You won’t need any funky-looking goggles to take advantage of Raymarine’s new ClearCruise Augmented Reality (AR) that enhances on-water situational awareness to improve navigation and increase safety. If you’ve ever searched the horizon for identifying navigation aids like flashing lights, buoys or even ships broadcasting an Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal, you’ll appreciate this new whiz-bang technology.

Electronic charts have done much to make navigation easy even for new boaters, but there are times when what you see on the chartplotter and what you’re looking at through the windshield or binoculars doesn’t correlate. Add in sketchy weather like fog or the darkness of nighttime, then stir in a bunch of boating targets on your radar and things get confusing quickly. Take a look for yourself in this First Look Video...

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With the help of cameras and sensors, Raymarine has taken the guesswork out of what you’re seeing. ClearCruise AR accurately displays nearby navigation markers, AIS traffic and waypoints (and your distance from them) in sync with real-world imagery for instant recognition. Complex navigation and high-traffic situations become simpler to understand and you can truly believe your eyes.

A camera is connected via a black box, which contains all sorts of sensors and electronic wizardry, to a compatible Raymarine Axiom multifunction display (MFD). The resulting camera feed is then overlaid onto a chart with navigational information (like buoy locations) thereby improving navigational awareness. Color-coded labels provide instant identification, status and risk-assessment of the surrounding targets and let you recognize and respond to situations with greater accuracy and less anxiety. You’ll understand complex navigational scenarios and identify markers, buoys and waypoints all around.

Supported by Raymarine’s CAM210 HD cameras and Axiom family of MFDs, this augmented reality can change the way you boat. You’ll know instantly which ship is heading your way and where to find those channel markers leading to the harbor. You’ll even make out the number and color of that buoy bobbing in the hazy sun ahead and that’s a real-world scenario many boaters can relate to.

The AR200 video stabilization module includes a GPS/GNSS sensor and an attitude heading reference sensor (AHRS) so the labels move with your boat for easy heads-up recognition. The camera and stabilization module add about $1,200 to an Axiom MFD running Raymarine’s LighHouse 3.7 software, but once you’ve seen ClearView AR, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

A clearer perspective, better decision-making and less worry—that’s a leap in marine electronics technology you won’t want to miss.

Be sure to read our full Marine Electronic's guide, or see more from Raymarine...

Written by: Zuzana Prochazka
Zuzana Prochazka is a writer and photographer who freelances for a dozen boating magazines and websites. A USCG 100 Ton Master, Zuzana has cruised, chartered and skippered flotillas in many parts of the world and serves as a presenter on charter destinations and topics. She is the Chair of the New Product Awards committee, judging innovative boats and gear at NMMA and NMEA shows, and currently serves as immediate past president of Boating Writers International. She contributes to Boats.com and YachtWorld.com, and also blogs regularly on her boat review site, TalkoftheDock.com.
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