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| New panel reflects addition of a 7215 MFD on the right side of the panel Left to Right: 12/16 KW Gen Controls, GOST.Garmin GMI 10s (2), Garmin 7215s (3) |
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| New panel with 3 Garmin 7215 screens showing satellite weather Port: Precipitation, Center: Forecast, Starboard: Sea Conditions |
This is the original configuration (from a photo taken when Guided Discovery was on display at the Miami Boat Show).
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| Garmin 7215s multi-function screens flanked by two GMI 10s |
The electronics for the 63 were selected in early 2013 while the boat was under construction in Taiwan. The process of deciding what to include was largely based on my experience cruising the Lake Michigan for 12 seasons and completing the Great Loop. In simple terms, I replicated the type of equipment I had on the 48 Sundancer and just upgraded it to state of the art technology and then duplicated everything so that the pilothouse and the flybridge were the same.
The following were installed and usable at both control stations:
- Dual Garmin 7215 multifunction screens
- Furuno Autopilot
- Garmin AIS (transponder)
- Garmin Radar with 6 foot open array
- Garmin Sonar
- Garmin Satellite Weather
- Weather Station
- Garmin GMI 10
- Furuno RD-33 (pilothouse only)
- Dual Garmin GHS 10 VHFs (at each station)
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| Pilothouse control station as of February 2014 |
Up until the time that we contracted to build the 63 my night experience had included one night crossing of Lake Michigan, a 100 statute miles from Chicago to South Haven, numerous nighttime cruises along the well lit Chicago Lake front and one 60 mile cruise from Mystic Connecticut to Branford Connecticut on the night after Diana's accident with Wolfie, a 95 pound doberman.
The night run to Branford was along the shore on a calm moonlit night at hull speed. Very straight forward until I got to the harbor entrance, which was tricky due to numerous buoys and exposed rocks. Still, GPS and chartplotter proved adequate and I had no difficulty negotiating the tricky unfamiliar channel.
Fast forward to May of 2014. After taking delivery of the 63 and fulfilling three of our four boat show obligations, we headed north along the ICW. Then, at Hilton Head and again at Charleston, we ventured out into the North Atlantic. The 25 hour run from Charleston to Beaufort NC on calm water included an overnight. Night vision was still not on my "radar screen" although despite dimming all the equipment it was still difficult to see. Fortunately we were well off shore.
Then came my first long range cruise from Norfolk VA to Hingham Massachusetts, three days and two nights. As the light began to fail off the south coast of Long Island we began to see fish trap markers in the vicinity of Shinnecock Inlet and narrowly missed one. This prompted a VHF call to the Coast Guard for some "local knowledge" as to the extent of the markers. Lesson 1: The USCG does not provide local knowledge. Lesson 2: Sea Tow monitors channel 16 and came to my "rescue." The Sea Tow captain explained that once past Shinneccock we would not encounter any markers.
Oh, did I mention that we were in 5 foot head seas. Needless to say I was concerned about hitting fish trap markers, which were even more difficult (change that to nearly impossible) to spot. Speaking of "spot," I attempted to use the spotlight to spot markers and found out that the spotlight was close to useless for that purpose.
Night vision was installed in the fall of 2014, just before the first trip south to Sarasota. We selected a Raymarine T353 high resolution thermal camera unit with pivoting capability. Cost: $15,000 and worth every penny. The T353 was connected to the pilothouse Garmin multifunction screens. I reasoned that we would never use the flybridge while running the coast in May and November.
We ran the coast in November 2014 from Hingham to Stuart Florida in 7 days and 6 nights. Night vision proved helpful both in spotting other vessels, especially ships in the shipping lanes, and fish markers. Hurrah!
However, this introduced another problem. With only two multifunction screens the question became how to display night vision with the other data.
Explanatory Note #1: I've learned a great deal about running at night from the three 1200 NM runs made to date, each of which included 72 hours of night running. When running at night we display chartplotter, GPS, AIS, black screen radar and night vision. Chartplotter provides navigation data, AIS identifies ships and other vessels with AIS transmitters, black screen radar displays AIS and other targets at distances and night vision lets us identify fish traps, buoys and other obstacles within 1.5 miles.
Explanatory Note #2: Radar can be overlayed on the chartplotter. However, this has not proved useful at night. Black screen radar is far to superior for spotting other vessels simply because of resolution.
So, what's the problem? The answer is split screens. I have found that night vision is more effective when displayed on its own screen and this is true also for black screen radar. No matter how you cut it, either radar or night vision has to be displayed on a split screen and this reduces it usefulness. Also, there is other data that I could display, such as sonar, weather and video of the engine room.
After three coastal runs and over 250 hours of night experience it became obvious that a third screen would be helpful. Now, the question became how to do it. My first though was to use a laptop equipped with Nobeltech marine navigation software. I needed a new one anyhow and saw this as a way to kill to birds with one stone. The cost, not including the laptop, would be around $1,700 including the cost of a removable mount. The laptop would run around $3,000. All in $4,700.
Explanatory Note: Introducing Nobletech on our boat posed a problem, although not insurmountable. Nobletech used the NEMA 0183 network while Garmin uses NEMA 2000. Our Furuno autopilot also uses NEMA 0183. Nobletech could drive the boat through the Furuno autopilot and import routes from the Garmin 7215s. However, exported routes modified or newly programmed routes could not be exported back to the Garmins. Again, not an insurmountable problem.
What killed the laptop idea was the ability to dim it down sufficiently at night. After talking with other Outer Reef owners and vendors, I learned that Nobletech was best run on a marine monitor with a CPU tower mounted under the control station. The new plan was to install a movable mount on the starboard side of the panel. This would allow the Nobletech screen to be perfectly positioned for night operation. The plan was to run the chartplotter and AIS on Nobeltech with black radar and night vision each on its own 7215. Cost killed this idea. The vendor quoted $7,000 for the package.
Then I considered adding a third Garmin 7215 and redoing the pilothouse instrument panel so that the Garmin screens would be perfectly spaced. Cost was estimated at $15,000. Besides not liking the cost, I was concerned that remaking the instrument panel had too much potential for problems (i.e., tearing the entire panel apart, etc.). If it ain't broke don't fix it.
Then I got out a tape measure. Would a third Garmin 7215 fit in the open space to the right of the starboard screen if we moved the Garmin GMI 10 to the other side of the panel? The answer was "yes" if a could tolerate no space between the old and new screen. Master's Touch Mobile services quoted the job at $3,600 including a brand new Garmin 7215.
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New Garmin 7215 installed in what was open space.
Garmin GMI 10 relocated to left side of the panel
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What I got was the best possible, most practical and cost effective solution. I plan to display night vision on the port screen , black radar with AIS on the center screen, and chartplotter with AIS on the starboard screen split 50/50 with two smaller windows displaying, as appropriate, weather, sonar or engine room video.
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| Garmin 7215s set up for night running Port: Night vision, Center: Radar/AIS, Starboard: Chartplotter, AIS, Sonar, Engine Room Video |
A word about Master's Touch Mobile Marine Servives. Joey, their electronics tech expert, did an outstanding job with this installation. His first challenge: Getting the new 7215 to fit within the space and aligned with the other screens. You've heard the cliche "measure twice, cut once." Joey measured several times and cut perfectly. Owner Jeff also played an important role. His challenge: Stepping up to the plate when the new unit was not right. Specifically, the contrast was way off (as compared to the other 7215s) and both version and maps were out of date. Garmin had sent him and older (although new) unit. Jeff is a no bull guy. He immediately agreed that the unit was not right and sent it back, which ultimately had to be done twice. My only complaint is that I had a big hole in the panel for several weeks(poor me). Back to Joey: The third unit arrived with perfect contrast and updated maps. Then Joey took the time to update the version to 5.10, verify that my G2 Vision Cards were working properly, and most important, verified that all the black boxes (radar, sonar, weather and AIS) were working correctly on all three screen. He even ensured that the preference settings were in sync with the other 7215s and taught me how to save my data. Master Touch is a first class vendor.
Written by Les.
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