The skies darkened fast. Capt. Art Sapp was runnng home to Lighthouse Point, Florida, from the Bahamas aboard Native Son, his SeaVeei 39, when he saw the storm wall. “I ran 30 miles to get around the thunder and lightning,” he said, adding that he used dual 16-inch Raymarine Axiom 2 XL multifunction displays, and networked radar and satellite weather, to pick a less-awful route. “It’s got a fluidlike feeling on the screens. It’s wild,” Sapp said of the Axiom 2 XL. “It makes it so accurate, there’s no missed touch.”

While screen-tap accuracy matters, there’s more going on with Raymarine’s latest displays than screen coatings. And it’s been developing for years.

In 2017, Raymarine unveiled its Axiom displays with quad-core processors, RealVision 3D sonar and the Android-based Lighthouse 3 operating system. Lighthouse 3 was Raymarine’s all-new operating-system architecture, and it made the company an early Android adopter within the marine space. Raymarine’s Axiom 2 displays come in three models with screen sizes ranging from 9 to 24 inc hes. All of them have six-core processors, global navigation satellite system receivers, 64 gigabytes of solid-state storage, the latest version of Raymarine’s Lighthouse 4 operating system and next-generation screen coatings. The resulting displays, which include angling- and cruising-specific versions, can give boaters better speed, power and improved user interfaces.

The Axiom 2 family starts with Axiom 2 Pro S (from $3,050), which is available in 9-, 12- and 16-inch screens. It comes with a single-channel, chirp-enabled sonar.

“The Axiom 2 Pro S is targeted at cruising boats,” says Jim McGowan, Raymarine’s Americas marketing manager. “It’s got our HydroTough coating on the glass. It’s a nano coating that bonds with the glass on a molecular level. Your fingers just glide smoothly over it, which enhances the functionality.”

In addition, the Axiom 2 Pro S, along with the fishing-specific Axiom 2 Pro RVM, uses Raymarine’s HybridTouch user interface, which employs a touchscreen as well as hard-button-and-knob keypads. Those can be helpful when the seaway starts sloshing the coffee.

RVM stands for RealVision Max sonar. Axiom 2 Pro RVM displays are identical to the Axiom 2 Pro S, save for their sonars. While the Axiom 2 Pro S has a conical chirp-enabled sonar, RVM models (from $2,750) are built with a 10 kW, dual-channel chirp sounder and a 600-watt RealVision Max high multibeam chirp sonar.

“It’s definitely targeted at the hard-core fishermen,” McGowan says, adding that RVM displays deliver chirp DownVision, SideVision, RealVision 3D and high-chirp-sonar perspectives, plus the traditional dual-channel 1 kW chirp sonar.

Given that there are three bands of chirp—low, medium and high—anglers can cover all three bands with an Axiom 2 Pro RVM that’s networked to a Raymarine RVM transducer and to an Airmar low- and medium-frequency chirp transducer.

Axiom 2 displays employ different transducers (sold separately) than previous-generation Axiom offerings. These transducers have piezoceramic elements inside that are larger, McGowan says. Larger ceramic elements equate to greater acoustic sensitivity and better beam-shaping capability. While those features are beneficial, the reality is that boaters need to add the new transducers in order to realize the system’s full acoustic capabilities.

Axiom 2 XL is the most recent addition to Raymarine’s display family. As the name portends, the premium-level XL models (from $7,800) are designed for use in an all-glass bridge aboard large yachts or high-end center-consoles. The touchscreen displays are available in 16-, 19-, 22- and 24-inch glass. While they don’t include an embedded sonar or hard-button controls (owners can add a Raymarine RMK-10 keyboard), they do have HDMI input and output capabilities.

“They have a pretty robust video input and output,” McGowan says. “It’s unique to that level of Axiom. The standard Axioms don’t have it.”

This functionality allows Axiom 2 XL owners to add a Raymarine RVM1600 black-box sonar ($2,000), creating a setup that gives Axiom 2 XLs the same fish-stalking capabilities as Axiom 2 Pro RVMs, just with more-spacious glass.

These HDMI capabilities also allow Axiom 2 XL owners to network a touchscreen-compatible personal computer to their display via a USB connection, and to drive their computer using Axiom 2 XL’s touchscreen pass-through interface. Additionally, the HDMI input and XL-size glass can be used to stream satellite TV or other content.

While each Axiom 2 model has its sweet spot of capabilities, all three models share important DNA. “Because of the six-core processors, the ability to pan across a chart or to zoom in or zoom out, it is very, very snappy,” McGowan says. “The pinch-to-zoom feature is immediate. You’re never waiting for anything to load.”

And the latest version of Raymarine’s Android-based Lighthouse 4 operating system lets third-party software developers create vetted apps that run on Axiom 2 displays.

“We curate the apps that we allow. They have to be largely navigation-focused,” McGowan says, adding that some apps are validated by Raymarine, while others are developed with a partner agreement. “The Android platform gives us the flexibility to do that because there are so many marine devices that are built on or around Android.”

Another benefit of Lighthouse 4’s Android-based architecture, McGowan says, is that navigation software isn’t a heavy lift for the processors: “You’re not really pushing the limits of the hardware out of the box, so that gives us the ability to keep developing new features and new innovations and adding more stuff into the code. We still haven’t even begun to stress the limits of the processor and memory.”

As far as Axiom 2’s pros and cons, the positives are plural, while the drawbacks are largely limited to costs (including installing the larger transducers) and the fact that Raymarine no longer allows owners to pilot DJI Mavic drones from Axiom displays.

But if you’re more concerned with cruising, fishing or creating a premium-level all-glass bridge, then Axiom 2 could be the logical next addition to your yacht’s helm.

Pro Moves

Raymarine’s RVM1600 sonar module can be networked with an Axiom 2 XL to yield the same sonic capabilities as an Axiom 2 Pro RVM.

Sky-Talker

Axiom 2s are agnostic about satellite-communications connections. They play nicely with mazu’s M2500 ($1,100), which uses Iridium’s global, short-burst data service to provide weather, email, SMS messaging and an optional sport-fishing app. It appears as an app, so users can see it on Axiom’s sunlight-readable screen.

The post Raymarine’s Axiom 2 Multifunction Displays Explained appeared first on Yachting.

Raymarine has inked a deal with Rhode Island-based NorthCoast Boats to provide navigation equipment and YachtSense digital switching for the builder’s full line of 2024 model-year boats, including the flagship NorthCoast 415HT that is expected to become available this fall.

“We are very excited to be able to provide NorthCoast with every component for its flagship 415HT’s electronics suite, as well as for all future builds across their product line,” Grégoire Outters, general manager of Raymarine, stated in a press release. “NorthCoast has long been regarded as a premium yacht manufacturer, and their 415HT is going to go above and beyond by offering the smartest boating experience ever.”

The NorthCoast 415HT will have a helm with two Axiom 2XL 19-inch multifunction displays and a RMK10 remote; RealVision MAX 3D sonar with CHIRP DownVision and SideVision sonar; a Cyclone 110-watt, 4-foot open-array radar with CHIRP pulse compression and beam-sharpening technology; and an AR200 that supplies GPS position, compass heading, pitch and roll data to Axiom chartplotters. It can also (when combined with the onboard FLIR M364C multispectral marine camera and CAM300) use video-stabilization capabilities to enable ClearCruise Augmented Reality features.

What does Raymarine’s YachtSense digital switching do? It’s a modular backbone that supports control of the vessel’s systems, with lighting, pumps, hydraulics and HVAC all integrated for touchscreen control.

Take the next step: go to raymarine.com

The post Raymarine Partners with NorthCoast Boats appeared first on Yachting.

Black cables of different lengths hang from tines, awaiting testing. Each cable is fitted with connectors that align with hardware from all the marine-electronics manufacturers. If all goes well with the tests, then packaging and shipping are next.

While it’s odd to see just-minted cabling for Furuno, Garmin, Humminbird, Raymarine and Simrad on the same factory floor, that’s how this place works. Since its founding in 1982, Airmar Technology Corp. has ensured that its transducers play nicely with third-party fish finders, sonars and multifunction displays. As Craig Cushman, Airmar’s director of marketing, explains by analogy: “We don’t build marine electronics. We build high-end speakers.”

In 1982, engineer Steve Boucher founded Airmar in Milford, New Hampshire, with the goal of innovating and manufacturing better acoustic-sensing transducers. The company’s first product was a transom-mounted transducer that worked with a variety of fish finders. Today, Airmar makes everything from proximity sensors to acoustic rain sensors to flow sensors to high-end chirp transducers. The common denominator in all this product diversity is Airmar’s expertise in sonar and ultrasonic-sensing technologies. The company is the leading global manufacturer of high-end transducers.

Since its founding, Airmar has produced both branded and white-label products for third-party companies. This arrangement has freed marine-electronics manufacturers to pursue their own areas of expertise, and has let Airmar form close-knit partnerships to produce transducers that are critical to many big players’ products.

Just as Airmar grew its product portfolio from a humble, transom-hung transducer to sensors that now govern bottling plants and Chicago city buses, the business has also grown to include multiple other companies. These include Marport, which manufactures sensors, echo sounders, current profilers and sonars for the commercial-fishing market; Gemeco and Airmar EMEA, both distribution companies; and a defense-contracting operation. Roughly 60 percent of Airmar’s annual revenue flows from the recreational-marine market; the other 40 percent, including some defense contracting, provides stability in other markets. Airmar is supported by 435 global employees, including some who report to offices in France, Iceland and South Africa, while 275 to 300 employees work at (or remotely from) the company’s New Hampshire headquarters.

I visited that headquarters, which is sizable with three buildings. Cushman and Susan Leuci, Airmar’s media-relations specialist, started my tour by showing me a few pieces of Airmar-built equipment, including two small paddle wheels.

“That’s our new Gen2 paddle wheel,” Cushman says, adding that it delivers accurate speed-over-water metrics at boat speeds as skinny as 0.3 knots. “A young engineer and University of New Hampshire graduate spent three years perfecting that design.”

The wheel has a precise, asymmetrical shape, and a large surface area relative to its size. There’s little room for marine growth to accumulate compared with previous offerings.

“We made that here,” Cushman says, adding that while Airmar’s injection-molding machines can rapidly fabricate components, manufacturing here is still largely a manual process. “We’re not feeding components into a machine. It’s a manual, hands-on job. A lot of craftsmanship goes into these transducers.”

Downstairs on the factory floor, in the engineering lab, new designs are being fabricated before testing commences in the adjoining research-and-development room, which is populated with racks of testing equipment and multiple freshwater tanks. Inside one tank, a wooden structure hangs vertically in the water column. The wood is cut at different and diverging angles, which allows Airmar to test for sonar-wave reflexivity. Nearby, there’s a bench with fish finders from all the major brands. Cushman explains that Airmar tests new transducers on all platforms, just like a high-end speaker company might test its creations on receivers from all the major brands.

“We’re a technology-development company, not a boating company,” Cushman says. “We attract people because of the technology, not necessarily because it goes on a boat.”

Around the R&D room, there’s equipment for hot-and-cold cycling, drop testing and atmospheric-pressure testing. No amount of pounding into offshore seaways will approximate the level of torture that Airmar conjures here.

On the main factory floor are more tank-testing facilities and multishelf wheeled carts full of transducers ready for packaging and shipping. Their housings might be bronze, molded plastic, stainless steel or urethane, but inside, each contains at least one carefully potted piezoceramic element.

“Everything is 100 percent American-manufactured,” Cushman says. “We have some circuit boards made in Canada, but everything is assembled here, in the USA, in New Hampshire.”

Cushman leads me past the area where employees batch-test incoming componentry, before taking me into the room where other employees pour encapsulating material into transducer bodies. He says that while all Airmar employees receive months of instruction and on-the-job training, encapsulation work requires special experience to ensure that air bubbles and other contaminants don’t become suspended in the matrix.

“We have decades of research into materials that perform better in certain ways,” Cushman says, adding that a big part of Airmar’s quality comes from knowing which materials will direct the highest percentage of acoustic energy into the water column by eliminating unwanted noise.

We pass keg-like barrels filled with water and through-hull transducers, clamps and wires (and occasional rubber duckies). Rows of three-story carts hold bronze through-hull transducers, their pipe stems forming a miniature copper-colored forest.

At the ultrasonic-weather-station department, several wind tunnels occupy an end of the factory floor. They can produce winds up to 100 knots. The fans are silent as we walk by, but an engineer is preparing to test an Airmar-built weather station with an ultrasonic anemometer.

Across the street, in Airmar’s newer building, the company produces high-volume, lower-cost transducers and plastic parts, and assembles wire kits. Entire pallets of wire, wound around massive wooden spools, are ready to be cut and fitted with Airmar-built third-party connectors. “Every transducer build needs miles of cables,” Cushman says.

I couldn’t help but notice, in Cushman’s office, a half-hull of Reliance, the Nathanael Greene Herreshoff-designed behemoth that successfully defended the 1903 America’s Cup. Equipment from different marine-electronics companies is on a nearby bookshelf. Much like how Reliance dominated its field of play in its day, Airmar dominates the high-end transducer business.

The real winners, of course, are yachtsmen worldwide.

Military Service

While Airmar’s transducers detect fish, the U.S. Navy stalks submarines. MSI Transducers builds bespoke and semi-bespoke transducers for commercial and defense use. Airmar acquired MSI in 2016 and introduced high-volume manufacturing. This arrangement helps MSI be cost-competitive and gives Airmar access to next-generation technologies.

The post Behind the Scenes with Airmar Technology Corp. appeared first on Yachting.

Raymarine has unveiled new products, including the Axiom 2 Pro and Axiom 2 XL multifunction displays, a new suite of sonar products and an advanced marine camera system.

The Axiom 2 Pro is the most powerful all-in-one Axiom system ever developed, according to Raymarine. It has a fast six-core processor and an intuitive LightHouse 4 operating system. It’s available in 9-, 12- and 16-inch sizes in two variations.

The Axiom 2 Pro S includes embedded high-chirp sonar for premium cruising and sailing vessels, while the Axiom 2 Pro RVM is engineered for anglers.

Axiom 2 Pro RVM models come standard with new RealVision MAX 3D sonar, which combines chirp DownVision, SideVision and RealVision MAX 3D channels. The high-frequency chirp sonar channel also has 600 watts of output power, significantly expanding the depth range to 1,200 feet and greatly improving the clarity of fish targets detected throughout the water column.

The flagship Axiom 2 XL is designed for sportfishing yachts, offshore battlewagons and luxury cruisers, and is available in 16-, 19-, 22- and 24-inch sizes, with enhanced networking and extended multimedia capabilities. Features include HDMI input and output, and touchscreen pass-through. Axiom 2 XL screens are also built on the new six-core platform with LightHouse 4 operating system.

“Whether you are a professional offshore angler or a long-distance cruiser, Axiom 2 Pro promises the clearest sonar pictures at the greatest ranges in a display that is built to withstand the harshest conditions thrown at you,” Grégoire Outters, general manager of Raymarine, stated in a press release.

What else is new at Raymarine? The company also added the new CAM300 Marine Camera, which is slightly larger than a golf ball, with high-definition resolution and a 160-degree field of view.

Where to learn more: go to raymarine.com

The post New Product Lines from Raymarine appeared first on Yachting.

Avikus, HD Hyundai’s autonomous navigation in-house startup, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Raymarine to cooperate on what’s being billed as the world’s first autonomous leisure boat, the Avikus NeuBoat.

The boat will have Raymarine’s navigational products on board, and the two companies say they will explore “the future of autonomous leisure boating,” hinting at other projects to come.

“Raymarine brings world-leading expertise in marine electronics and navigational equipment for leisure boats to the project, while Avikus is known for the most advanced autonomous leisure-boat technology available, coupled with vast experience from the world’s largest order book of autonomous commercial marine navigation systems,” according to a press release.

What Raymarine’s general manager, Gregoire Outters, says about the deal: “Raymarine strives to provide the most innovative, user-friendly and reliable electronics to make boating accessible and safe for everyone. With Avikus’ proven solution in autonomous commercial marine, the signing of this MOU will pave the way for our engineers to work closely together, to deliver this exciting new technology to our leisure boat customers.”

Take the next step: go to raymarine.com

The post Raymarine Is Working on an Autonomous Boat appeared first on Yachting.

When it comes to situational awareness, John Ellis understands the value of a bird’s-eye view. While he uses Dragon, his Furuno-equipped Nordhavn 68, for sport fishing, diving and extended Pacific Ocean cruising, he often uses an inexpensive DJI unmanned aerial vehicle to gain perspective. “I can use it for backing into slips,” he says, adding that he also flies the UAV to count whale sharks or locate birds offshore. The key to making the UAV effective, he says, involves networking one of his yacht’s four 24-inch pilothouse displays with Apple TV. Then, the UAV wirelessly shares its data with Ellis’ iPhone, which in turn pushes this imagery to the Apple TV and the networked display. “You can’t see this without a drone,” he says.

While contemporary marine-electronics manufacturers have done an admirable job of making their user interfaces intuitive and user-friendly, a simple truth remains: Mariners who use their electronics on a daily or near-daily basis often discover little tricks that simplify onboard operations.

Yachting spoke with brand ambassadors from Furuno, Garmin, Raymarine and Simrad to learn more about how they use their instruments and screens, with the goal of reeling in some wisdom to improve your summer cruise. 

Screens 

All experts agree that more glass is unquestionably better.

“It helps with the fish finder—you can see more detail,” says Capt. Deane Lambros, who works aboard Canyon Runner, a commercially operated, Simrad-equipped Viking 48 Convertible. Lambros typically runs four screens on Canyon Runner’s two 16-inch helm displays: radar, chart plotter, a FLIR thermal-imaging camera feed, and a fourth screen that displays either NMEA 2000 data or side-scanning sonar.

Capt. Tom Petersen takes a different approach aboard Valkyrie, his Sea Ray L650 Fly with Raymarine equipment including dual 16-inch multifunction displays at the helm and another two 16-inch MFDs on the flybridge. “On the left, I have Navionics [cartography] running on my chart plotter, which gives me a lot of data on the display,” he says. “On the right, I run radar in dual-screen mode, with one side set to harbor mode with a 1.5-mile range, while the other side is in coastal mode with the range set to 3 to 6 nautical miles out. This is enough range at 25 knots to maneuver out of the way.”

Others prefer simpler data management. “My digital space has been the same for 20 years,” Ellis says. He displays the most pertinent data—his chart plotter and either radar (nighttime) or sonar (daytime)—on his two 24-inch center displays, with less-critical data on his two 24-inch outer screens. “In a moment of high tension, I don’t want to wonder where things are. I keep the on-screen information very simple, but I can drill down to get a cornucopia.”

On the sailing side, Nigel Craine runs a 12-inch MFD and three instrument displays at the cockpit helm of Eponine, his Garmin-equipped Beneteau Oceanis 311, plus a 7-inch MFD and a second VHF radio at his belowdecks nav station. While Crane typically sets his cockpit displays to show windspeed, GPS-based boatspeed and depth, automatic identification system data also plays a big role.

“Using the AIS with speed-direction vectors switched on is a great help in ascertaining which vessels need to be kept an extra watch on,” he says.

Radars

“Radar is the real world,” Petersen says, adding that it will do more than any other instrument “if you’re willing to use it.”

This requires practice. “Go out on a clear day, and use your radar to spot targets,” Lambros suggests, adding that he typically runs his Simrad radar in dual-range mode (3 and 6 nautical miles, respectively). “Don’t wait until you need it—get a sense of what the picture looks like.”

Contemporary digital radars typically have Doppler processing; however, our experts were more focused on automatic radar plotting aid (ARPA) or mini automatic radar plotting aid (MARPA) tools. These tools can automatically or manually acquire and track specific targets.

“There is nothing better,” Ellis says about the ARPA features on his dual Furuno radars. “If I see a mark without AIS, I give a long press to both radars” to capture the ARPA target.

Radars can overlay their imagery atop cartography, but not everyone uses this feature. “We tend not to use the overlay but rather split the screen,” Craine says, explaining that he runs radar on one side of his screen(s) and a chart plotter—set to head-up perspective and similar ranges—on the other. “This gives a nice, clear picture and allows easy comparison.”

Then there’s disaster avoidance. “At anchor, I always leave my radar running for 10 to 15 minutes,” Petersen says. “I set my radar tracks, and I zoom in close. If I’m anchored squarely, I’ll see squiggly lines, but if I see a long, straight line, I know I’m dragging.”

Sounders

“If I only had two pieces of electronics, it would be GPS and sonar,” Ellis says, explaining that he regularly takes Dragon “closer to shore than you want to be.” He accomplishes this with his Furuno multibeam and searchlight sonars, which he uses out of the box, even for advanced missions such as solo diving El Bajo seamount in the Gulf of California.

“I ran over it 12 times and created my own bathymetry,” Ellis says, adding that he used the resulting high-resolution shaded relief chart to precisely drop anchor on the mount’s summit before swimming the chain.

Lambros, who fishes around 180 days annually aboard Canyon Runner, has a similar approach. “I mostly use it in auto-mode, with maybe a couple of clicks of gain up or down,” he says. He typically runs his sonar display in split-screen mode, with 75 percent of the glass devoted to the sounder’s high-frequency returns (read: depths to 100 feet) while the remaining screen space displays the transducer’s low-frequency findings (read: depths to 900 feet).

Thermal-Imaging Cameras

“It’s a fun one to have,” Petersen says about his FLIR M364C LR. “Just don’t sit and look at it the whole time. If it’s not stabilized, it’ll make you seasick. … It’s good at looking for specific things.”

Lambros agrees. “I use it for getting in and out of the inlet,” he says. “It’s a great secondary line of sight.”

Finally, Petersen suggests spec’ing a FLIR AX8 camera, which delivers live video and automated alarms if, perchance, in the engine room, something starts running too hot or too cold.

Macro-Thinking

While multifunction displays are great for tackling onboard operations, route planning is sometimes easier on a computer. One solution involves employing a Windows-based PC that’s running navigation software such as TimeZero. This setup allows operators to explore routing options on the PC without accidentally interfering with their navigation or instrumentation.

The post Optimizing Onboard Electronics appeared first on Yachting.

Lyman-Morse in Maine has launched Shadow, the first Hood 35 LM and one of our recommended pocket cruisers.

The new model is a collaboration between Lyman-Morse and C.W. Hood Design, which also worked together on the Hood 57 LM. Like the bigger model, the Hood 35 LM is a cold-molded yacht. Hull No. 1 is a hardtop express version.

Shadow’s owner chose high-end electronics for the boat, including Raymarine’s digital switching system, YachtSense, which replaces traditional mechanical switches and circuit breakers.

Also installed are twin 440-hp Yanmar 6LY440 engines coupled to a pair of Hamilton Waterjet HJX29s. According to Lyman-Morse, Shadow is the first pleasure vessel in the United States to be equipped with these new jets, helping the boat to achieve speeds of 40-plus knots.

Shadow is also the first pleasure vessel to be equipped for autonomous running with the Sea Machines system, the builder says.

All of that tech is wrapped in a package with classic Downeast lines. The interior has exposed Douglas fir planking and walnut carpentry. Customized helm seats are made with carbon fiber and walnut details.

“Between C.W. Hood and Lyman-Morse, this really was the dream team,” Shadow’s owner stated in a press release. “I have worked with Chris Hood in the past on my last boat, so when I found out they were working with Lyman-Morse, I couldn’t have been happier. Lyman-Morse’s reputation precedes itself in building custom yachts and so does their ability to incorporate state-of-the-art technology, so this really was the perfect boatbuilder to take on this project.”

Is Hull No. 2 of the Hood 35 LM on the way? Yes. It will be a flybridge version. It’s expected to be ready in 2023. A soft-top model is also available.

Take the next step: click over to lymanmorse.com

The post Lyman-Morse Launches the Hood 35 LM appeared first on Yachting.

The year was 2015. I was with Dave Dunn, Garmin’s senior director of marine sales, aboard Capt. Mike Flowers’ SeaHunter 24 Ruff-n-Uff, slowly approaching Miami’s MacArthur Causeway. Flowers tapped his Garmin multifunction display, and it presented imagery from the Garmin Panoptix PS31 forward-looking sonar.

Dunn cast a lure and, moments later, a tarpon appeared. A dance unfurled, and the target wisely dodged a root canal.

Watching this episode on screen, I was gobsmacked by Panoptix’s LiveVu and RealVu perspectives, which combined information from the forward-looking transducer, multibeam sonar and phased-array technology to produce live, video-type imagery.

Mostly, I was amazed that ceramic bits could yield this kind of water-column awareness.

Darrell Lowrance helped introduce this technology to boaters in 1957 with his Fish-Lo-K-Tor, which provided depth information and detected objects in the water column. Products available today have far better capabilities and onscreen imagery than equipment from just a decade ago.

“Transducers are the key part of the fish finder’s performance: The frequency and power rating of the ceramic determines depth capabilities, coverage under the boat and the ability to see fish in the water column,” says Craig Cushman, Airmar Technology Corp.’s director of marketing. Transducers, he adds, rely on precision timing, much like radars. “The transducer sends acoustic energy throughout the water column and then listens for returning signals. The fish finder then interprets the echo to display what is below the boat.”

Like radars, transducers spend roughly 1 percent of their time transmitting and 99 percent listening for echoes. Transducers are seldom seen, but they take high-voltage electrical pulses (from their networked fish finder, multifunction display or sonar) and convert them to outgoing sound waves that propagate downward and outward in a cone-type shape. Today’s transducers are sensitive enough to discern echoes that are just a few hundredths of a single volt.

Transducers are built like nesting dolls but with piezoceramic elements at their cores. These ceramic elements are made from polarized barium titanate or lead zirconate titanate, look like metal, and can be fabricated into shapes of various complexity. A basic ceramic element might be shaped like a hockey puck, while a more sophisticated element might be formed into a bar, oval, ring or tube.

These ceramic elements are separated from the water on one side by an “acoustic window,” while the rest of the element is encased in a sound-absorbing material that helps direct the sound waves out of, and back through, the acoustically neutral window. The encapsulating material (typically urethane or epoxy) is then encased in the physical housing (usually bronze, molded plastic, stainless steel or urethane). Depending on the transducer, miniaturized printed circuit boards are sometimes embedded in the encapsulating layer that allows the fish finder to automatically adapt to the connected transducer. A pipestem houses electrically shielded cables that run from the yacht’s fish finder or multifunction display to the PCBs and elements.

“The ceramics inside can dramatically change the cost of a transducer,” says Jim McGowan, Raymarine’s Americas marketing manager.

Some entry-level transducers might employ a single piezoceramic element, while high-end transducers might involve 16 to 18 elements. Transducers can be manufactured to “resonate” at a specific frequency (say, 50 kHz), dual frequencies (50/200 kHz) or over a sweep of frequencies.

“You can only play so many songs with two keys on the piano,” Dunn says, adding that chirp transducers transmit over a sweep of frequencies, like having a music scale’s worth of notes, but in this case with better target separation and resolution as the result.

According to McGowan, a single-frequency transducer sounds like a ticking watch. “Chirp would sound like a police siren, increasing in pitch,” he says. “The first returns are the first transmissions, so the system has a reference, allowing it to overlap the original pulse with the echo, giving [onscreen] detail.”

Multibeam sonar systems typically employ an array of ceramic elements. These elements can be electronically steered by the transducer’s controlling microprocessors to ring at specific or sequenced times to scan the seafloor, or they can all ring simultaneously. Today’s multibeam and ultrawide-beam systems can also yield high-resolution information about what’s on each side of the keel (sometimes called side-scanning sonar) or, as Dunn and I saw in 2015, forward-looking imagery.

While McGowan says the sport-fishing crowd drives transducer development, the computer-electronics market enables innovation. “We have the advantage of components,” says Cushman, pointing to today’s dime-size PCBs. They’ve “become smaller and cheaper, which lets us put different things inside.”

As with all markets, there are high-end, mid-level and entry-level transducers. When it comes to the high end of the market, Airmar is the undisputed leader. While most of the bigger marine-electronics manufacturers make transducers in-house, they typically build less-complex, high-volume sounders—or, in some cases, highly specialized, high-end transducers (for example, Garmin builds its Panoptix transducers).

According to Cushman, Airmar manufactures roughly 80 to 90 percent of all transducers that operate on at least 600 watts of transmitting power. Airmar-built transducers are sometimes sold with an Airmar badge; other times, they carry third-party branding.

This relationship frees the Big Four (Furuno, Garmin, Navico and Raymarine) to innovate new fish-finding and sonar technologies and specifications, rather than developing transducers, and it allows Airmar to amass the capability and expertise to manufacture at scale and to high industrial standards.

Customers can order Airmar-built transducers that ship with plug-and-play cable connections, and owners can often use existing transducers with other third-party fish finders or multifunction displays. Airmar’s distribution company, Gemeco Marine Accessories, can help customers determine if an existing transducer will work with other equipment. If an existing transducer is compatible, Gemeco can provide the wiring diagram and splice kit to rewire it for use with a new fish finder. Changing out through-hull transducers, however, requires a haulout and a plan.

“Know what you want to do with the system,” McGowan says. “Transducers are fundamental to the performance of the system, and you get what you pay for.”

After all, without good acoustics, how else will you be able to spin a credible onscreen yarn about a big one that got away?

Fitting Considerations

Transducers can be hung from a transom-mounted bracket, or they can be in-hull or through-hull mounted. While each setup has its advantages, through-hulls are best for power cruising and sport fishing yachts. “Airmar has certified installers who have been trained on the best installation practices,” says Airmar’s Craig Cushman.

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Jim McGowan, Raymarine’s Americas marketing manager, was aboard a Judge 22 center-console with a 110-watt Cyclone Pro radar and 3-foot antenna array. The boat was heading out of a harbor in Dennis, Massachusetts, when McGowan noticed a family enjoying a late-afternoon stroll on a Cape Cod beach. Then, the Cyclone displayed something curious. “I could track all five contacts on screen,” McGowan says, “and I could see the kids’ heads when they were swimming in the water.

“It’s almost scary how much this radar can pick up,” he added.

Doppler-enabled, solid-state radars arrived in 2016, forever changing navigation. The initial rub, however, was power. The first open-array Doppler-enabled radars (by Garmin) transmitted at 40 watts, while the first radome-enclosed Doppler-enabled radar (by Furuno) boasted 25 watts. Both were a far cry from traditional 25-kilowatt magnetron radars.

Over time, other solid-state radars arrived, offering higher power and more features. Raymarine’s Cyclone radars aren’t the first powerful open-array systems to have solid-state architecture and Doppler processing, but Raymarine is the only manufacturer to employ chirp pulse-compression and major features in an open-array platform that can withstand 100-knot winds.

“Cyclone was designed for the premium motor-cruising and hardcore offshore-fishing markets,” McGowan says, adding that the radar is a good match aesthetically for power yachts 35 feet and larger.

Cyclone radars all have Doppler processing. They can be modularly spec’d with 3-, 4- or 6-foot antenna arrays, as well as 55 watts (Cyclone) or 110 watts (Cyclone Pro) of transmitting power. Cyclone has a 72-nautical-mile range, while Cyclone Pro has a 96-nautical-mile range. All Cyclones can operate at 12, 24, 36, 48 or 60 rpm; they weigh 15.4 to 26.5 pounds; and they have horizontal beam widths of 2.83 (3-foot array), 1.99 (4-foot array) or 1.32 degrees (6-foot array), which can be reduced using beam-sharpening to boost performance.

The Cyclone has a distinctive, aviation-inspired geometry, but “it’s not an airfoil,” McGowan says. “It’s not creating lift or a downforce—it’s neutral.” All cabling is hidden in its rotating pedestal, and its stack height is 13.1 inches.

Collectively, these design elements allow Cyclone to cold-start in 100 knots of apparent air. While this means that Cyclone could theoretically survive a mid-grade Category 3 hurricane, “it’s for today’s high-powered vessels that can run at high speeds,” McGowan says.

Cyclone’s chirp technology is like sonar. “Chirp transmissions look like an arch on an oscilloscope,” McGowan says, adding that their frequency rises over the course of each transmission. “The [radar] reflection of the arch is the opposite of the original transmission.” This allows the radar to determine exactly when each pulse starts and ends, yielding better onscreen target separation.

This same “rising” transmission, which is reminiscent of a police siren, also helps the radar’s Doppler processing. The system paints potentially dangerous targets red, benign targets green, and neutral or stationary targets a third color. Users can set displays to split-screen mode, with Doppler-enhanced imagery displayed on one side and standard radar imagery on the other.

While Cyclone’s Doppler technology helps users differentiate among targets, its professional-grade automatic radar plotting aid automatically tracks up to 50 targets within 12 nautical miles of the yacht. This feature is especially useful when negotiating crowded harbors and waterways.

Cyclone radars can spin at variable speeds, from 12 to 60 rpm, 

depending on the task. “Sixty rpm meets the demand for tracking fast-moving targets at close range,” McGowan says, adding that faster spins make ARPA operations smoother and more accurate. “It gives more sniffs at the target, and it helps the system maintain a tighter lock on targets.” Conversely, slower spins allow the radar to transmit longer pulses for longer-range work.

The RangeFusion feature bolsters situational awareness by combining long- and short-range pulses into a single, high-resolution radar image. “You can be sitting in a harbor, looking at nearby buoys and coastlines, plus distant islands, ships and storms,” McGowan says. “RangeFusion delivers a usable radar image from the center of the scope to the far end of its range.”

Stereo manufacturers commonly use digital signal processing, which allows algorithms to adjust equalizer settings. Radar engineers can likewise use DSP to “teach” a radar what a specific return looks like. This technology, McGowan says, allows Raymarine to create better operating modes than analog filters. For example, “for Harbor Mode, we trained Cyclone to recognize lots of small contacts,” he says. Raymarine also trained Cyclone to expect glass-covered buildings and suppress their false echoes.

Given that Cyclone was partially created for serious offshore anglers, it comes with Cyclone Bird Mode—which uses chirp capabilities to tweak the radar’s gain and tuning settings—and DSP to differentiate birds from sea clutter.

Similar engineering went into Cyclone’s Buoy Mode. “We trained it to recognize aids to navigation,” McGowan says, explaining that buoys are typically augmented with a radio-frequency reflective tape. “We trained [Cyclone] to look for these signatures.”

Cyclone is compatible with only Raymarine’s Axiom displays, and other radars still deliver more power; however, this latter spec could change. Overall, Raymarine’s Cyclone radar should help boaters get on the fish faster while dodging weather and potentially dangerous navigation situations. And given its ability to spot swimmers, it could help rescue anyone who goes overboard.

Beam-Shaping Arrays

While most radars employ patch-array antennas, Raymarine spec’d Cyclones with dielectric-resonator-antenna arrays. “The difference is the way the signal is fed to the radar,” Raymarine’s Jim McGowan says, adding that while these arrays are more expensive, they offer better control over the shape of the radars’ transmitted beams, bolstering performance.

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Welcome to the second-annual Best Elex Awards, which honors standout marine electronics products that have been reviewed and approved by the editorial team behind the four leading titles in marine media: Boating, Yachting, Cruising World and Salt Water Sportsman. Over the course of two months, the nominees were evaluated by our team of seven judges, including the editors-in-chief and electronics editors of the aforementioned brands. In the end, six products set themselves apart. And the winners are:

• Editors’ Choice: Raymarine Cyclone
• Leading Edge Technology: Garmin SurroundView
• Best Integrated System: Raymarine YachtSense
• Most Innovative for Sailing: Balmar Battery Monitoring
• Most Innovative for Power: Yamaha Battery Management System
• Best in Entertainment: Garmin Apollo

Editors’ Choice: Raymarine Cyclone

What the judges said: “While the open-array grabs your attention first, the Raymarine Cyclone radar backs up its stylish design with a high level of functionality that includes excellent target definition, great power, Doppler target tracking, an advanced dual-range feature, highly effective bird mode, a high-RPM setting and more.” 

The next-level design and the ability to weather the toughest conditions stood out to the judges as premier features of Raymarine’s Cyclone. This radar series sports a radical look that resembles an aircraft wing, a relatively thin array design made possible by using dielectric radar technology. But there’s much more to highlight. Advanced post-processing removes sea and rain clutter and replicates chart-like radar images. Anglers should appreciate the enhanced bird mode, which is surprisingly effective since Cyclone is a chirp-pulse-compression, solid-state radar versus a high-powered magnetron. The Cyclone also fits a wider range of vessels because of its size. The smallest version — a 3-foot open array — measures only 13.2 inches tall and weighs 51 pounds. Because of Cyclone’s low-profile, it can perform at wind speeds up to 100 knots, compared with 70 knots for competitors — important for 70 mph offshore boats. Cyclone is also available in 4- or 6-foot arrays and with a 55-watt (equivalent to a 6 kW magnetron) or 110-watt (12 kW-equivalent) pedestal. The array spins at variable speeds from 6 to 60 rpm; at its fastest, the radar gives captains immediate awareness of their surroundings. Cyclones also come with three-color Doppler technology, a 96-mile range, and RangeFusion, which combines short- and long-range pulses into a single image. Prices range from $6,999.99 to $9,749.99. 

Leading Edge Technology: Garmin Surround View

What the judges said: “Surround View allows the captain more confidence while docking, even if there’s no second crew member (and, maybe, even if there is) to eyeball the blind distance between the swim platform and the bulkhead or between the anchor chute and the boat tied up just ahead.”

Docking can be a harrowing experience, but Garmin’s Surround View Camera System minimizes that anxiety and boosts boater confidence. The judging panel agreed that this product is a game-changer when it comes to giving captains a clear view of their surroundings in crowded marinas and harbors. One look at Surround View’s 360-degree bird’s-eye imagery shows you the innovation. The judges applauded Garmin for taking docking awareness to a new level. How does it do this? The system uses six flush-mounted 1080p cameras mounted at the bow, aft, and amidships port and starboard. Surround View then creates a full overhead stitched image with 360-degree, real-time video, and feeds it directly to compatible Garmin chart plotters or multifunction displays. Captains can view one or two cameras simultaneously with the bird’s-eye image, and even zoom in and pan around with individual camera views. Surround View also provides a number of augmented-reality features, including a visual bumper and distance markers. Available as an OEM option on new boats only.

Best Integrated System: Raymarine YachtSense

What the judges said: “Raymarine has come up with a system of electric control Legos, if you will, that allows builders to jump into the digital-switching era using off-the-shelf modules that can be expanded as necessary.”

Simple. Easy. Redundancy. Scalable and customizable: All of the judges characterized Raymarine’s YachtSense digital-switching system as a remarkably common-sense approach to cleanly managing ship’s systems such as lighting, pumps, windlasses, entertainment systems, generators and air conditioning. Each YachtSense system begins with master and power-supply modules; additional multichannel signal modules can be added based on needs — like colored-coded Legos. In addition, YachtSense delivers electrical redundancy. The master module features an integrated keypad for manual override, as well as an LCD screen for system diagnostics. And perhaps best yet: YachtSense offers a scalable and customizable design that’s suitable for boats as small as 35 feet. Captains monitor and control YachtSense with a Raymarine Axiom touchscreen multifunction display. Pricing varies depending on the number of integrated systems and scope of the installation.

Most Innovative for Sailing: Balmar SG230/235 Battery Monitor

What the judges said: “Balmar’s SC230/235 battery monitors give boaters significant insight into the real-time health and state of charge of their battery banks from a variety of dedicated or wireless displays.”

The fact that captains can access battery information with Balmar’s monitors by using an app on a smartphone creates tremendous appeal for sailors who don’t always want to run a chart plotter to check their power supply. The judges also liked the products’ ability to monitor lithium batteries, which is unique to the market. But don’t consider this just a sailboat win; powerboaters also appreciate the SG230 and SG235. With NMEA 2000 networking capability, the monitors can push accurate information on a deep-cycle house bank—such as state of charge and voltage—to any multifunction display. Over time, these smart monitors actually learn from the batteries, allowing the SG230/235 to examine a broader parameter called state of health. Captains can then see how their battery bank ages over time. The SG230 comes with a color display and costs $329; the SG235, without display, costs $239.

Most Innovative for Power: Yamaha Battery Management System

What the judges said: “Yamaha’s new battery management system simplifies rigging, saves money, reduces weight and facilitates easier service of multi-outboard-powered boats, proving once again that less is more.”

Yes, the judges noted a theme throughout this year’s new products: a focus on making everyone’s life—from the boater to the builder—easier. Yamaha even has a philosophy tied to this trend called CommandBlue, designed to deliver products that are easier to use and create greater satisfaction and confidence on the water. The judges felt that Yamaha’s Battery Management System delivered. The most impressive feature they noted was the system’s ability to start up to five outboards with just two starter batteries (without the system, each engine would need a starter battery). The BMS constantly monitors and charges all batteries but it prioritizes the starting batteries, ensuring their readiness. Boaters can then add more house batteries to power their ever-growing list of accessories. Captains can also turn on or off the batteries from up to 15 feet away using a key fob or they can use a console-mounted switch. The estimated retail price for the system is $2,200. Note that BMS is only compatible with Yamaha’s digital-electronic-control outboards on vessels that employ Yamaha’s Helm Master EX.

Read Next: More Marine Electronics

Best in Entertainment: Fusion Apollo Series Amplifiers

What the judges said: “More impressive than a moonshot, Apollo amps ease installation and setup of marine audio amplifiers.”

Most amplifiers must be manually tuned, often by a dealer or technician, so that they can produce clear, quality sound. But Fusion’s new Apollo Series Amplifiers eliminate all that. The judges felt that tune-free functionality was ground-breaking. Here’s how it works: Captains wirelessly connect to their mobile device and open the Fusion-Link app. There, they select the relevant audio profile for their vessel. The amps, enclosed in white, powder-coated-aluminum casings, exclusively pair with Fusion Digital Signal Processing enabled stereos. They feature 150 W RMS per channel and a high-power mode, and come in 1-, 4-, 6- and 8-channel options. Prices range from $179.99 to $949.99.

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