Chart plotter 101....

Maine Sail · Jun 4, 2016

NYSail said:
so my 12 year old standard horizon chart plotter died. Time to get a new unit and have been considering a Garmin 740. Any input..... I know there are so many good units. I have the Garmin blue hart for my iPad and love it so Was thinking Garmin for the mounted unit

Thanks!

Buy a current model not a discontinued model.. Your service life will be greatly extended. Based on past history I suspect the 740 will no longer be serviced in a year or two at the max... While it may seem like a value, and by chance you may get lucky and it runs for 10 years, they often don't and you need repairs during the service life. Once they run out of parts the product becomes a useless brick.

I have been through explaining this to customers over and over, it's really frustrating, and get really furious that the "new" electronics they bought are now non-repairable just two years later. The problem is they did not buy "new" they bought "discontinued" which can be a rather poor choice in marine electronics..

Gunni · Jun 4, 2016

And look for hardware that can run more than one vendor's charting software and uses a very common chart storage media.

Terry Cox · Jun 4, 2016

The fam bought Belle-Ve a Garmin 178C Sounder in 2004, which has been discontinued for a number of years. Whether Garmin would ever repair it, probably not. But as a testament to Garmin quality, I use this unit all the time, cruising thousands of miles all over PNW waters and it always works and very accurate. I purchased two chart cards, one that covers all of Puget Sound north to the top end of Georgia Strait, inside waters. The other covers from Everett, WA north to the Alaska border both inside and outside Vancouver Island waters.

Maybe someday it will stop working, but until it does it will remain a devoted device of Belle-Vie.

Gene S · Jun 5, 2016

I just saw a 740 on Craigslist for 1k new. The same price as a 741 in westmarine. The 721 is a nice unit and has a rebate. I would love to get one but my 3206 is still chugging along.

druid · Jun 5, 2016

There's not really much that goes wrong with Chartplotters, so I wouldn't worry too much about discontinued model from a HARDWARE point of view.
However, the Big Thing for chartplotters is the charts. You might not be able to get updated charts for a discontinued model. And, although I love Garmin GPS's, I found their charts are outrageously expensive!
And yes, I'd go for the sonar - it's the one "bell and whistle" I like to have. Also some connection to radar is good for a larger plotter.

druid

Gunni · Jun 5, 2016

Navico or Raymarine. I like and use Garmin products but when they obsolete charting products with new storage formats and I can't get chart updates it sucks. I now buy my hardware and chart software separately.

Maine Sail · Jun 5, 2016

druid said:
There's not really much that goes wrong with Chartplotters, so I wouldn't worry too much about discontinued model from a HARDWARE point of view.

druid

I've sent two off for in warranty repairs in the last three weeks and two more could not be repaired, too old at 2005 & 2006 vintage, so into the dumpster they went. On one unit the ST bus failed the other three were all screen related issues. The Garmin 3200 series had lost about 90% of its backlighting and could no longer be repaired.

On the n=1 data level it may seem that hardware issues don't happen but in the marine environment stuff breaks..

Maine Sail · Jun 10, 2016

NYSail said:
So Maine.... What brand do you see as most reliable / most bang for your buck.

Garmin is what my customers seem happiest with and I see less "glitchy" issues with Garmin. I think you can get a bit more bang for the buck with B&G or Simrad but they are not as reliable....

druid · Jun 10, 2016

Maine Sail said:
On the n=1 data level it may seem that hardware issues don't happen but in the marine environment stuff breaks..

Actually I was referring to the U-shaped MTBF most electronics have.

druid

capta · Jun 11, 2016

Our Garmin 3010 has been sitting at the pedestal since I bought the boat in 2009 (I don't know when it was purchased) and still works flawlessly. The 3206 I bought for a tattletale unit in my cabin is also doing just fine at 6 years old. Sure their charts are dear, but so far they've been spot on everywhere we've sailed. We know of more than a few boats down here have hit reefs when their plotters said they were in deep water (so say the captains, at least), but in the same area the Garmin charts were perfect.
As a professional captain I have used Raymarine plotters and even their commercial equipment has failed me frequently. Little to no help from their service techs when contacted by phone (big bucks to spend an hour or two on the sat phone for zero results) from some distant place and in some urgency.

seadaddler · Jun 12, 2016

My 2007 H-36 has a C-80 and was offered a good to up grade but my C-80 has been
fantastic when sailing from NY to Florida 2008 and cruising all over the west coast of Fl.I do have backup tablet cell a garmin 76 but so far never needed them and ant time I clled Ray tech support they were always very helpful,I have added sonar and some other Ray electronics and ray tech was always very helpful.
Nick