UPDATING 30' MARLIN ELECTRONICS

[Capt. Winston]

Fellas, any suggestions on bringing my 30' Marlin into the 21st century? My vessel is a 1995 hull with the same year engines,(250 Yamahas). My old GPS/plotter/sounder is a Raytheon V850, still works, but hard on my 46 yr old eyes. Budget is 2-3k. Have looked at Garmin 740s and 4210. Will definitely do GPS/sounder, not sure about doing the Garmin 18HD 36nm radar. Any thoughts pro/con. I will be running out of the Jacksonville/St. Johns River area, 90% coastal cruising with 5-6 fishing trips out to 40 miles or so. Get radar/don't get radar, recommendations...

Capt. Winston

 

[NOTHING ELSE MATTERS]

Welcome aboard. If your pocket allows for a radar, get it. Not much for fishing, but for those days that the fog rolls in or night cruising. It doesn't have to be a state of the art radar, HD18 will do fine for that purpose. If you want to use it for fishing and want to see birds, then the 24HD is great and the open array even better. Post some pictures of your baby.

 

[Capt Bill]

I replaced all my electronincs the summer before last, with Lowrance HD series stuff. I installed an HD-10 and an HD-8, a new transducer, and radar. They all instantly network together, and you can bring up anything on any screen, or half-screen, or whatever you want. They will also interfact with fuel-flow sensors, engine instruments, etc.

Radar info overlays the chart, so you have a real-time display of target positions on your chart. It also easily interfaces with any DSC vhf radio, for displaying position info. The screens are sunlight viewable, and you can pop an SD card into one of the card sockets, and record your track and sounding echos over the chart display, for playback/storage on your computer. They have some other cool things for the system, too.

 

[Capt. Winston]

Thanks Fellas, keep the info coming. apt. Winston

 

[Gary M]

I put a Furuno NavNet w/radar on my 2001 Marlin and LOVE it but that's well beyond your budget. However, I agree that a radar is far more than just for birds. Mine helps with weather/storms avoidance, potential collision avoidance with other boats (it will paint two guys is a 12' jon boat) and it's great in low visibilty situations.

Shop hard and get the most that you can for your budget..........