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replacement depth, boat speed and wind speed instruments

joe-fran

Member II
Hi all

You may have read my earlier post about my E-28 getting hit by lightning. :esad:SHort story is I had Signet instruments on the boat from the PO and I made the decision to stay with SIgnet because I supposedly could re-use some of the wiring from the depth transducer and paddlewheel and the same instrument cockpit pod. Big mistake. I was warned but did not listen. Just a series of disasters trying to install and make them work . Am trying to negotiate now to return everything for slightly less than I paid just to get rid of them. Signet appears to be a father and son operation using old technology.
I am looking for some suggestions.
Datamarine and Raymarine both have local dealers and repair facilities within an hour of my home. (Signet has no local dealers)
So tell me. Who do you like (not limited to Datamarine and Raymarine) for depth, speedo, wind speed and direction and why??

Thanks

joe
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
a vote for Raymarine

I put the basic sailboat "package" from Raymarine on our boat in '02 because the original Datamarine stuff was starting to have age problems. Those old midget display numbers were hard to read with my bifocals, too! :)
I have the ST-60 series (KM, DS, Wind) , networked together with their seatalk bus system. I later added a combination DS/KM readout for the nav desk when the local dealer was closing out stock from the line before the newer ST-60+.

It all still works fine.

I note that there are nowadays new instruments from the survivors of the old Datamarine company (DMI Marine) and that another company with a great quality background, Furuno, has entered the market.
'Bout the only one I would not touch with an extended whisker pole is Garmin.
:rolleyes:

What size are the holes in the bulkhead that you are going to fill with new instruments? I have an older article on this site about how I "shrunk" the original holes by a half inch circum. to mount the then-new Raymarine ones.

Loren
 
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WBurgner

Member III
Like Loren, I replaced the Signet Marine instruments in 2004 with Raymarine ST60 set. I have since updated the Raymarine autohelm, added radar and C-80 chartplotter. All are integrated and working quite well. The chartplotter/GPS/autohelm combo were a god send on this summer's trip to the Bahamas.
 

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
If you do a search you will find why I tried replacing Autohelm D/W/S with an integrated Simrad IS20 system and why that product is crap. Installed new Raymarine ST60+ Wind and Depth/Speed/Temp combo setup in '08 and it was good.... Until this year. The wind transducer went on the fritz. First Raymarine said must be the display, send it back. Returned, no problems noted. Must be the masthead unit, sent it in. EIGHT WEEKS AGO. I knew this would happen, wanted to just buy another, my local dealer stated there were basically no new masthead units to be had, and no anticipated ship date from Raymarine. They recommended that if I could find a unit elsewhere, buy it. I did, bought the last unit Defender had in stock at the time. Still waiting for Raymarine to repair/replace/return the masthead unit to my local dealer. They all suck, take your chances. Had I not just pulled out the wallet I would have sailed this season without a wind instrument.

RT
 

Guy Stevens

Moderator
Moderator
Not a viable market?

I don't think that the sailboat instrumentation market is a viable one. None of the players are currently able to meet customer demand or satisfaction on existing units. With the exception of Furuno.

Furuno would probably be my choice at this point just because the company is a solid company that is more diversified and has a better reputation. However you are going to pay for that in the purchase price of the products. And you are going to have to use NEMA 2000. A dubious specification developed for extremely large power boats.

Nexus, previously an arm of Silva, has been sold to a Kiwi company that is know for horrific service. I don't expect them to last long.

Raymarine sold to Flip. No one has anything in stock, and other than a lot of talk about how the company is so much stronger from Flip, nothing is being done to get stock to dealers, or support existing customers. I think they bought them for their radar products and can't figure out what to do with the instrument line.

Garmin, never has had a quality product in this market sector, and is investing heavily into the automotive markets over the marine market. Good choice for the company but not for us.

Tacktic, great for small sailboats, and the one class designed dinghies, not very useful on anything above about 20 feet in my experience. Interesting idea with wireless and solar powering, but it starts to break down above about 20 feet of boat. Also expensive.

Datamarine, in and out of business too many times to count, and using ancient technology and the last of the spare parts. Again no focus on customer service, only one point of distribution, no retail sales, no repair or warranted outside of that distribution point.

Ockam. Great stuff, kind of strange, way out of price point for the market of anything but extremely tech oriented sailors. Very UGLY to have on most boats. Not the easiest instruments to use either.

Signet, same condition as Datamarine.

Simrad, not supported or stocked.

Navman. Issues with quality of instruments, general lack of reliability in the marine environment. (Basically they are not very well constructed and loose their water tight ability fairly rapidly.) Company does not really stand behind them, again.

Basically a low margin vertical market, dependent on discretionary spending. With a depressed economy. I don't see any of these players with the exception of Furuno surviving the storm of this economy. Most are already floundering or outright sunk.

This is my opinion only. Only an opinion and not meant to in any way discourage anyone from anything that they might or might not do.

Any similarity to any persons living or dead is completely accidental. :)

Did I miss any? These are the ones we have dealt with, installed, repaired and the like.

Guy
:)
 
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ref_123

Member III
The one Guy forgot :)

Hi there,

we opted for Navman instruments. Not that they are any better than any other, and in my opinion, not much worse. They belong to Northstar now. The point for us was price - it was almost half the price of Raymarine ST60. 7years later they mostly still work - had to replace a head unit for the autopilot, but then it only set me back $176 including the delivery from UK...

Just my 0.02.

Regards,
Stan
 

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
Guy,
You missed B&G and NKE! AFAIK, B&G is expensive Simrad so my opinion of them stands. NKE is huge money. I see 'em on the big expensive race sleds in Newport.

When the Raymarine crap dies or I can't get what I need I'll likely go to Furuno. I like them and they appear to support their product better than the rest.

RT
 
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