Yachting USA — January 2018

INSIGHTS NEW ELECTRONICS By David Schmidt

RADAR-ENABLED

Simrad’s GO7 XSR (from $649) and GO12

XSE (from $2,149) are touchscreen-enabled,

and they support graphically driven

user interfaces and split-screen views. The

plotters are compatible with Simrad

Broadband 3G/4G and Halo radar systems,

as well as NMEA 2000 data backbones, plus

they have internal sounders. When

paired with Halo radars, the plotters allow

them to perform Doppler processing.

Simrad, simrad-yachting.com

THE HUNT IS ON

Lowrance’s FishHunter Pro and FishHunter

3D wireless, castable transducers share

sonar imagery with a smartphone via Wi-Fi,

without a cellular or internet connection.

The FishHunter Pro ($149) reaches depths

of 150 feet over three diff erent sonar

frequencies and talks to smartphones from

160 feet, while the FishHunter 3D ($199)

has fi ve tri-frequency transducers that can

ping to 160 feet while stretching 200 feet to a

smartphone. Lowrance, lowrance.com

SPECTER SENTRY

The Apparition security-monitoring and

tracking system from Global Ocean Security

Technologies (GOST) has a user-friendly

touchscreen. It supports up to 192 sensors

and 16 touchscreen keypads (available in

5- and 7-inch screens) that can be put

on multiple decks. The Apparition system

works with GOST’s proprietary sensors

(price upon request), and a free app pushes

notifi cations to an owner’s or captain’s

smartphone. GOST, gostglobal.com

JA N UA RY 2 01 8 YACHTING 65

INSIGHTS ELECTRONICS

bathymetric data and cartography, as
well as AIS traffi c data, to help create a
nationwide priority list for survey work.
The hydrographic division uses modern
sonar for its survey work, with side-scan-
ning sonar in relatively shallow waters
(down to 330 feet) and a towed, multi-
beam sonar ( broadcasting across chirp
frequencies) to take deeper soundings.
“With multibeam sonar, we can collect
bathymetric data but also backscatter, and
we can use science to estimate what the
seafl oor is made of,” says Rick Brennan,
NOAA’s chief of the hydrographic division.
“Sonar gives us a wide array of information,
and it can measure things in the water
column — it’s the gold standard — but
its swath width is related to the depth.”
Shallow waters, he adds, produce nar-
row-diameter sonar cones on the seafl oor
(read: time-consuming survey work),
so the division instead uses side-scan-
ning sonar or, if conditions allow, lidar.

ability to see change that’s really valuable.”

Once bathymetric data is collected,

“we can use statistical fi lters to look for

places where the seafl oor isn’t consistent,”

explains Brennan. The tools help focus

eyeballs on inconsistencies or potentially

problematic data. “Modern multibeam

[sonars] can produce any where from 10 to

100 depth measurements per square meter

of the seafl oor,” he adds. “The standard

deviation of these measurements is typi-

cally about 8 to 10 inches. In high-traffi c

areas, we have the ability to cut this in

half with modern surveying methods.”

The result of NOA A’s forward-leaning

work is much more accurate nautical

charts and higher-quality bathymetric

data, both of which benefi t all mari-

ners. With luck, these technologies will

yield newer generations of yachtsmen

who never have to fi nd the bottom the

hard way, and help the rest of us avoid

being reinaugurated into “the club.”

Satellite imagery is another important

asset. “We have the ability to take a pic-

ture of [a specifi c part of ] the Earth once

per day,” says Brennan, whose division

then uses the imagery to seek out and

monitor areas with dynamic seafl oors.

“The accuracy may be coarse, but it’s the

EYES IN THE SKY

NOAA uses Twin Otter and King Air

planes to take precise, remote-sensing

measurements of near-coastal

waters using lidar and photogrammetry.