Full Electronics Refit on 1999 272 Sailfish

[JahDW]

Captains,
My 1999 272 Sailfish has some dated (maybe original?) equipment (Raymarine A65, Raymarine C80, Raytheon Pathfinder SL70) which I would like to upgrade. I am not 100% sure what transducers and receivers it has, but I can go through the manuals. I've had touchscreens on previous boat, so now they feel essential.

I fish out of Atlantic City, NJ. Bays/inshore (flounder, stripers), wrecks (sea bass, tog, 10 - 20 miles out, 45 - 175ft), mahi (pots around 20 - 30 miles), and will go for tunas offshore approaching the canyons (60 - 80 miles) as I am able to build up the confidence, etc. with this boat. 200 gallons of gas, yamaha 0x66 2 strokes... so u get the idea of my range.

I contacted a local professional installer and had him give me an estimate for top end SIMRAD, which i have attached. Soup to nuts it's $11,820.35. Now I'm looking to potentially dial it back a bit after a friend said it is overkill for me (see below).
In his quote the main items are:

• SIMRAD NSS12 EVO3S COMBO RADAR BUNDLE W/HALO20
• XSONIC B275LH-W Wide Beam CHIRP, 1 kW, 9 Pin Connector
• SIMRAD GS25 GPS ANTENNA

Any recommendations on where to downgrade or modify based on my fishing and location?

For context, here is my buddy's reaction in full:

overkill unless you plan on doing a lot of deep water wreck fishing &/or a LOT of canyon trips running 75 miles in the dark

The effective radar range on your hard top is probably 24 miles - a little farther for thunderstorms. when you run in the dark, you spend most screen time at 3 miles, occassionally looking further

that transducer is ideal for a much bigger boat at 30+ knots

You’ll spend most fishing time looking at the sounder at trolling speed or less

In the canyon, you’re only looking closely at the first 250-300 feet. You can still see the mud bottom spots where the tilefish live in 350-700 feet

Toglips calamari,

Captain Dan

 

[Billv]

I replaced all my 2005 raymarine equipment last year with Garmin. I love all the new faster electronics. My suggestion is to put on everything you can afford and do the install yourself.

 

[Stephnic]

I also put Garmin in my 268 and love it. Electronics are expensive regardless what brand you use. My boat is in Somers Point And I used Martek in Avalon. He is pretty good. I flush mounted the two GPS‘s and had Martek do the radar and all wire everything so the two units would talk to each other.

 

[JahDW]

The quote I got is from somers point
http://www.themarineoutfitters.com/

 

[SkunkBoat]

The OX66s are gonna suck gas. My 265 with 225 OXs averaged 1 mpg on canyon trips. Boat holds 250 gals and I took 20 extra gals. I usually burned 225 gals. I was limited to straight run to one canyon, some trolling, drifting for tiles and swords, and a straight return. You are closer to the edge down in AC but you hold less. You will be limited. I envy your location with 4 canyons inside of 90 miles. I have 4 strokes now and average 1.6 mpg and can go from canyon to canyon (Toms & Hudson)

Sounds like you are the same fisherman as me. Midrange Bluefins, occasional good weather canyon trips for YFT, Mahi, Tilefish, and hopefully swordfish and bigeyes. But you can't go long all the time so there will be stripers, fluke and seabass/tog.
I have a thread on my upgrading Garmin stuff. Garmin- researching my upgrade options

Not pushing the Garmin brand. Simrad is good stuff. I am used to the Garmin menu flow so I'm sticking with it. I suggest going to a big West Marine and playing with everything and find the thing you want. The one in Brick NJ has practically every model of everything on display.

I am going 12" touchscreen with the builtin sidescan for wreck fishing. I'll keep my old 8" for second screen on the network.. A separate blackbox 2kw sounder to an Airmar R109 2kw inhull transducer. My previous gear lost bottom at about 1200 ft while drifting. Yes you can read bottom to find tiles in 450 to 700 but you won't see the squid or lack thereof. I've fished canyons enough on my little express and on 52ft sporties to know that I want top notch sonar. When I'm looking for midrange BFT I want to be able to read bottom and bait at 30mph. I think your B275LHW chirp is a great choice if you are using the builtin 1kw of an MFD. You are going to be missing out on the sidescan though.
Sidescan is great for finding and working wrecks and rocks. I've been using it for 3 years and I would not want to be without it now. Not sure what your options are for two transducers on the Simrad gear.

I think an 18" or 20" radome radar is adequate to navigate the 40 mile thick fog banks and the dark. I'm going with a Garmin Fantom 18

So 12" touch w/ sidescan, new thru hull sidescan xducer, new blackbox 2kw sonar, 2kw xsducer(got a great deal), radar ...all under $7k. I will install.
Plus I already have another 8"MFD. Might get something back for gear I'm taking off

 

[Fowl Hooked]

As usual, I agree with everything Skunk said and will second Billv's comment about buying what you can afford. Even if it's overkill for what you're doing today you don't know what you might do tomorrow and more is better if it ever comes time to sell. But I tend to apply the "no one ever wished they'd built a smaller garage" concept to most things I do.

When I did my 265 about a year ago I went all Raymarine - largely because I could fit two of the 12" Axioms (one regular, one Pro) on the dash space I've got and the slightly taller Garmins would have been more challenging to fit. One is touch only, the Pro is hybrid with buttons and a dial as well as touch, personal preference but I find tactile controls much easier to manipulate when I'm running and being bounced around. Both have built in 600W sonar to power Ray's 3D transducer which works well in the Chesapeake and inshore depths . The Pro also has a 1kW driver that I've got running the same CHIRP that you're proposing and I like it - you do lose some deep water ability as Skunk mentions but for most of the water I fish . The two running in combination give me a great picture for the fishing that I do. Added their Quantum digital radar in a 24" dome and autopilot. Radar is great for both weather and navigation and draws very little power compared to my old Furuno; picked up a FLIR on sale last November and will be adding that this year, I will no longer dread running the crab pot fields in the dark. Overall I'm pleased with the equipment, MFDs are fast, integration is seamless, controls are intuitive and usually no more than one menu layer deep.

Did the installation myself and it wasn't overly taxing - aside from the part where I had to cut some fiberglass on the dash to enlarge the access.

If I was to regret anything about the upgrade it's that I had transom mounted transducers before and I went with transom mounts again as I was comfortable doing that work but not with adding an in-hull or thru-hull. I don't hold bottom well at speed though that is likely at least partially due to transducer location and I'll be lowering them a little before launching this year to see if that helps but it'll never be as good as something in the hull. If I was to do it again hull mounted transducers is something I'd likely pay to have installed.

To answer your specific question, on the assumption that the NSS12 has built-in GPS I'd forego the remote antenna and see if you really need it. Most of the MFD receivers seem to do just fine holding GPS if there's not much more than a fiberglass hardtop between them and the sky. My radar is mounted directly to my hardtop, no pedestal and seems to do fine though I will be adding a 4 degree wedge this spring. Don't know the hardtop profile of your boat or if you trailer at all but I'd consider both things before going with the pedestal, I trailer my 265 a few times a year and that extra height would be a concern for me as she's already pretty tall on the trailer.

 

[SkunkBoat]

I think I saw that the NSS12 has two transducer ports so you could add a transom mount sidescan along with the B275. btw...the B275 is a GIANT transducer. You would probably need it on the centerline so it doesn't mess with water flow to a motor. You might consider an M265LH.

I just looked at the NSS12 evo3 on the simrad site. Not sure that you can even use a dual frequency xducer like the B275 or M265
Another thought is use a B175L for deep water and a transom mount "3 in 1"

maybe the evo3"S" has dual channel?

 

[JahDW]

definitely two ports on the evo3... but I am not sure about the dual frequency transducer I'll have to research a bit

 

[JahDW]

On the boat now I have:
Raymarine DSM3000
RayStar 125 GPS Receiver
... and I think the Raymarine DSM25 I had ripped off or broke.

Anyone experienced with these units? Anything re-usable here? I'm guessing I will at least keep what works as backup...

 

[SkunkBoat]

so I found that the evo3 "S" does have dual channel sonar as well as two transducer ports.

the raystar gps is NMEA2k so it will work with everything but your NSS evo3s already has a built in gps

The sonar won't help you without a raymarine display connected.

 

[Fishtales]

The DSM is a Raymarine specific unit. If you are moving to another brand or even the new stuff from Raymarine, you can prob look to sell it. Not sure what it's worth, prob not much as it would go with the E series stuff that is a bit long in the tooth today. The GPS sensor is cheap when new. I'd try to move it as well for short money.
The stuff you are replacing is fairly old so you will love whatever brand you put in. Some of the capabilities (radar, sounder, side scanning and general integration of the units) have really improved so much that you will be blown away. Keep us informed what you end up doing and take some pics!