I’m in the market for a new chartplotter.will be used primarily for racing. Looking at B&G, Raymarine and Garnin. Your thoughts?
New Chartplotter
- Thread starter asilverman
- Start date
We got a B&G Zeus 3 last year. The racing features are pretty nice, in terms of giving start line info and lay lines. For the most part though, unless your race legs are very long, you won’t be playing around with those features and burying your head in the plotter during the race. Things like wind trends are nice to see when preparing. Also, to get accurate wind and lay line information you absolutely need an accurate speed transducer, not one that is affected by fouling or poor hull placement.
A chartplotter for racing.
Who is going to be looking at it, and why? Will it be used tactically, or strategically? Mounted where?
The simplest use is to keep SA (Situational Awareness) with respect to the bottom and landmasses. Pretty any plotter will be OK for that, as long at the charting is good.
Some of the newer models (and B&G let the way) will show laylines, which can help IF your turning mark is visible (waypointed) on the chart. Having used this feature, it is much less value that it appears, as people are pretty darn good at calling them. And if the mark is so far away that you cannot see it, then you have to question why you are so far out there in the first place. Which leads us to the next use.
If the plotter can overlay FUTURE wind, that starts to get useful. The you can start looking at weather routing, and making strategic calls. But those capabilities are rare in current devices sold to mortals.
So I would focus on getting gear that matches your thoughts on what brand is going to be best as the backbone for your boat. The plotter (even if NMEA2k) will be better controlling and updating devices of the same brand. And RADAR is not cross-compatable. Me personally? I'd go B&G.
I bought B&G Vulcan 7 for the sailing features. Honestly, I need personal assistance learning how to use the chartplotter. I'm fumbling thru the applications and a lot of it is just plain baffling to me. I attribute it to my incompetence with technology. I lose patience trying to figure it out. I'd rather be sailing than experimenting with it. I printed a more comprehensive manual than the overview that comes with the instrument. It rarely helps to answer my questions. I find it frustrating. Again, this is probably mostly my fault.
I have a number of issues that I have not been able to figure out. For a long time, the boat symbol and tracking appeared to be functioning as expected. Now, the boat symbol points in a lot of different directions but never in the direction I'm going and the tracking isn't on. Also the lay lines are always out of whack. It seems to show upwind laylines at 90 degrees and downwind lines that are maybe only 20 degrees apart, but I can't make any sense as to why it switches back and forth and never seems to correspond to the direction I'm going. My B&G radio is connected to the network but it isn't being recognized on the chartplotter and the radio is not receiving the GPS coordinates as it should be. The radio has connection for both NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000. Since I have a 2K network, that is what I used. I'm wondering if there is a toggle that perhaps is set the wrong way. I'm positive I plugged the cord into the back. I've been meaning to pull the radio out to double check, but again, that's a project that I don't want to waste time with.
I've been trying to work through it, and that is when the boat icon and tracking went haywire when I played with some settings. I did connect an external GPS antennae to the network and it is recognized but I don't think it is needed. I wasn't sure that I want to use it though so I stuck it down below in the quarter berth. That may be a reason why the tracking went haywire, which occurred after I connected the VHF and the antennae.
Like I said, I would rather be sailing than reading a manual and playing with the instrument when I'm at the boat. I take the manual home to read but it does no good when I don't have the instrument to play with. I think I would be really happy with the instrument when I have everything worked out. I'm guessing that there is some calibration procedures that I need to do. I think I set the default for true wind based on SOG because I don't trust the paddlewheel transducer. There seemed to be a setting to do that if I understood it correctly. Understanding what I'm doing when I change settings is a big problem for me. I don't understand the language so there is a lot of guessing going on! I don't always want to dive on the bottom to clean the transducer and removing it for cleaning is a bigger project than I have patience for during my limited time. It seemed to function very well, though, on my recent trip. I was tracking the true wind speed graph and the wind direction graph. The biggest problem is that the wind direction seemed to be out of whack, probably because I have to calibrate the heading sensor somehow.
I need specialized attention!
I'm not crazy about the chart that comes installed with the chartplotter. I seem to like navionics more and I'm familiar with it on my phone. I've been planning to buy it for the chartplotter.
I have a number of issues that I have not been able to figure out. For a long time, the boat symbol and tracking appeared to be functioning as expected. Now, the boat symbol points in a lot of different directions but never in the direction I'm going and the tracking isn't on. Also the lay lines are always out of whack. It seems to show upwind laylines at 90 degrees and downwind lines that are maybe only 20 degrees apart, but I can't make any sense as to why it switches back and forth and never seems to correspond to the direction I'm going. My B&G radio is connected to the network but it isn't being recognized on the chartplotter and the radio is not receiving the GPS coordinates as it should be. The radio has connection for both NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000. Since I have a 2K network, that is what I used. I'm wondering if there is a toggle that perhaps is set the wrong way. I'm positive I plugged the cord into the back. I've been meaning to pull the radio out to double check, but again, that's a project that I don't want to waste time with.
I've been trying to work through it, and that is when the boat icon and tracking went haywire when I played with some settings. I did connect an external GPS antennae to the network and it is recognized but I don't think it is needed. I wasn't sure that I want to use it though so I stuck it down below in the quarter berth. That may be a reason why the tracking went haywire, which occurred after I connected the VHF and the antennae.
Like I said, I would rather be sailing than reading a manual and playing with the instrument when I'm at the boat. I take the manual home to read but it does no good when I don't have the instrument to play with. I think I would be really happy with the instrument when I have everything worked out. I'm guessing that there is some calibration procedures that I need to do. I think I set the default for true wind based on SOG because I don't trust the paddlewheel transducer. There seemed to be a setting to do that if I understood it correctly. Understanding what I'm doing when I change settings is a big problem for me. I don't understand the language so there is a lot of guessing going on! I don't always want to dive on the bottom to clean the transducer and removing it for cleaning is a bigger project than I have patience for during my limited time. It seemed to function very well, though, on my recent trip. I was tracking the true wind speed graph and the wind direction graph. The biggest problem is that the wind direction seemed to be out of whack, probably because I have to calibrate the heading sensor somehow.
I need specialized attention!
I'm not crazy about the chart that comes installed with the chartplotter. I seem to like navionics more and I'm familiar with it on my phone. I've been planning to buy it for the chartplotter.
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(With apologies for the thread drift...)
For your radio connectivity issues, check in the settings on the radio itself. There should be an option to select either NMEA 0183 or 2000. It's probably on the wrong one by default.
Sounds like you lost the calibration for your compass while you were working on the radio. There should be a way to go back through the calibration procedure via a menu in your plotter. Once you go into that menu you'll need to drive around in a couple of slow circles so try to do it on a calm quiet day. Having the compass miscalibrated would cause the heading and layline issues your seeing. On mine the laylines automatically switch between upwind and downwind mode when I transition across 90 degrees true wind angle. Before you recalibrate just check that you didn't put a new toolbox or something next to the compass.
For your radio connectivity issues, check in the settings on the radio itself. There should be an option to select either NMEA 0183 or 2000. It's probably on the wrong one by default.
That's a good point and a worthwhile consideration when getting a new plotter. We really liked the charts that came with our first gen Simrad NSS8. Unfortunately the newer charts with the Zeus 3 aren't as nice for us. We use an old Navionics card that we had laying around, and bought the upgraded Insight charts on sale this spring. If you find a plotter that has charts you like out of the box it's a couple hundred dollar savings.
Maybe @danstanford will give his opinion of the new Raymarine sailing features that just became available in the newest version of the LightHouse 3 software. Pretty sure he has been playing with them.
I went with the Raymarine Axiom 7 CP as I found it very user friendly and it included Navionics maps. I'm just starting to play with some of the sailing features but that is a slow learning curve.
I don't plan on using the sailing features while racing, more for verifying my actions/decisions as I try to improve my overall sailing performance.
I went with the Raymarine Axiom 7 CP as I found it very user friendly and it included Navionics maps. I'm just starting to play with some of the sailing features but that is a slow learning curve.
I don't plan on using the sailing features while racing, more for verifying my actions/decisions as I try to improve my overall sailing performance.
I have really enjoyed the start line feature as it has helped with getting to the angle I want full of confidence that I won't be really late or early. I have yet to use the layline tools as I have not yet managed to set the marks for the course since they are set with dropped marks just before the race.
The race timer and start line tool are worth the work I put into the updates in my opinion.
Sorry I cannot elaborate on any other features Ward, but I will continue to explore.
Dan
The race timer and start line tool are worth the work I put into the updates in my opinion.
Sorry I cannot elaborate on any other features Ward, but I will continue to explore.
Dan
That's what I'm thinking (and hoping!)
In reference to the question … I did buy B&G for the sailing features and race features. I use the start timer for the starts. I would really like to use all of the features as soon as I work out all the difficulties that I'm having. However, to really utilize the features, I would have to follow the committee boat around to set waypoints at the marks and the start line. I don't think there is enough time to do that and be prepared for the start sequence. So that is a problem. Perhaps during some races where the coordinates are established for setting marks there will be an opportunity. I also like the wind graph feature and want to use that during racing, perhaps.