Many sailors want to tuck an additional instrument display or autopilot control at the binnacle, but just don’t have the space. Seaview offers a very compact enclosure just right for this purpose. The Seaview SPOD is designed for adding a modern low-profile instrument display, autopilot, or other accessory to your sailboat helm. The SPOD is designed to be mounted either to the side of an existing chartplotter-sized enclosure or directly onto stainless rail.
Photos by Drew Frye
The SPODs are made to match instrument displays from B&G, Furuno, Hummingbird, ICOM, Lowrance, Simrad, Sitex, Raymarine, Garmin and Standard Horizon, ensuring a perfect for the given device. They are sold uncut; however, you can request that they are pre-cut to fit your instrument prior to shipping. The SPOD has the ability to rotate on one axis to the desired position before being tightened down when it is attached to another enclosure, and an additional degree of freedom to pivot into final position on a stainless mount.
Your instrument display does not necessarily need to point towards the stern. Our tester installed two, each facing sideways making key boat performance information available to the helmsmen and mainsheet trimmers who are necessarily on the rail while sailing upwind. The latest version of the SPOD supports the slightly larger B&G Triton2, and is packaged with a 90 degree NMEA-2000 elbow to simplify the cabling inside the tiny enclosure. After drilling and fishing the necessary wire through the stainless tubing, our installer reports that the mounting and assembly of the SPOD and a Triton2 display took just 15 minutes including the drilling of four small holes for the screws on the display. At $165, the SPOD is priced less than the $329 NavPod RMX4102, another product that can helpfully support an additional display or autopilot at your helm. The NavPod is continuously adjustable if you have available space at your binnacle for an arm-mounted display.
