e38 Electronics Upgrade musings

[Merrimist]

G'day E Owners,

the other woman, 'Merrimist', my 86' E38 has the original Datamarine sail instruments, Log, Wind speed, wind angle and Depth gauges fitted into the cockpit port side fwd of companionway, Depth being the only one working fitted. All accessible through a nice little cupboard door at entry to port aft cabin.
A PO has fitted a ST4000 wheel Autopilot that although powers up and works, seemingly and randomly, I might add, has a mind and course of its own when you are not paying attention. This is after having completed 360 deg calibration set ups........ but thats another story.
Also fitted is a Raytheon RL70 Chart Plotter and Raytheon 2kw radar along with Loran C, none of which are fit for purpose - although power up and work, plan to throw out or give to maritime museum......
So, I have happily made the executive decision that it all has to go.

Am again reaching out asking other owners about their experience and or recommendations for new electronics, of what has worked, or just as important, has not worked for them on same or similar size boats. As my recent post about new sails notes, I am planning to do some blue water and coastal cruising.
So along with a new planned purchase of sail wardrobe, I am also shopping for new full/complete Electronics/Sail instruments upgrade.

I am considering the following bits of kits to purchase and fit:
Chartplotter/GPS/Radar (4kW),
DSC/AIS ("B' receive only)/VHS radio with remote for helm,
Autopilot,
Full set of wind instruments including Vessel speed/SOG, TWS/AWS, TWA/AWA, depth/temp, etc.

Am thinking all NMEA2000 and WIFI compatible. i.e.backup iPad for chart plotter. I already have and am very happy with my handheld Garmin GPS70SC.
So with the exception of the iCom VHF/DSC/AIS radio, I am seriously considering where possible all 'Garmin' kit
All Garmin gear priced at WM earlier this month, for about 6.5k, which I think is acceptable.
WM are also now doing price matching. For ex. if items were to be cheaper from say Defender, WM would match or better the price.....

Look forward to comments, on other experience/s, on what works/did not work, ease or difficulty of installation, recommendations on manufactures Raymarine v Garmin v Lowrance v other, etc.
With regards to AIS, given I am planning both coastal and blue water cruising, clearly class A AIS has safety advantages, but with that comes increased costs and certs.
What would you recommend, AIS A or B?

One other question I would like to ask is, can anyone recommend boat yard on east coast where they have had good, safe, reasonably fair experiences I can carry out these and planned upgrades between April and June next year.
A yard that has experience to remove and step the mast, a cleanish - no dust bowls, yard that can haul and store the boat (security) whilst I carry out my exciting upgrades to my other woman.

Hammy
Engineer
SY Artemis

 

[e38 owner]

I upgraded to nexus a few years back but that is all old now. They were bought by garmin and use the same mast fly. I think if I did it again I would look at B&g cruising packages. Nmea 2000. Etc.

 

[Christian Williams]

clearly class A AIS has safety advantages

I have a Vesper Watchmate, Class B transponder, with power antenna splitter. Very pleased.

What are advantages of Class A for cruising boats?

 

[bgary]

clearly class A AIS has safety advantages

Maybe.

Class A transmits at higher power, more frequently, and has a more rigid model for *when* to transmit.

But... I can't say if those are real-world advantages or not. Add in that a Class-A transceiver requires more integration with other systems.

From Wikipedia:
<dl><dt>Class A</dt><dd>Vessel-mounted AIS transceiver (transmit and receive) which operates using SOTDMA. Targeted at large commercial vessels, SOTDMA requires a transceiver to maintain a constantly updated slot map in its memory such that it has prior knowledge of slots which are available for it to transmit. SOTDMA transceivers will then pre-announce their transmission, effectively reserving their transmit slot. SOTDMA transmissions are therefore prioritised within the AIS system. This is achieved through 2 receivers in continuous operation. Class A's must have an integrated display, transmit at 12.5 W, interface capability with multiple ship systems, and offer a sophisticated selection of features and functions. Default transmit rate is every few seconds. AIS Class A type compliant devices receive all types of AIS messages.</dd></dl><dl><dt>Class B</dt><dd>Vessel-mounted AIS transceiver (transmit and receive) which operates using either carrier-sense time-division multiple-access (CSTDMA) or SOTDMA; there are now 2 separate IMO specifications for Class B. Aimed at lighter commercial and leisure markets. CSTDMA transceivers listen to the slot map immediately prior to transmitting and seek a slot where the 'noise' in the slot is the same or similar to background noise, thereby indicating that the slot is not being used by another AIS device. Class Bs transmit at 2 W and are not required to have an integrated display: Class Bs can be connected to most display systems where the received messages will be displayed in lists or overlaid on charts. Default transmit rate is normally every 30 seconds, but this can be varied according to vessel speed or instructions from base stations. The Class B type standard requires integrated GPS and certain LED indicators. Class B equipment receives all types of AIS messages.</dd></dl>
I have a Vesper Watchmate "vision" (Class B, non-SOLAS) and am very happy with it.

$.02
Bruce

 

[toddster]

Maybe I read that wrong... considering "Class A" AIS receive only? I don't think there is such a thing. Class B unit receives everything. Get the full send/receive transponder - that's probably your best bet of that ship out there actually seeing you. Sometimes when I'm flailing around in shifty winds, I wonder if the commercial drivers can figure out what I'm doing from my 30-second AIS pings. At least it probably motivates them to look out the window...

Re: those old instrument holes on the port side of the bulkhead... You could put the new instruments in that same location, like I did. It's certainly the easiest path. But they are probably better in a pod over the companionway. Port-side stuff is very hard to see when on starboard tack. Maybe less of an issue on a wheel-steered boat, when you're in the back of the cockpit anyway. When sailing in thin water, I want to be able to see the depth meter from anyplace. But the easiest way to fit them is cut the mounting holes in a new sheet of weatherproof "control panel material" (I used 3/8" ABS) and screw the whole thing down over the old holes.

 

[bgary]

Maybe I read that wrong... considering "Class A" AIS receive only?

I think there are some receive-only "Class A" units out there on the market, but the "real" Class-A AIS is required for commercial operators. Primarily (I'm told) because the output protocol prioritizes transmissions, where a Class-B unit waits until there is a gap in other traffic before sending.

Interesting article here: https://www.oceantimemarine.com/class-a-and-class-b-automatic-identification-system-ais/

...and USCG comparison here: https://navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/AIS_Comparison_By_Class.pdf

Bruce

 

[Slick470]

We have been happy with our B&G Triton w/s/d package and added a B&G Vulcan plotter and a Lowrance Link-8 VHF. The Link-8 has built in GPS and AIS receiver. All of it is NMEA 2000 which has made the installation, configuration, and troubleshooting relatively easy. I had a brief exchange with the US based B&G tech support and they helped resolve my problem quickly and professionally.

I also have a Raymarine EVO autopilot and I have had some issues getting it to work properly. This I think is mostly due to it needing updates to resolve known bugs and getting the updates to apply properly. I have several sailing friends who bought these APs about the same time as I did and love them. I'm hoping that once I get past this last little hiccup I will love ours too. Raymarine support seems to be helpful and they have a support forum where a lot of the common issues have already been addressed, so with a bit of digging I have been able to come up with articles or discussion threads that address the issue that I am having.

I am not as familiar with the Garmin or NKE stuff, but did some basic research on them before I bought what we have. Simrad and Lowrance are part of the same family of companies, so their stuff is very similar to B&G but less sailing focused.

It helps to have your MFD or chartplotter be the same brand as the other components in your system that will need the most updates. Apparently you can only update components via an MFD from the same brand (or brand family). In my case, this has proved to be the Raymarine AP and if you note above, my MFD is a B&G. As painful as it was, I ended up finding a small Ray MFD on sale to be able to apply those updates.

Another advantage of the MFD being the same brand as the AP is it allows you treat the MFD as an AP control head and send commands to the AP through the MFD. This will not work with my setup as the Vulcan cannot send commands to the Raymarine AP. The Raymarine stuff otherwise talks to the B&G stuff just fine and will share instrument data between the systems. You'll need a special adapter cable to get them talking though. AFAIK Garmin uses the same NMEA 2000 cabling and connectors as B&G and pretty much everyone else, but Raymarine has it's own proprietary cabling standard. Having used both, I prefer the standard NMEA 2000 cabling and connectors.

I am not as familiar with the Autopilot options from B&G or Garmin, but I believe that Raymarine is the only major manufacturer that offers a NMEA 2000 above deck tiller pilot or wheel pilot. Most offer below deck options. I have a tiller boat so that left me with a "dumb" or NMEA 0183 tiller pilot from Ray or Simrad, the Raymarine Evo tiller pilot, or a much more expensive to install below decks solution. For me the Raymarine Evo seemed to be the best option.

If I were to do it again, I probably would have the same setup, but probably would have gotten a Ray MFD and not a B&G as the B&G w/s/d package worked right out of the box and the AP is the thing that has needed the most updates. That said, B&G has some pretty nice sailing specific displays built into the Vulcan chart plotter line.

Hope that is somewhat helpful.

 

[zagnut]

If you are willing to sell your depth finder and transducer I would be interested. It is the only one of the three that doen't work on my 30+. I sent you a PM

 

[Loren Beach]

Filling the holes

On the related subject of replacing Datamarine instruments, Our '88 boat came with the 'usual three' mounted on the back of the cabin. When I replaced the group with Raymarine ST-60 gauges, I did have to narrow the old holes with some thin frp circles, epoxied in. Luckily the new Raymarine bezels covered the fill-in scheme.
Our original Datamarine stuff was mostly working, but getting intermittent.
I do like the networking ability of the new products so we can be thrilled by the apparent wind number and frightened by the True Wind number. Or perhaps it's the other way around...