Albin Owners Group

Raymarine's new E Series Widescreen Multifunction Displays are on display in their booth at the Annapolis Sailboat Show that runs through Monday. If you are considering an upgrade in the near future, you may want to take a look before you decide what to get. (Raymarine is not listed as an exhibitor at the Annapolis Power Boat Show, so this may be your only chance to see them for awhile) The E Series Widescreens will not be available until January, but they have some features that are pretty slick. They have a touch screen and buttons so you can control it either way. They also use either Navionics charts or C-Map charts. A short preview of features can be seen at www.hybridtouch.com

I have been wanting to upgrade the electronics on Quest since I bought her in February and I'm glad I waited until these were announced. They have moved to the top of my list. It will take a major re-layout of the instrument panel to make it fit, but I like having the latest gadget. I sailed the bay for many years with a compass, chart and depthfinder and never got lost. Now I can accomplish the same thing for between $10,000 and $20,000. Ain't technology wonderful.

Has anyone done a major re-layout of their instrument panel? I would be interested in how you did it and pictures of the results. I'd also like to hear from anyone who has made the instrument panel taller and how you accomplished it. A few more inches of height would expand my options on display size.

Be very careful about hanging your hat on something like this. In the tech field this is known as "vapor ware". You can announce just about anything, and describe it any way you want. Whether it will work the way you, the buyer expects, is another story. A good example is the Furuno NavNet3D system announced, promoted, and bought by a lot of hopeful boat owners. I'm a Furuno fan, but I used it as an opportunity to buy upgraded NavNet2 components at a reduced price. The NavNet 3D system was late, buggy, and had map issues that had hopeful buyers tearing their hair out. Be VERY careful.

Ric hit the nail on the head here. I also went with a new navnet2 system last winter installing the radar/chartplotter, standalone fishfinder and autopilot myself including NMEAing it all together. So I had my share of calls into Furuno's tech guys along the way and they admitted to me on more than one occassion how they were very very backed up with 3D issues. I looked at the 3D system briefly but decided to stick with what was tried and true, plus the deals are there to be had when you stick with yesterdays gear.

After I sold my 31, I bought a Tiara 38 with hopelessly old electronics. I had these guys make me a new panel overlay.

http://www.wewireboats.com/p.html

I'm pretty pleased with the results



Note the first couple of helm pictures in their gallery