I am in the process of buying a gps chart mapper. I have looked at Garmin, Lowrance and Raymarine but cannot decide which is the best.
I intend using it for fishing in the Solent and around the Iow. It seems to be that the deciding factor is the availability of detailed Electronic charts of that area
Hi Joe I think all the big labels are good. It is a question of which software you get on with best. I haven't used them all so can't offer any comparative advice. All I can say is that I love the Raymarine plotter on our boat. It is easy to use and gives me all the information I need (and a lot more besides). I think ours (new 2002) is already obsolete, but they just go on getting better, with more and more features. Enjoy! Cathy
Agree with Cathy - its what you re happy using. Also depends on how much you want to spend - colour/b&w, small/large screen, waterproof/wheelhouse mounted, etc.
Go to the chandlers or boat show and play with them. We use both pc based, and self contained units at work, including the Raymarine combined radar/plotter - waterproof but not my favourite userfriendly piece of kit!.
Thank you (and Cathy) for responding. My problem is that we already have a non mapper GPS. I would have chosen another GARMIN but the chart support seems a bit limited. Lowrance looks good but they seem to be US orientated. Cathy likes Raymarine but what is the chart support like?
Yes, use C-Map cartridges. I think Navionics Gold (used on the latest Raymarine models) are slightly less expensive. If you only need a local chart of the IoW and immediate area, it will not be a huge amount of money. The Wide Plus area ones (one for the whole of the East Coast, Holland and Belgium, one for the South Coast and North France) which we use cost about £150, and £100 to update, but considering the area covered, and all the different scales available, it works out considerably cheaper than buying that many paper charts. And if, like most of us, you are not very conscientious about correcting your paper charts, being able to get a complete update every year is one of the real benefits of electronic charts. Probably, as Wolfie says, your best bet is to go to the Southampton Boat Show, or a big supplier, and try them all out and see which you get on with best. I only "converted" to a plotter last year, and I would not want to do without it now! Happy hunting Cathy
Some time ago I promised Cathy that I would send her a copy of my short instructions and flow diagram for the above two hand held GPS units from Lowrance, USA. I was given the I Finder Go by my children for Christmas two years ago and it has taken me virtually to this date to comprehend how to use it. I found the manual 79 pages of nerd speak and eventually dumped it and drew out a flow diagram, which is attached to this e mail. A colleague recently bought a H20 C model from the Southampton boat show, including Navionics charts of the Mediterranean. By using my brief instructions for the I Finder GO and the flow diagram we very quickly worked out how to use it and it proved excellent for our recent three weeks sailing in the Gocek and Marmaris area of Turkey.
The Navionics charts are excellent, the Lowrance charts are not worth having.
The flow diagram of more sophisticated H20 C model appears to be identical to that of the simpler I Finder GO, save for the Navionics charts which are not available with the I Finder GO.
Both instruments are actually very easy to use, although you would never know from the Lowrance instructions. Their manuals are only of any use hung on a string in the smallest room.
Alternative often ignored-value for money laptop and as usual this Christmas you will probably get a good quality one for well under £300 plus integrated mapping software/charts such as offered by RYA/Admiralty-about £40 per pack which are basically all Admiralty Charts for a particular area Eg. in my case west of Scotland-link laptop to non mapping GPS-and you have exactly same as a good quality mapping GPS with maps costing half of those £100plus c map memory sticks-only disadvantage is not waterproof.
I have a Lowrance H2O C and I have to agree with Balaclava Jack that the manual is deeply confusing. So thankyou for the flow chart, which really does work!
And Phil there really are advantages in having a little handheld plotter that you can hang round your neck and consult from anywhere on deck. Yes, you can do great things with a laptop, but it's hard to stow securely, and as you say, not waterproof. And good as the Admiralty plotters are, they're not as functional as dedicated plotters when it comes to zooming in and out.
One of the good things about the Lowarance is its Nautic Patch chart which goes from Greenland to the Cap Verde Islands and covers north Europe and the Med, all in really useful levels of zoom, and complete with tidal stream info. It's a great passage planning tool.
Of course it's not as versatile as a laptop, which can do emails and weather forecasts as well. But are we all being brainwashed into wanting everything in the same box? Call me a Luddite, but I don't want an i-Phone, because I don't feel the need to watch movies on the move. I don't want an MP3 player, either, and I'd rather have a separate phone and camera than an all in one.
But I think it's great that all the gadgets are out there, and we can all find something that suits our own requirements/budget.
What I would really like to see would be a horizontal flat chart table size screen -various sizes to suit various boats-Wireless mouse puck-GPS linked so that you could use it like a convential chart-and using free vector charts as in the US-know big ships have had these for years-BUT at a reasonable price.If we can get lap tops and flatscreen TVs for little over £200 why £1000 plus for anything approaching this??-I do of course know why but still a shame.
Its the ability of a conventional chart or big screen to cover a large area all at once allowing the human eye to focus on those parts that are relevant rather than having to decide where to pan in and to what extent.
My main plotter is the Lowrance 3500C and I have to say that with the Nauticpath Chart card - I have NE and NW Europe cards - I have an excellent package thayt worked out far cheaper than nearest rivals - comparing screen, resolution and chart coverage.
I used it extensively in Solent - it not only gave me position - but also currents / tides. That was of course the NW Europe chart card. Later when I moved the boat over to Latvia - I bought the NE Europe Chart Card ... and I can say that even in the difficult waters of the Stockholm Archipelago - the chart coverage and plotter performed flawlessly.
The 3500C has been replaced with an even better model - the screen resolution is now far higher for similar money.
The only US influence with Lowrance (Eagle are same machines ....) is the base map loaded into the machine is USA based .. and then rest of world is general outline scale - but that's similar to most others as well. Put the chart card in and you don't even have to think about it. The Lowrance range also accepts Navionics ....
A trick that I showed others - this applies to many other machines as well - but is very easy with the Lowrance. You can feed any GPS NMEA into the Lowrance regardless of it's own GPS antena. So even if you lose signal from its own antena, you can connect a Handheld or other GPS data source - I used a Garmin eTrex basic model for the demo.
