Marine Electronics

For better or for worse, the modern cruising sailor is becoming more like an airplane pilot. Safely ensconced out of the wind, the helmsman relies on instrumentation to provide him with information about our environment. Should he bear off for more speed, set the screecher, or tuck in a reef? Increasingly, were seeking these answers in digital display rather than strips of yarn in the rigging and the hair on the back of our neck.

A lot can be learned from really small boats that carry no crew. In fact, sailing robotics-SailBot for short-is attracting sailors and engineering students from universities across North America and Europe. These competitive research programs are a proving ground for on-the-water autonomous craft, and they give us a glimpse of what the future of marine electronics may have in store.

Two racing sailors from Charleston, S.C., got together last spring to develop an economical alternative to electronic compass devices like the $340 to $500 Velocitek (PS, May and September 2011), the $460 to $735 Tacktick (PS, November 2009), and the $600 Sailcomp. The result? The Regatta Recon performance sailing app for Android and iOS devices.

SOS buttons and two-way texting are handy, but nothing beats being able to actually speak with someone in the event of an emergency. This is the great appeal of owning a satellite phone, but the prices of both sat phones and service plans have stubbornly remained above the pain threshold most sailors are willing to bear, even though theyve certainly become more affordable over the last decade.

Looking to add GPS functions to WiFi Apple devices or increase the GPS accuracy of a Bluetooth device? U.S. company Bad Elf created the GPS Pro, an external Bluetooth wireless GPS receiver and data logger, to simultaneously share GPS data with Bluetooth-capable i-devices, including the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. It also can serve as a standalone data logger that allows you to record up to 100 hours of trip location data.

Nobeltec, a marine-navigation software developer based in the U.S., recently released a new chartplotting app for the iPad: Nobeltec TZ. We took it for a weeklong test cruise and found it to be a good basic nav program with some significant strengths, and some notable shortcomings.

Testers recently checked out the Spare One standby cell phone, which is just what its name implies: a spare phone for use in an emergency or when the battery dies on your primary cell. Powered by one, replaceable AA lithium battery, the Spare One will deliver 10 hours of talk time, 15 years of battery life (if unused), and 24 hours of illumination in its SOS torchlight mode. When a GSM SIM card from a regular cell phone is plugged into the Spare One, the unit acts as a basic cell phone, sans the display and texting ability. Without a SIM card, the unit still allows users to call 911 and access emergency services.

The popularity of Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) has grown exponentially in recent years. Lower costs have played a big hand in this; however, the primary driver remains boat owners looking to increase safety. Our latest evaluation compared Class B transceivers from two key players in the AIS market. From Icom, we tested the MA-500TR. New Zealand-based Vesper Marine submitted its WatchMate 850 for testing. We rated the products on AIS functions, control capabilities, user-interface, filtering capability, display quality, and screen visibility.

A sailboat is no place for unnecessary complexity, which was the direction PS contributor Dan Corcoran was headed on his Beneteau 393, when it came to how data was passed between various marine electronics. The worst offender was a spaghetti network of point-to-point wiring that utilized the familiar National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) 0183 standard. A few years ago, he embarked on a gradual replacement of NMEA 0183 wiring and components with the new standard, NMEA 2000. Here he offers his account of the upgrade and answers the oft-asked refit question: Was it worth it?

As a followup to our April 2012 report on useful iPad apps for sailors, we recently sea-trialed the new Weather4D app, comparing it to the older WeatherTrack app. Both enable users to view GRIB weather files, but which one does it the best and which one offers the best value?