Simrad turn by turn navigation?

Nautical

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Do these new Simrad 5 and 7 units I'm seeing on new boats lately do turn by turn nav out of the box or with an optional upgrade?

My 2013 Benny had a Garmin 53DV. That had the capability but only with an additional outlay ($150 or so for a mini SD card). It was great, especially for zipping around at night because it guided you around every obstacle. I'm not sure why that's not standard . . . I've used Garmins in my road vehicles for decades and never once did they try and take me through water. First day with the nautical Garmin and it tried to take me through land until I fed it a bunch more money!

Anyway, these new Simrads look very nice but even the dealers who sell them can't answer that question.
 
Still learning to use our Simrad. So many features! But 1 thing I have learned is the depth finder feature stops working above 20 mph.
 
Once you travel some where you can just follow your track at night. It is like a video game. It works great.
 
Still learning to use our Simrad. So many features! But 1 thing I have learned is the depth finder feature stops working above 20 mph.

I had to lower the transducer at least an inch to get depth readings at speed. They are sensitive to turbulence and air bubbles.
 
We just got a Navionics chip for our Simrad G05. Best $150 you can spend if you travel on a waterway with a lot of obstacles. We are on Lake Winnispesaukee in NH and it's known for random rocks just below the surface, even a big outcropping of rocks in the middle of the lake called "The Witches". The Simrad out of the box will give you a basic map but will not do turn by turn directions. You need the Navionics chip and then you have to go online and register and activate the chip before dock to dock auto routing will work. We played with it last weekend and it works great. A little complicated to get a route setup, but once you figure it out it works. You can't just pick a spot on the map and say "auto route to here". You have to create a route by picking a start and end point and then select dock to dock auto routing and it will calculate the route and display it. You can then save your routes for future use and when you want to recall them you just go to waypoints and routes and select it and hit start. You can do a route in forward or reverse and it will show you the route and in Nav mode it will show your distance to the next waypoint and show the target heading at the top of the screen. Great tool for boating at night.
 
We just got a Navionics chip for our Simrad G05. Best $150 you can spend if you travel on a waterway with a lot of obstacles. We are on Lake Winnispesaukee in NH and it's known for random rocks just below the surface, even a big outcropping of rocks in the middle of the lake called "The Witches". The Simrad out of the box will give you a basic map but will not do turn by turn directions. You need the Navionics chip and then you have to go online and register and activate the chip before dock to dock auto routing will work.

Thanks for the info. How much did that chip and activation cost?
 
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