Are Navman devices scrap?!

[scrob]

Our boat came with three Navman devices as standard - GPS, Fishfinder and VHF. The fish finder is useless for anything other than depth - it marks fish and I catch nothing, and has absolutely no correlation with my catches at all, in fact I'm normally happier for it to be blank as I usually catch more! As for the GPS, it is a complete POS and seems incapable of very much. It will not zoom in to any kind of acceptable range and when I last asked it to "take me home", it plotted a straight line route straight across land heading for port!

Has anyone else used Navman products? I am very disappointed in them and I am considering buying a Garmin chart plotter and possibly one with a sonar to allow me to find fish as well.

How good are electronic charts on these devices - are they as good as a traditional paper chart and can they be relied on? Do you normally have to buy charts for Ireland or will it come pre-loaded?

With regards to a device with a sonar (e.g. the Garmin 550-S) are they any use for mapping out what's below the boat to identify features and fish? Or are they a bit of a gimmick compared with a standalone sounder/sonar?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as currently I have a boat full of electronics and none of them seem to be any use!

[JimC]

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as currently I have a boat full of electronics and none of them seem to be any use!

Is it the electronics are no use or the skipper?

Seriously though: I have yet to see a GPS that recognises the chart that is loaded and does not give you the shortest route from A to B, even if it is through land! Have you a chart installed or is the unit working off the base map? (sounds like basemap from your post).

On the Sonar: Turn off the fish symbols! What model is it? Any Navmans I have seen have been grand units. I think that Donal D has a navman and it fairly happy with it (picture here: http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bull ... =2&t=26871 ). Sonars are more for determining the ground you are fishing on rather than finding fish. Any fish that show up is a bonus.

The latest Garmins all seem to come with a chart pre-loaded. These charts are copies of the paper chart.
Maybe before you part with some cash get somebody who is more familiar to have a look at your set up. If you are near Cork give me a shout!

[scrob]

Jim, I wouldn't completely rule out the skipper being at least partly to blame! You are right, there are no charts loaded on the GPS and these would need to be purchased - so I am wondering whether to just buy a more up to date unit such as the Garmin which comes already pre-loaded with charts rather than buy charts for a now 6 year old GPS.?

As for the fishfinder, the sonar image is extremely basic, it only really shows a brief image of the sea floor to allow you to work out if its sand or rough ground and very little else. So again, I was tempted to invest in the Garmin if it gave a decent sonar image.

Unfortunately the boat is in the north of Donegal, so a bit far from Cork, but thanks for the kind offer

[JimC]

Couldn’t be much further away

The more modern gps will probably just refresh the screen faster but it still only do the job of your current unit (I take it your unit is colour) I vaguely remember that a navionics chart was around €150.00. Maybe borrow somebody’s chart and check it to see how the unit performs? Other than that I could not fault garmin units – I have one myself.

Without knowing the model it is hard to say what output etc. is of your sounder. What is the frequency of the t/ducer? Has somebody changed some of the settings of your sounder? Are you fishing very deep water? Get into the menu and change all the settings to “auto” (Gain/sensitivity etc) Make sure the “white line” is working as well as this is a great indicator of bottom. Once things are on auto you can then mess with them yourself.

I have a Garmin FF250c . It has high output a dual freq t/ducer and a good resolution screen. It will not always show fish. Yes pollack will show and if there is a lot of cod or whiting on the bottom they will show too but more often than not you will not see a whole pile of action on the screen. You can get better results by increasing some settings but what suits one area/depth may not suit another and you could spend more time playing with the sounder than fishing.

[yappo]

I have Navman units since 2006 both separate units and combined units and find them very good.
Some good advise from Jim there. Presume that when you got the boat with all it's electronic wizardry you never got a manual for the units. Try and download some for your units or better still find someone near to you who can set up and play around with the settings.
From memory I only had to set a couple of things and I was away nothing very complicated. Think the map for all of Ireland cost me €100 from Marine parts direct in Swords they have a website. I would definitely get rid of any fish symbols on the sonar they are only a distraction, what you are really looking for are features that might hold fish.
Hope you get sorted but remember lots of guys on boats caught lots of fish before they ever heard of GPS or Sonar.

Yappo

[scrob]

Hi Yappo,

Thanks for the advice - I completely agree about the fish symbols, they seem to mean nothing. I think I will need to look at the settings on the sounder though because the picture it brings up is very basic and it never shows up much in mid water, just a basic picture of the sea floor. Maybe I can adjust some settings to improve the picture it gives.

As for the plotter, I was unaware you could buy charts for it, so I'm now left with the decision to either spend money on charts or spend a bit more money for a more up to date unit.

I'll also admit that I have had absolutely no navigation training to date and that is another thing I plan to do to get the most out of my boating. To date I've only used the boat in an area I am familiar with and always had another crew member on board to guide me to new areas. Would be great to learn at least the basics and I will look into a course at Greencastle for this soon!

[scrob]

Just got model numbers on the devices currently installed:

Radio VHF 7200
Satnav Tracker 5500
Fishfinder 4380

(All Navman)

[JimC]

HOLD THE BUS

Was just looking at the manual for the GPS...
It would appear that the unit takes CMap charts. I may know of the existence of one at reasonable money...... I'll be back


Edit: False alarm...... Cmap was for southern half of the country...... unlucky.

[yappo]

Nothing wrong with any of these units so before you go spending any money go to http://www.navmanmarine.net and follow the links to download the manuals for all of these devices. Then try some settings to get the best from them.

By the way what boat have you got and where do you normally fish?

Good luck

Yappo

[scrob]

Ok good stuff - glad to hear it is more likely to be skipper to blame as that's cheaper to fix! I was just keen to hear peoples opinion on the Navman gear as it came standard in the boat and I never knew if it was regarded as being much use. I think the first port of call now is to get my hands on the C maps for the plotter and then book onto a training course in Greencastle.

The boat is a Uttern C72, it's a 7.2m cruiser with a diesel Mercruiser inboard. Bit of a jack of all trades and it's actually my dads boat, but I would fish off it regularly over the summer out of Portnablagh in Donegal.

[scrob]

Just looking at CMap charts here for the plotter and I'm a bit confused. There seem to be a few different charts available to cover the same area. I can see the scale is slightly different for certain areas depending on which chart I look at. Can anyone give me general advice on the scale that you would want to have in your local area? It seems to vary from 1:1500000 down to 1:2500 in other areas.

"Jeppesen Max" chart UK and Ireland here:
http://www.c-map.com/chartcatalogue/D55EE1EC

"Jeppesen Max PRO" chart Ireland and Bristol Channel here:
http://www.c-map.com/chartcatalogue/B847A51F

"Jeppesen Max" chart Benwee Bay to Culdaff Bay here:
http://www.c-map.com/chartcatalogue/480DC128

Or are there any other people other than Jeppesen I should look to get the CMaps from?

[JimC]

I'm not overly familiar with cmap but it looks like you will get a small "local" chart for around €99.
There is bound to be a chandlers doing them up that way.
Failing that ring CH Marine in Cork (Leo) +353 21 4315700
A quick google brings this crowd in Donegal http://www.barry-electronics.ie/

[scrob]

Done some more research, looks like all the CMap charts have the same level of detail, they just vary in their width of coverage. The only downside is that my chart plotter only accepts the older NT+ charts and not the newer MAX charts.

[yappo]

Have a look here scrob.

http://www.marineparts.ie/navigation/el ... eland.html

Yappo

[scrob]

Cheers mate for the link, though from research today I can get them for £60 sterling for a local NT+ or £160 for the full country. Probably go for the full country as Donegal to Portrush straddles 2 local charts.

[Tanglerat]

You remember that day I went out with you, and you asked me about your plotter? And how I told you to toss it overboard if it wasn't working because relying on electronics is dodgy if you haven't got a good understanding of navigation basics and to do the boat handling courses?

Well, you never mentioned that you didn't have a chart loaded into the plotter

[scrob]

Mon now Ger, you should have picked up on that

I emailed Greencastle today to enquire about courses. Hopefully can find one suitable

[Tanglerat]

Heh, I was too busy trying to hang on and not be bumped overboard! Silly carry-on, going out into seas like that. At least now you know your boat can handle it....

Meant to tell you earlier, that flattie mark that we criss-crossed and never got even a sniff of a bite? I fished it a couple of weeks later: Thornback, Homlyn, Turbot, Plaice, Dabs (bigguns!) and Dogs.

Typical.

[scrob]

No way?! Unbelievable.. can't wait to go back next year for another crack at them!! That's some haul, any biggies?

As for the weather that day - don't really want to repeat it but as you say, it was a learning curve with the boat and has shown me what it's well capable of.

[Tanglerat]

The turbot came in at a couple of lbs. I released him before anyone could shout dibs on him. Lovely fish, beautiful sandy colour. The biggest dab was a very respectable size too. He's also still back out there. Thornies were average size, maybe pushing 5 lbs. The homlyn a bit smaller.

Interestingly, they all came to a variety of baits - squid, sandeel, mackeral, rag, and lug.