Best Combo Nav/Chartplotter/Sonar/Fishfinder/GPS

I sail a C&C 30 in Lake Ontario (Toronto). The plan is to eventually sail the ICW and the Atlantic Coast to some degree. I own land in Belize, would be cool to go there.

My boat currently has no electronic equipment. I would like to buy a piece of equipment that covers most of my needs. My buddy told me to check out fish finders, he says there are high end ones that cover most navigational needs as well. Ideally I would like to find one under 2000 dollars that will cover my needs in the great lakes as I practice over the next couple seasons and can handle the Atlantic if needed. This is a piece of equipment I might not buy this season so I may be putting the cart before the horse but I have many cold months to prepare myself and these questions tide me over until sailing season.

Thank you

 

I like the raymarine stuff.

A lot of this is subjective and opinions are just that.

 

There are some good 'all in one' units now

All the intelligence and processing is handled within the display head.

The plus is that it is easy to wire and cheap.


There are also more modular systems where you have a central 'brain' which handles everything and one or more displays are connected. This can be located somewhere protected from all elements to get a longer lifespan. As the displays are 'dumb' they can be swapped out if they fail or become dim/faded at much less expense you can add extras like wind info and even autopilot.


Some of the 'cheap' all in one units have the GPS antenna inside the unit which limits where you can mount it - needs to 'see' the sky - a mast top mounted antenna might be required.


Your hardest question is the depth transducer - finding a suitable location on a sailing boat can be a total nightmare - a friend spent over a thousand bucks to get one which would give him what he wanted for his boat.
Needs to be in a location which can point straight down (if you're lucky the boat designer has constructed a pocket for one in the keel)
You dont want it where the keel blocks the signal.

finally consider current draw - a massive cineplex type screen might get you a super detailed chart, but if it flattens the battery in a couple of hours...

 

Second thumbs up on the Raymarine. Don't go with anything cheap. Check out some reviews if you need to first. http://fishnmarinecenter.com/fish-finders/ is a good source.