Cruising World - February 2016

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february 2016

are the key focal point for
navigation — and sometimes
entertainment — so we want
to make a user’s experience as
simple as possible.”
Other experts agree. “Ev-
erything connects back to
the MFD,” says Marc Jourlait,
deputy CEO at Navico, which
is the parent company of
B&G, Go Free, Lowrance and
Simrad. He believes today’s
marine electronics have to be
easy to use, and pushing infor-
mation to the cloud has to be
a simple task. “There are so
many opportunities to make
[electronics] better and more
seamless,” he says, describing
the challenges manufacturers
are tackling.
While pushing data to the
cloud depends on Internet
connectivity (more on this in
a minute), one way contempo-
rary MFDs simplify the user
experience is through custom-
izable screen views. Depend-
ing on the display, these views
can often be created by drag-
ging and dropping app icons
onto one of several screen-
layout templates. With a swipe
of a fi nger, a user has the abili-

ty to control and monitor net-

worked fi xed and handheld

cameras, determine the con-

tent viewed in split screens,

display television and video

imagery, and even control the

stereo.

As MFDs become increas-

ingly important to a boat’s

operations, some manufac-

turers have begun building

smaller, fully marinized smart

displays to augment them, in-

cluding B&G’s Vulcan sail-

ing chart plotter, Garmin’s

GNX 120 and 130 large- format

marine instruments, and

Sailmon’s line of performance-

oriented smart displays. In

the case of B&G and Garmin,

these new screens comple-

ment the boat’s main MFD,

allowing sailors to spec a full

MFD at the nav station (and

possibly a second MFD at the

helm) while installing a few of

the smaller displays on deck

for specifi c purposes.

Sailmon takes a different

tack with its Model X and

Model VII smart displays,

which replace an MFD with a

networked PC that’s running

Expedition software (as well as

a networked black-box mod-

ule that interfaces with various

onboard sensors, instruments

and networks).

In all cases, these new

devices eliminate the need

for dedicated instrument dis-

plays such as outmoded depth

sounders or anemometers, and

provide a huge amount of fl ex-

ibility when it comes to dis-

playing germane information

both in graphical and numer-

ical formats. They also offer

robust system redundancy.

While powerboaters con-

tinue to represent the bulk

of the marine-electronics

market, several MFD man-

ufacturers are now bundling

their systems with sailing-

specifi c features and func-

tionality (see “Meet Your

Electronic Tactician,” Janu-

ary 201 6 ). This trend, which

B&G pioneered in 2012

with its SailSteer wind-rose

icon, is now gathering con-

siderable momentum, with

Garmin and Raymarine also

offering similar capabili-

ties. All three manufacturers

boast advanced, graphical-

ly rich sailing features that

include starting-line assis-

tants, laylines and wind roses.

And while the starting-line

software is of little use to

the pure cruising sailor, lay-

lines and graphical wind

roses are great examples of

performance- sailing soft-

ware that can directly help

any helmsman sail more ef-

fi cient courses and increase

big- picture situational aware-

ness. For example, B&G’s

software calculates its esti-

mated arrival times based on

how long it will take the boat

to sail to a given waypoint,

layline or destination tack by

Sailmon’s dedicated display Garmin’s Panoptix Forward Transducer imagery

MFDS ARE GETTING MORE

DEVELOPMENT THAN ANYTHING

ELSE. THEY ARE THE KEY FOCAL POINT

FOR NAVIGATION — AND SOMETIMES

ENTERTAINMENT.

COURTESY OF THE MANUFACTURERS