SeaRay Navigator

[jrirvine1]

Last weekend while returning from Oxford, the SR Navigator system suffered its third and very fatal heart attack. Any and all heroic measures and forces of nature were to be of no avail and the patient is now deceased.

A phone call to Maptech resulted in receiving the terse and rehearsed statement “We no longer support or service this product”. Translation – go away and leave us alone.

Next call to SR customer service provided a referral to the company in Colorado that has picked up the service and repair of the Navigator units for Sea Ray. They have some very nice people there who have taken on the impossible task of trying to keep all these failing units operational. Did I mention they are in Colorado which is not exactly a convenient location for anyone with a boat? They of course would like me to remove the Navigator, mail it to them for diagnostics and probable hard drive replacement, return via mail and reinstall – all at my expense of course, without any additional warranty or product guarantee.

I have to say this seems like a very spurious way to handle service / replacement of a product on a SeaRay boat with the SeaRay name displayed very prominently on the unit.

Next phone call to our leader Jim at BOE who came right out to the boat the next day to discuss options of replacing the POS Navigator with another Raymarine unit to work along with the C120 I also have onboard or possibly a cool new Garmin touch screen and maybe a Sirius weather module – oh my! So many choices . . . . . . .

 

[Four Suns]

I guess even Raymarine looks good sitting next to a poor attempt at using Windoze to create a hands-off embedded computer.

 

[NCBoater]

Hey Jim

I have a 500 SB, equipped with one Ray C120 and one Navigator. I am going to rip out the Navigator. Let me know what your electronics guys says. Seems like a replacing the Navigator with a C120 or E120 should be easy....Seems like...
I appreciate letting me know which way you go and why.

Thanks

Mark

 

[Ryan]

This is a very sore subject for me, as I am dealing with an issue now, I think my issue will be fixed by either cleaning the barnacles off the SRN transducer (just done), or replacing the transducer, but it leaves a very bitter taste, that I can not get support for this VERY expensive piece of electronics. I like it, ever since I was taught the tricks of how to use it better, I really do like the SRN, but something that is unsupported with no updates, is not very attractive to me.

And to add to that, Jim at BOE, our kind host, has been great to deal with in trying to help me get this solved. I am sure the long term answer it to rip it out and either go the dual 120 route, or I do like that touch screen garmin. What a shame.

Ryan

 

[Pirate]

I think my issue will be fixed by either cleaning the barnacles off the SRN transducer (just done), or replacing the transducer, but it leave a very bitter taste, that I can not get support for this VERY expensive piece of electronics.

Ryan

Next time, use a scraper. Who knew barnacles were bitter? As for the 'Crap-Out-Agator', I've never seen a more unreliable piece of navigation equipment in my life. What an abysmal POS! The E120's are MUCH MUCH MUCH better. Not in the same league. I do not care for touch screens, Garmin or otherwise, because they are difficult to use in seas.