Electronics

I would also suggest you make sure to get a VHF with scan capabilities. I find it critical to scan between channel 13 (commercial traffic in my neck of the woods) and 16 to keep track of what is going on.

My backups are hand-held GPS, paper charts, plotting tools, and compass.
 
For backups, I use VHF radios (hand held) and GPS chart plotters which use AA batteries--both are waterproof and will float. Best kept in a steel ammo box, which acts as a Faraday cage, incase of lightning strike. With these two backups, I can continue my cruise, even if I loose all of my main electronics. So I don't see the built in electronics as essential to my ability to run the boat.

Also all of these backups are put in the ditch bag, along with at least a dozen fresh Alkaline AA batteries.
 
One of the reasons I am not a fan of multi function displays is that I have had them fail without losing all electrical power in the boat. If it is being used as a multifunction device, you lose a number of separate types of electronics such as GPS, chart plotter, radar and depthfinder if they are all running on a single mulitfunction device. If I have multi-function devices, I have generally used them for a single purpose and have had back ups. On a larger boat, I had a Northstar 6000i GPS Charplotter that failed several times. I took it out and sent it back to the factory for service and ran the boat on my lap top and a separate GPS unit. On both the Northstar 6000i and on a Simrad autopilot, I have had motherboard failures which strikes me, based on my experience, as the most likely failure mode. I am always ready to navigate with either installed and hand held back up devices and always have paper charts on board. It is not a question of if a multi function (or a single fiunction) device will fail but rather when will it fail.

Jim
 
I have a Garmin GPS and an older Furuno radar (1715?) that I bought on the cheap. For backup GPS, I have a Garmin handheld (176c). I also carry a handheld backup radio. I've never had a desire for radar/GPS overlay and kind of like the redundancy of the two screens. To me, the radar is pretty simple to interpret - there's stuff in my path, or I'm in somebody else's path and I can see that just fine without the overlay. To me the laptop would be most useful for weather information IF I was in a location where I can get wireless internet. In addition, it's useful for a music library and DVD player. I've always carried my apple laptop on board and haven't ever had a problem with it being "non-ruggedized".
 
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