Mahalo Helm

Thought I'd show you how I typically have the helm set up when underway. We don't even have 100 hours on the boat yet, so I'm sure this will evolve.

The two outside screens are PC monitors being driven by one PC. The inside screens are Garmin 8617 MFD's.  

The PC screen at left is running the Maretron monitoring application. It's showing the status of most of the items being monitored, and an engine room camera.

The first MFD is showing the cruising area in a scale that shows the general area. 

The second MFD has our chart in one window, in a larger scale, so we can see depths right in front of us. Note the AIS target, our buddy boat Kazuma. The other window is showing our Fantom digital radar. We use this for not only what is ahead, but what is behind as well. 

I need to play with the setup and see if I can eliminate one "stack" of the various "numbers" as two are redundant. 

The right side PC screen is dedicated to the Axis HD cameras. 99% of the time we have this camera displayed, the view straight out the back.  

We have the two VHF's. One is on 16, one on the channel we are using for the buddy boat. You can of course do this with one radio, in dual mode. But it's nice to do it this way. 

The CAT screens tell me we are burning 5 gals an hour on each engine, we are making almost 9 knots. Not bad for 2,000 horsepower, combined. 

The two small displays under the CAT displays are also Garmins. On the left is one that can display any number of screens, typically we have it showing weather, i.e. windspeed, direction and so on. The one on the right is the autopilot screen. Have to say I'm really liking the autopilot operations.

My android phone sits on a charging pad, acting as a hotspot for the boat's PC and whatever else we want to connect.  So we can bring things up on the internet right on either PC screen. We also have important manuals and other resources on the PC so they are just a click away.

I have a secondary charting application, Coastal Explorer, on the PC as well. Haven't really used it yet. The plan is when we get to more tricky waters, say in Alaska, we would view two charts that utilize separate chart datum. 

And outside those big windows, is the smoke that bad?  No, just how I did the exposure for this shot to show you the helm in proper light.