Raymarine launches new Alpha Series 7.0- and 9.0-inch data screens

The upgrades from Raymarine read as though they bring a level of wind monitoring to the recreational and club racing market that previously was firmly in the world of professional sailing. According to Raymarine, the new Alpha Series screens have been designed to make their owners better sailors.

The new Alpha Series displays are made up of 7.0- and 9.0-inch mast- or cockpit-mounted touchscreen tactical displays with fully customised colour displays that also link to an Axiom chartplotter.

The screens can be mounted vertically or horizontally, needing only a single wire running to them for power and data, and can drop into an existing mast mount. Screen set-up is simple; just drag and drop to get the right mix of information to suit your needs, or change it from a central Axiom plotter.

Key to the new screens is an all-new RSW Series wind sensor.  Again, this sensor uses its smarts to smooth out variations such as error when tacking from one side of the boat to the other, dirty air from the mainsail or even heading up when pitching off waves to give a truer indication of the movement of air around the boat. 

The new sailing system ties in with a significant upgrade to Raymarine’s LightHouse operating system, with the new technology fully supported by installing LightHouse 4.5.

According to Raymarine, the new sailing electronics will help skippers make smarter, safer decisions out on the water. However, the screens are not just for sailboats, with Raymarine at pains to say the screens are optimised for any vessel using NMEA 2000 data, including engine information for a sports yacht or fishing boat.

Skippers will be able to array up to 10 of the Alpha Series displays around a boat, with enough backlight to make them viewable from any angle, and ambient light sensors to help them automatically correct the brightness to the current conditions. The screens themselves use Raymarine’s waterproofing technology first rolled out on the Axiom series of touchscreens to help them shed water and remain readable in all weather.

A new level of support is Sail Point, a new visual reference for skippers that shows a visual reference of a boat’s target wind angle to maximise velocity made good (VMG) – the speed of the boat towards a fixed point – to windward. The technology is designed to make sail telltales and a mast-top windex redundant.

Reaching top VMG is indicated by a blue line on the screen that rises to a black horizon.

On-display wind polars have also been improved so that the system can automatically zoom in to show a close-up view of a quadrant rather than the entire polar.

An Easter egg dropped into the new Alpha Series displays is a traditional compass widget, rendered in 3D and made to look as though it is covered in dew or spray.

The new Alpha Series is also fully customisable – up to 18 separate “pages” or screen configurations are possible – to show exactly what information you need for each style of sailing.

For instance, a racing screen can show the start line bias, distance to the line, and time to burn before the race start. For cruising, you can set a lay line or distance to tack if you’re sailing upwind.

Up to four of the Alpha Series screens can be daisy-chained together off a single power cable, reducing the number of through-deck glands needed to install them. Power cables come in a number of configurations from 1.0 to 10.0 metres in length – including the daisy chain cables.

Australian pricing for the new Alpha Series has not yet been released, but US pricing will sit at $US1200 ($A1900) for the 7.0-inch screen and $US2000 for the 9.0-inch version.