- Raymarine E series was either running Beta or else it's not done (video here). The touch screen worked but dragging charts was very clumsy and non-intuitive as the display lagged 1 to 2 seconds behind my input. That immediately destroys the illusion of actually dragging what you see on the screen. Otherwise a decent plotter, but not a great step from the C series Widescreen. {Editor: E Widescreen software is definitely Beta, but was looking good to me on Penobscot Bay today; more on that tomorrow.}

- Simrad NSE. Now that was more like it. Zooming and scrolling was impressively fast, and intuitive (video here). The way that detail builds up once you are at a new zoomlevel is one of the best I have seen. It felt stable and solid in operation, even though it did not have a touchscreen. 

- Garmin GPSMAP 6000/7000. Claimed to be superfast this shows up really well in this GPSMAP 7015 video. I was really impressed with how the automatic guided routing was able to determine that the boat should use the "small boat" lock in IJmuiden. Now this was explicitly running Beta software cut especially for the show. This was noticable as I was able to lock up the 6000 quite easily (video here). Also, booting it took 52 seconds. I'm sure that Garmin will fix this before they go into production. When they do this they will have a winner on their hands. Using it immediately made the older ones look clumsy. Navnet 3D is slow compared to these babies. Pity they're so expensive.

Shown using a number of Lowrance displays. The current marketing no longer pushes lower radiation as the major point, it's down to the fourth item on the list. The claims made now are more realistic and state:

Maretron did not have anything new that they cared to talk about. I have it from other sources that they are working on some non-display stuff, but that's apparently all still hush hush.

Airmar did have lots of interesting news for the Panbots. First of all, the DST 900 is in active development and they plan to release it 'when it is done'. This hopefully means 2010, but they might encounter a snag. That will follow a redesigned CS 4500 where they will split the actual depth sensor from the electronics, which will be in a separate black box. That black box will produce both NMEA 2000 and 0183, just like the PB 200. There's also a ST 800 coming, which will lose the Depth but still be a "smart sensor" that produces NMEA 2000. The PB 200 will gain even more sensors such as relative humidity. After developing the PB 100 they left that out of the PB 200 as the actual sensor would corrode in the marine environment, but they plan to tackle that using field replaceable humidity sensors. 

NKE showed an ultrasonic speed sensor as well, this works as a replacement for standard paddlewheel sensors or as a NMEA 0183 sender. 

I congratulated Actisense on achieving NMEA 2000 certification for their NGT-1 and NGW-1 NMEA 2000 interfaces, but they were able to enlighten me about what was actually certified. Although Actisense can now claim that the NGT-1 is NMEA 2000 certified, other vendors producing software that uses their NGT-1 cannot claim that their software is NMEA-2000 certified -- yet. For that they are actively working with the NMEA and there will be a process where vendors have their software tested by Actisense for a very low fee after which the vendor can use the NMEA 2000 label.

NMEA-2000 use by other type of vendors like engines, smart electrical buses etc. is improving but not yet really fully on with all manufacturers. Empirbus was showing a new generation of digital power switching system called NXT that is NMEA 2000 based (as well as Ethernet).

This interesting new diesel generator combines three products in one: a mains inverter, battery charger and diesel generator {photo below}. The diesel generator can vary the revs (1200 to 3600) and its output. The output is 400V which feeds to the inverter. The inverter can supply 3.5 kW with an additional boost of 4 kW from the battery. Since the 230 or 110 V power is generated digitally the power is much cleaner than that supplied by normal inverters. Since the inverter can borrow power from the battery it can supply much higher startup loads and therefore the size of the generator can be chosen to be just a little larger than the normal working load instead of the peak load. Boat builders save on installation as there is only one box to fit. Boat owners get lower noise levels as the generator can run at different speeds, so it will run at low speeds if possible. It will automatically shutdown if the load is too low and use the batteries instead.

The GPX5 is fully programmable, so you can for instance program it such that it either runs until the batteries are 100% and two hours after that, or until the batteries at 80% and start when the batteries are at 20%, except between midnight and 08:00 AM. 

We asked the obvious questions: 

According to Mastervolt, the all-in-one approach is more efficient as the generator can produce voltages and frequencies that are unsuited to be fed directly to devices. It's the inverter that converts that into clean mains power. This improves system efficiency and also allows the generator to always run "loaded" so that it does not run at unnecessary speeds. If the generator fails the battery charger and inverter still function normally. The system has been engineered such that the electronics are shielded from the heat of the engine.

Echopilot showed a brand new exciting product called "Echopilot 3D" (video here) {and screen shot at top}. This uses their usual black box approach where you show the output over video input to a MFD or computer display.  Unlike their existing products this uses two (multi-faceted) sensors that produce a real "map" of the area ahead of the boat.

I saw one really cool new sensor developed by Autonnic. You should really watch the video to appreciate this. Autonnic specializes in fluxgate sensors. Their new A4036 Wind Sensor Module measures wind speed and direction by measuring the force that the wind exerts on a small plastic ball that is linked to a magnet moving near a fluxgate. This produces currents in the fluxgate just like in a fluxgate compass. They do not plan to sell directly to the public but intend to OEM the product.