To get my latest tech fix, I met with Kelvin ‘KC’ Cruickshank at Gulf Harbour on a particularly blustery winter morning. Kelvin is shooting a new television series, Rod & Rifle, and he has an Extreme 645 Centre Console to take him to both the fish and game. 

To help him find the former, the vessel sports two 12” Raymarine Axiom+ sounder/chartplotter units. The formal name for these is ‘multifunction display’, because in this day and age, your classic old ‘fish finder’ can, and will, do much, much more. 

The Axiom+ sits above its original sibling, the original Axiom MFD. With the release of this upgraded model came a new screen, more grunt and some handy features for fishermen. 

Any bit of technology is made up of two parts – the hardware (the physical product you touch and feel) and the software (the operating systems). 

The ‘brain’ of the Axiom+ unit is fast and nimble. It’s 16GB of on-board memory doesn’t always mean much to people on paper, but in real life it meant that it kept up with my rapid fire “change this, switch that” instructions with ease. It has plenty of ‘brain-power’ to spare for when new features and updates are added in years to come, meaning it won’t slow down any time soon.

The physical unit is sleek and unobtrusive. It is just at home flush mounted or propped up on top of the dash. It has broad bezels around the screen, but there is still ample room to display charts and sonar side by side and in good detail. While many prefer the look of flush mounted screens, we found that the surface mount, where the MFD sits just above the flat of the dash, provided a good place to stabilise your hand when using the touch screen in rougher weather.

When it comes to weatherproofing, the Axiom+ is well equipped. It is IPX6/IPX7 rated, meaning it will comfortably resist water being sprayed on it at high pressure. Kelvin and Adam from Raymarine took great delight in picking up handfuls of water from over the side and splashing them over the sounder units. Water streamed down off the screen, the water repellent HydroTough coating doing its job to keep the sounder clear of any droplets. Even with wet fingers, the screen was responsive and fast. The additional benefit of this matte coating on the screen is the lack of glare that often jumps back at you on glossy models. 

Now, while quality hardware is all well and good, you need great software for even the tech-phobic to get their money’s worth out of it. Enter Lighthouse 3, Raymarine’s operating system. 

It doesn’t take long to recognise that Lighthouse 3 on the Axiom+ is a case of ‘everything you need and nothing you don’t’.

On the screen the core functions are just a touch away, with more detailed controls and options tucked in deeper menus. When using the charts or sounder view, nothing gets in your way – nothing can be accidentally changed (unless you try really hard!), but when you do want to make changes, the settings are easily accessible.

One of the features I love most about the Lighthouse OS system is the ability to create different user profiles. That could be one for each person that uses the vessel if everyone likes to run the displays their own way, or it could be a different profile set up for different styles of fishing. Within each of these profiles you can create variations of sounder screens, chart screens etc, or combinations of them all based on your situation. For example, someone might have a deep water profile, and within it have one screen set up for 100m-200m fishing, and the other set up for 500m-600m fishing.

KC remarked that he likes to learn the basics (which were easily picked up) and then gradually build up from there – his current obsession is swordfishing and he’s on a mission to discover every tip and trick in the book. If that’s the case, he’s going to have plenty of new and exciting features to learn about!  

– Miah Dixon

Highlights:
• Easy to use with wet/dirty fingers.
• Fast to redraw charts and with good detail.
• Very bright display for sunny days but can also be dimmed right down for night use.
• 3D sonar view gives a unique view of the seascape.