Newfangled electonics gizmo thingies.

Hi Saltu,
After struggling with a B&G 3000 series wind sensor, I love the thread title.
Lemme see....
1) Autohelm vs windvane. For close coastal work, I personally would want the ability to follow a compass bearing, so autohelm for me. A windvane is so much better in many ways, except sleeping when sailing near land . If you dont intend on solo or overnight passages, wind vanes don't need power and work really well. I confess to believing this is the area where you want the best quality you can afford, a good autohelm/vane is worth its weight in gold. With an autohelm this often means buying more than just the basics, for example a roll/pitch/yaw sensor input, so it can get costly to get the best outcome.
2) Sea Temp and depth. Depth is obvious, but sea temp is a great way to confirm you just blundered into the EAC.
3) Barometer that supports logging. If it doesn't record, develop a good log process, where you regularly write down your observations. It's surprising this seems to be a dying art, the amount of people who sneered at me for maintaining a log is a bit surprising.
4) AIS transmitter. AIS has it's faults, but it is soo good knowing that big black inky shape bearing down on you should know you are there. The MMSI is not hard to get and worth the money IMO (you need to get a VHF radio license.)
5) PLB. If you are traveelling in company, get an AIS PLB as well. If no, a standard EPIRB PLB, as there is no point using AIS one unless you have company. An AIS PLB is excellent as you'll appear on any AIS display within line of sight.
6) 4G booster/router if you want good internet access.

That's a simple list. I'd add TWA and AWA and TWS and AWS as my next wish list item, and then work up to routing software and PC/laptop etc.

I've also found most autopilot works on NMEA 0183, so don't get suckered into going all NMEA 2000 thinking you must need it. You would argue that the aotupilot would be the best beneficiary of s higher speed network, but my NKE pilot still uses 0183.
0183 seems perfectly suited as a backbone protocol for 90% of applications, I dont like getting stuck with propietary formats that lock me into buying one brand.
Cheers!

Thanks Shaggy and Craig.
Shaggy I had not thought of barometer. Definitely a non logging one for me. I am land locked at the moment but have a daily log of rainfall, maximum and minimum temps. As most of my sailing will be solo along the Qld coast, I thought autohelm over wind vane.
I would be interested in more information as to folks use of AIS. I can see it being a great help but is the cost justifiable? I would consider myself to be an armchair sailor. You know the ones, on anchor and with a cool beverage in hand well before the sun goes down.
I am now just looking up TWA, AWA, TWS and AWS
Craig I had not thought about radar either. Something more to look into. Thank you for the ideas on pricing. It is something I have to factor into the equation.
Also, I have field workers visit me here and they rely on field navigation using a tablet with a GPS and some mapping software. Is this something in use in the cruising scene?
Cheers.

I'm a fan of AIS, but two things give me pause in justifying going out and spending the money;
-- The amount of benefit and useability is reliant on the human to machine interface , ie: the display device. MY VHF radio has an AIS display, but its so small its frustrating, lots of menu and button selection and then your too zoomed in etc etc. A chartplotter or IPad or PC monitor is entirely different and fantastic to use and gain information from, as long as the software supports the AIS inputs, which most apps do.
-- The popularity and hence increase in the number of AIS transmitters works against it. There are only so many time slots available of the system to listen for a transmitting beacon, so the more devices there are installed the more degraded the entire system becomes. This is not a big issue yet, but will become so as we start bolting AIS transmitters onto navigation markers and fishing nets/traps. As yachts are recreational vehicles, they will always be booted off the system first if/when congestion does occur, so it's not exactly infallible.

There is a lot on the plus side though,, you get AIS data such as speed /heading/estimated closest position, alarm setting, a ton of good info. Get a Tx as well as Rx capable set (this is when you need a VHF license and MMSI) and you'll appear on every AIS display with enough distance for the big fellahs to minimize the chance of running you down, you get a MMSI which opens up DSC calling on VHF which is awesome for hailing errant commercial traffic etc etc, there is a lot of benefit for my type of sailing.
But as you refer to, this is all mostly beneficial for night time/extended solo passage making where it is hard to gauge what the devil is happening around you. It's good fun making the decisions, all the best with it!

I have a chart plotter with depth gauge running Navionics , a seperate iPad with navionics and a cheap laptop with open cpn which recieves ais via a daisy ais module. Yes you have to keep an eye out because I do not transmit an ais signal ,but you do keep a lookout anyway. Also have tiller pilot set up as stand alone to follow compass course only. I have found this adaquate. I started out with an iPad ( has to be wifi plus cellular to get GPS ) ,depth gauge and auto helm , just kept adding from there. I like redundancy.
The bigger the screen ,the easier it is . The more electronics ,the more power you need . I find for coastal day sailing I use the iPad in a waterproof cover .

Thanks Allan, I appreciate your input. One of the things that concerns me is the nightmare of setting up a new system. In the past I have put up with learning and using what was on the boat and that worked fine. Unfortunately my budget means I am looking at the lower end of the market and a lot of the boats I have looked at have very old systems on them. I thought starting from scratch would be an option but I may have to re-assess. Cheers.

Thanks Cisco. I have done the college course (part of an open coxswains certificate many years ago), have two copies of the small ships manual on the shelf beside me and a beautiful wooden box of my own navigation utensils. I prefer a 2B pencil but that may be just me. I'm land locked at the moment and my navigation weapon of choice is a Garmin 64st and a paper 1:100 000 map.
I would love to not have to rely on a FRED but would it be wise not to use what the 21st century has to offer?
Cheers.

Minimum? Auto helm, depth sounder, iPad/tablet with Navionics etc.

I've recently been adding electronics to mine, even though to be perfectly fair, it's extreme overkill for the level of racing/sailing I do.

Had to go totally from scratch, as there was (almost) nothing there.

I ended up deciding on B&G as it was full NMEA2000 and I liked the sailsteer feature more than Garmins version. Also cheaper.

The great bit NMEA2K though is that it's very modular. I started off with just the plotter (Vulcan 7), then added a wireless wind sensor (saved trying to get it through the mast). Later still, I added an electronic compass and when the boat's lifted next week, I'll add a depth/speed/temp throughhull.

If I were to get really into more coastal cruising rather than just racing, I'd add in transmit AIS & DSC radio (possibly a combined unit) and the final component I'd add would be an autopilot. Looks like there has been one there before, so actually think this would be easy to do.

That's the priority I've chosen though - might be different for other users.

G'day MagicCarpet,
I know this sounds nerdy, but you don't by any chance have a list of your NMEA strings you are using?
I'm trying to parse some of my NMEA strings to improve the network efficiency. When I first got the boat I had one of those "turn every option in a menu on' moments, which resulted in the NMEA repeaters duplicating a lot of traffic back into the bus.
I hence started on a bit of a pruning exercise, and aside from removing the duplicate traffic I found there were different strings that carry the same data, albeit in slightly different formats. I am still fine tuning which NMEA strings I really need, so I'm very interested to see how others have set theirs up.
Cheers!
SB

I'll give you one piece of advice. What ever you buy, stick with one system (manufacturer) as much as possible. People will tell you that you can mix systems, but don't believe it. I learned this years ago, and stupidly forgot about it when I bought a new autopilot to work with my Raymarine instruments. Now I'm stuck communicating between Victoria, San Francisco and London. After more than a month, none of the three manufacturers I'm working with can solve the problem. I've got really basic electronics, but I am still having the problem.