Simrad v Raymarine (Pics of Simrad)

Petrolia

Petrolia

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Petrolia has just had all the electronics fitted. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif BUT

Old Helm
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New Helm
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On the advice of the suppliers prefered electronics fitting man I went with Simrad. Had Raymarine before but was steered towards Simrad.

I probably should have asked earlier and am now almost too scared to ask.

Which do you guys think is the best ? Have I goofed ?
Raymarine would seem to be far more common ?

You can tell me the truth.
 
Raymarine are more common and I had the RL80C/RL70C setup on my previous boat. Now I have the Simrad CX and am very pleased with it - particularly the radar performance. It still uses the same C-Map charts I had from before which is handy (as I can use PC Planner as before).

Downsides? They're not planing on integrating AIS which Raymarine have done on the new C/E series stuff, I believe. Some people think the menus are complicated but I've found them straighforward once you've used them a few times.

Cheers,
Rick
 
I'm glad there is at least one happy Simrad user out there.

Thing is I was genuinely ready for negative input so at least I would know what to look out for/expect.

Seems the nice people here don't want to hurt my feelings.
 
Had Simrad on 2 boats now and been very pleased with performance, support and price. Got CX44 with Open Array radar which is excellent. Well integrated system with autopilot and vhf. Being able to download PCPlanner routes is very useful. Sunview screen is excellent - v important on a Broom!

Rented a new Beneteau (raggie) in Greek Islands with Raymarine chartplotter and found screen very difficult to use.
 
MEI who fit the gear for Offshore Power like Simrad and so you see it on a lot of Nimbus boats. I am on my third Nimbus and must say I prefer the Raymarine menu sytem to Simrad. What ever you do, do not mix them! I had endless problems with interfacing on a Simrad/Raymarine system they fitted. I sorted it myself ( eventually ) with some help from Raymarine who provided me free of charge a black box that took in all the NMEA sentences and repeated them with all the possible alternatives. It worked fine after that.
 
You're right Mr MEI seems to prefer Simrad. However he told me the main reason was that he never had to 'go back' to a Simrad system because of problems but he did with Raymarine.

I was reasonably happy with previous Raymarine RL70c but sometimes the plotter did seem to throw 'eppies' and go into a kind of rapid fire screen update mode. I used to have to switch it off & on again. Maybe it was just me. I don't know.

I've got Plotter / Radar / Fish / Autopilot all Simrad so hope no interfacing problems.

Thanks for comments.
 
Good to hear your system works well and that the support has been OK.

We also swing both ways and charter sailing boats occasionally /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Last foray was to Sechelles this year. You may have seen post a few months ago.

I think we'll leave the sailing for a while now though and try to really use the new boat as much as possible.
 
[ QUOTE ]
"best system is the one you know how to use now"


[/ QUOTE ]

That's true enough. I have been a Garmin loyalist, man and boy and after struggling with an old Simrad set up all this year, I had my new Garmin 3000 system installed on Friday. I felt more comfortable with it right from the first trip. But I am sure that this is not so much any inherent superiority of one make over another as much as the limited brain power of the operator.
 
Well as a former software designer, I have to say Garmin seem to be somewhat more intuitive to use, especially for the majority of normal non-techie folk. If you know how to use a Raymarine or Simrad system, etc, then that's the system for you.
 
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