Pi. I like the Orca application and the presentation of their charts but i am not spending 500pounds on a GPS sensor

I’m not here to do the sales job for them - Orca core is more than just a gps. I think it has various tech inside…. But I agree it’s expensive and a barrier to adoption. I have a cheap waterproof tablet with navionics (and the option to switch to Antares charts which I don’t think orca does) and a rasp pi feeding me ais from a daisy hat (I think other wifi receivers are probably similar total cost now).

IF I was looking to spend £2k on electronics upgrades I would seriously investigate orca. The op is looking at major upgrade and mentioned would be happy with a waterproof tablet if it did radar which was why I brought it up.

 

[ChromeDome]

I'm not selling Orca either, but Navionics/Garmin drove me on a search for alternatives. Pricing for chartplotting devices with same usable display size as my old HDS-10 (would need to be +12" now due to different formats) seemed inexplicably high, even when compared to identical devices with smaller displays. Many challenge the NMEA standard by having proprietary software as the only way to properly synchronise with own brand devices, locking you into their universe, with skyrocketing costs.
Not the only ones trying to make your their pension sponsor, but not to my taste!

You can list your own requirements and calulate an estimate. For me a free app, upgraded to an inexpensive version, running on a tablet I had already, was by far the cheapest way of testing a large display and a fresh start. If you want their hardware, now ver. 2 for both Core and display, the price of course will be higher.

The thing is, you have options. And if you regret, the tablet will remain useful for all other sorts of tabletty doings.

FYI Orca originates from Norway, recently partnering with Raymarine, which has facilitated easier integration of their solutions.

 

[Parabordi]

Totally agree, the app and charts are awesome, I love the 3d view. Its better than all the other tablet apps by far.

I also have the display which is ok but wish it was bigger for the amount it cost.

The core is the one thing I don't think offers value. They are sneaky in that for example you can't show your own sourced AIS unless it's via the core.

 

[Guillemot592]

I am surprised that, so far, no one in this thread has mentioned Quark-Elec. Even their more modern, sophisticated elements are relatively low cost. A very basic GPS/AIS receiver plus a WiFi multiplexer and a VHF splitter to allow single antenna connection was easy to install, cheap and, most importantly, worked straight out of the box. It is all very modular/black box. Definitely a good, reliable entry-level starter system.
My Quark Elect system gave me the confidence to expand my sailing horizons. After I few seasons I modified my original set up to include a remote heading sensor, a bi-directional WiFi-enabled multiplexer and an AIS transponder. At the time, Q-E's transponder was not available and so I opted for the the Digital Yacht B+ unit. I have a small boat. What I have learned is that the list of 'essential' kit keeps getting longer but that the pace at which functionality increases is matched only by the increase in affordability. My thinking is that now even small boats can adopt the sort of navigational equipment, with redundancy, that only bigger boats (with bigger budgets) would have been able to consider even five years ago.

 

[davidaprice]

I should start by saying that I'm an IT person, so I like tech also for its own sake. Puffin's (Maxi 999, tiller steering) systems have evolved over 15 years, physical compatibility with preceding Nexus installation initially led to a preference for Garmin. Puffin has, in approximate order of purchase:

• Garmin GPSMap 78s hand-held plotter (on a lanyard round helmsman's neck)
• In skipper's (waterproof) smartphone and tablet: Navionics & Sailmate (Finnish raster charts, identical to paper charts)
• In row above companionway: 2x Garmin GNX 20 display, old Silva compass, Garmin GNX Wind display (Garmin units replacing older Nexus equivalents)
• Garmin gWind Wireless 2 wind instrument at top of mast
• Garmin log sensor and depth sensor (too lazy to look up model numbers)
• Digital Yacht AIT 3000 AIS transponder (now discontinued, replaced by AIT 5000)
• Yacht Devices YDBC-05 NMEA2000 pressure sensor
• Garmin SteadyCast digital compass sensor
• Garmin Fusion RA70 stereo (counts as a navigation device because of shipping weather forecasts )
• Yacht Devices YDTC-13 NMEA2000 temperature sensor, measuring temperature in shade in cockpit
• Garmin GPSMap 723 7" plotter (at chart table)
• Garmin VHF 215i at chart table & GHS 11 VHF handset in cockpit
• Glomex WebBoat Link 4G WiFi (mobile Internet, behind instrument panel because installing a unit on mast was too much work and ugly)

A big failing is lack of a proper plotter in the cockpit, but there isn't room under the sprayhood and current chartplotters are so thick that if installed in the cockpit forward bulkhead they'd impinge too much on headroom in the heads or aft cabin. It feels crazy that plotters are technologically rather similar to iPads but so much thicker. I'm tempted (not yet quite enough to buy) by Orca Display 2 tablet with its surface-mount charging bracket.
Something that annoys me as a techie is that when all is running I have three WiFi networks on my boat produced by devices all within about 30cm of each other: the AIT 3000's sharing AIS data to Navionics, the GPSMap 723's sharing data to ActiveCaptain, and the WebBoat for Internet (e.g. weather forecasts). On my smartphone I have to keep switching between them. I believe that the newer AIT 5000 can use the boat's WiFi network, but there's no solution for the GPSMap 723.
It's also a bit annoying that I have to pay Garmin for charts three times: GPSMap 78s, GPSMap 723 & Navionics app.

 

[Frank Holden]

OK so I am a couple of months late and a few dollars short.

What I have and what I would change?
All the basic displays are under the dodger and can be seen and read from behind the helm or by people sitting at frd end of cockpit or even just popping their head up from below while thinking 'what was that strange noise?'
They, and the autopilot , are all Raymarine/Raytheon including the AP which is by the helm. Also in that kit are two Raymarine repeaters at the chart table and also - wait for it ! - a 35 yo 'Autohelm' GPS display.
Charting? Apart from my paper kit includes a below deck PC in the 'walkway' which runs OpenCPN and displays on an LCD display at the chart table. That PC also has input from my AIS and was used for Sailmail via Pactor and HF back in the dream time. All that is now pretty much redundant. More below..
AIS? An AMEC class B, feeds to both the aforementioned LCD and a 'smart' Vesper display. Gets its GPS info from one of my many GPS pucks.
Both bought from Milltech , I would probably replace with something like this these days https://www.milltechmarine.com/amec-p200-chart-plotter-with-built-in-so-class-b-ais.html and have it down by the chart table.
Now to the serious stuff.
I've tried pretty much everything since the original 'burgle brand' Cmap out of St Petersburg some 25 years ago. Simply the best I have found is iSailor which is now my 'go to'. Needs a cellular iPad and doesn't run on android but I bought an iPad just to run it. Long power lead so I can have it either upstairs or downstairs. I have and have used their charts from Ecuador to Cabo de Hornos and they are truly professional quality.
Which brings me to radar. 25 yo Anritsu ( also sold in some parts as Simrad). Bonzer bit of kit in its day - truly state of the art - and fitted below where I can see it both from chart table ( or while boiling kettle ) and the frd end of cockpit . It has truly saved the day on maybe 6 occasions when unlit anchorages or sudden fog or in one occasion dark followed by fog sort of stuffed up the pleasure of the sailing game.
With only maybe 200 hours on the magnetron the screen has died the death. I must admit I have not been keeping up with the game and have no idea what to replace it with. Time for a new thread maybe.

 

[lustyd]

It feels crazy that plotters are technologically rather similar to iPads but so much thicker.

They are and they aren’t. The displays are very different, for better readability and reliability (iPad are designed for a 5 year life, not 20). Mostly though plotters support what is effectively legacy serial ports, which necessitate bigger cables. Apple have removed all but one ports, so easier to be small. Modern plotters also have proper GPS antennas which are bigger than would fit in an iPad.

My B&G is only about 2” thick so things have improved from the old days.

 

[Lightwave395]

Re Orca, I recently bought new-to-me boat with aging Raymarine (ST60's labelled Raytheon) and a Raymarine A50 plotter (a complete waste of time I found as the screen was the size of a postage stamp, almost impossible to see)
To get me from Plymouth to my boat's home in Southern Brittany I downloaded the free Orca app on my Samsung tablet and whilst it obviously didn't give me much else it got me all the way there without incident or any confusion - clear and easy to read, am now seriously considering it

 

[steve yates]

Only essential if knowing depth is of use to you for safe navigation of the boat. So important if you sail in the shallow areas of our coast but irrelevant in many cruising areas.

When I got my longbow it had an old, broken seafarer, so I sailed it on west coast of scotland, Ireland & Man with nodepth gauge. I absolutely hated it. When I finally got,a new nasa one installed I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
But at least it is possible to sail without up there, I wouldn’t contemplate sailing down here in Essex without one.

 

[Tranona]

When I got my longbow it had an old, broken seafarer, so I sailed it on west coast of scotland, Ireland & Man with nodepth gauge. I absolutely hated it. When I finally got,a new nasa one installed I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
But at least it is possible to sail without up there, I wouldn’t contemplate sailing down here in Essex without one.

Even in shallow waters like here in Poole, it really only confirms you have run aground!. In the good old days I found it very useful if navigating by depth contours - for example going cross channel it helped to determine how close you were to the French coast when main navigation was DR and position finding dodgy RDF signals of a radio stations!

 

[John_Silver]

Glad this thread resurfaced. I soldiered through the summer (when I'm on data rationing due to the Vodafone roaming cap) with Navionics on phone & iPad, as back up to my B&G Zeus. Which also runs Navionics. That makes it easy to synch routes and waypoints across the three. But has obvious flaws as a backup strategy. The main one being that the chart info is from a single source. To which Garmin have added the 'lock out' issue for Navionics apps running on devices which ocassionally see the internet (like my navigation iPad). Plus there's the cost of two annual Navionics chart area subscriptions to secure the coverage I need. On top of two more, at far greater expense, for the two Navionics plotter cards - if I want them to maintain the ability to synch with the app. (Which means that, in practice I only update the cards every 5 years. Relying on the apps for updates in the interim. And unable to synch. Thus further undermining the rationale for staying all-Navionics)

Downloaded free Orca yesterday afternoon. Have been playing with it ever since. Seems highly capable. Particularly like the clarity of symbols and the clean / uncluttered look of the cartography. If I understand correctly, for a single sub (equivalent to one Navionics chart area) I can secure full off-line access to all chart areas covered by Orca. Halving the running cost v Navionics. Plus adding a second chart source to cross reference the Zeus against. Win, win.

A couple of Q's for Orca experts out there (maybe @bergie ?). Although it sounds, from the above, that others have now acquired practical Orca experience on passage...........
Am I right on the 'one sub covers all Orca areas?'
Is there a way to measure distance, on Orca, equivalent to the 'dividers' on the Navionics app? My Zeus Navionics doesn't have this facility (or, if it does, I have missed it despite intensive searching). On passage it is therefore my most frequent use of the tablet.
AI (!) helped me find the tides, tucked away in the Weather tab, in Orca. They seem geared to showing rise of tide along a planned route. Which is useful. But my main use is in manual passage planning. I'd like to go to a location, on the chart, and see a full cycle. So that I can guage my depth window for entry or exit. Or to carry a fair tide. Is there a way to do that in Orca?
@Parabordi has, I think, revealed why I'm failing to link my Digital Yacht AIS's Wi-Fi to the app. For that, and presumably visibility of all the data, from the B&G Tritons (?), which runs on my NMEA2000 backbone, I'd need to fork out for an Orca Hub?

My Navionics app subs are both due in November. Think what I might do is renew one last (hopefully!) time, and run the sub £50 basic off-line Orca in parallel through to this time next year. Then make a call whether to drop the Navionics, in favour of Orca. Also whether the extra functionalty, that an Orca Hub adds, is worth the £500ish investment. Vessel based AIS is the main advantage that I'm seeing? Marine Traffic having receiver gaps in some quite heavily trafficed areas - Concarneau, Saint Gilles Croix de Vie to name but two - and our track often has big missing chunks even when on inshore coastal passages. Plus, of course, the internet based AIS approach requires a SIM subscription, even where Marine Traffic etc have receivers and there is 4/5G signal. The latter meaning that I'd only have Orca AIS available on the phone, at best. May be talking myself into a (future) Hub here.......

 

[Guillemot592]

I should start by saying that I'm an IT person, so I like tech also for its own sake. Puffin's (Maxi 999, tiller steering) systems have evolved over 15 years, physical compatibility with preceding Nexus installation initially led to a preference for Garmin. Puffin has, in approximate order of purchase:

• Garmin GPSMap 78s hand-held plotter (on a lanyard round helmsman's neck)
• In skipper's (waterproof) smartphone and tablet: Navionics & Sailmate (Finnish raster charts, identical to paper charts)
• In row above companionway: 2x Garmin GNX 20 display, old Silva compass, Garmin GNX Wind display (Garmin units replacing older Nexus equivalents)
• Garmin gWind Wireless 2 wind instrument at top of mast
• Garmin log sensor and depth sensor (too lazy to look up model numbers)
• Digital Yacht AIT 3000 AIS transponder (now discontinued, replaced by AIT 5000)
• Yacht Devices YDBC-05 NMEA2000 pressure sensor
• Garmin SteadyCast digital compass sensor
• Garmin Fusion RA70 stereo (counts as a navigation device because of shipping weather forecasts )
• Yacht Devices YDTC-13 NMEA2000 temperature sensor, measuring temperature in shade in cockpit
• Garmin GPSMap 723 7" plotter (at chart table)
• Garmin VHF 215i at chart table & GHS 11 VHF handset in cockpit
• Glomex WebBoat Link 4G WiFi (mobile Internet, behind instrument panel because installing a unit on mast was too much work and ugly)

A big failing is lack of a proper plotter in the cockpit, but there isn't room under the sprayhood and current chartplotters are so thick that if installed in the cockpit forward bulkhead they'd impinge too much on headroom in the heads or aft cabin. It feels crazy that plotters are technologically rather similar to iPads but so much thicker. I'm tempted (not yet quite enough to buy) by Orca Display 2 tablet with its surface-mount charging bracket.
Something that annoys me as a techie is that when all is running I have three WiFi networks on my boat produced by devices all within about 30cm of each other: the AIT 3000's sharing AIS data to Navionics, the GPSMap 723's sharing data to ActiveCaptain, and the WebBoat for Internet (e.g. weather forecasts). On my smartphone I have to keep switching between them. I believe that the newer AIT 5000 can use the boat's WiFi network, but there's no solution for the GPSMap 723.
It's also a bit annoying that I have to pay Garmin for charts three times: GPSMap 78s, GPSMap 723 & Navionics app.

Great to see your list of kit. Especially as you seem to know your NMEA 2000 from your Coaxial (like you say, an IT bod) and I actually have a couple of bits from your list on my boat - which makes me feel like I did the right thing. My question for you and others in this thread is: will my Garmin SteadyCast conflict with the built-in sensor of the ORCA Core 2?

 

[John_Silver]

Just had the auto renew opt-out-or-be-charged- warning through, on the Navionics app charting: Garmin are jacking the annual subscription up by 25%. Whilst, seemingly, degrading product functionality / reliability. Reckon I’ll dispense with the parallel running trial, opt out of Navionics and switch to Orca as my tablet backup.

 

[Parabordi]

Just had the auto renew opt-out-or-be-charged- warning through, on the Navionics app charting: Garmin are jacking the annual subscription up by 25%. Whilst, seemingly, eroding product functionality / reliability. Reckon I’ll dispense with the parallel running trial, opt out of Navionics and switch to Orca as my tablet backup.

i plan to do that too when mine is due.

 

[johnalison]

Even in shallow waters like here in Poole, it really only confirms you have run aground!. In the good old days I found it very useful if navigating by depth contours - for example going cross channel it helped to determine how close you were to the French coast when main navigation was DR and position finding dodgy RDF signals of a radio stations!

Yes, I think that we often get fixated on things like sounders. On our last boat our Navico sounder self-destructed while we were cruising in the Frisians, so we had to carry on regardless. We obviously stuck to the buoyed channels, but even at home in Essex I would be prepared to cruise without a sounder if necessary, not not necessarily very happily.