Toys for my new Rib

I am now looking for a GPS/Chart Plotter/Fish/Depth Finder for my new Rib, Saw the Garmin 182c and 188c at the SBS seemed very good and relatively easy to use.

Also would you flush mount these into the consule or mount them on a bracket on top of the consule? I have enough room to do either, and does anyone have any good or bad poits about these or could recommend any other make or model. :V

I can recomend the Navman range. I have had their plotter and fishfinder fitted to the boat for over a year now with no problems what so ever.


I have also just added thier fuel, depth and speed guages, also with no problems.

Hello

Not that I am an expert in the electronic field, but havnt heard of any bad reports about Garmin. Remember you will need to by the chart for it as well though.

we will soon be trialling the Trackfish 6000 on our Rib so we can let you have a better opinion soon. Having said that I haven't really had a problem with the Garmin stuff we had on our boats and the Bluechart software (Garmin) is a bit cheaper than the C MAp (Navman)

We have a nice suite of Navaman on our diesel tib which will be used a lot during the winter so I'll have a much better view on reliability then.

whatever you decide to have if you mount on the brackets and your boat is fairly nippy then make sure that you mount in such a way that if the unit works loose then the wind holds it in place as opposed to blowing it off. Cos it's a bugger trying to put it back on at forty knots plus

This is the consule they are going into, sorry but it's the only shot I have of it, but think it gives the idea and size of it. So either way if they are bracket mounted or flush mounted they should be protected. Is flush mounting a better option then? :V

Whatever you decide on, have a good look around. Just bought a Garmin GPS72 from Canada (http://www.gpszone.ca/). Including postage, I paid £90, (it only took 5 days to deliver, and that was across a week-end), whereas in the UK the cheapest I could find was £125. I guess it will depend on what charts are pre-installed, or what you charts you would need for the UK. There's a guy called Al who works at GPSzone, who is very helpful.

If you buy from abroad check which base map your getting.

Been through this dilemma myself quite recently. FWIW I ended up flush mounting my Garmin 2006. Main reason was that it was less nickable and I don't have to remove it each time I leave the boat unattended, but the other benefit is that it doesn't 'wobble' as much when flush mounted which makes it so much easier to press the buttons when you're doing 30+ knots.

I had a great deal on a Lowrance M52S/GPS unit that has both Sonar and GPS..

It appears to work very well.........

might be worth considering

Just spend yesterday afternoon planning my console with Kevin from Solent and two other helpful punters from RibNet - thanks gentlemen, the CD player with the big speakers will do fine.... :p

Am having the big Lowrance Plotter consuming the whole of the left of a double console, with a Navman cheapo DSC radio below it.

In the centre the combo small Lowrance plotter / depth (330C) as a fishfider / GPS data repeater (large numbers overlaid!).

Supplied by jgtech.com. Great service and prices.

Happy to explain more to anyone sad enough to be interested!

Bruce