A new thermal camera capable of clear images even in low light is helping a ground-breaking test boat perform in all weathers.
Marine navigation software company TIMEZERO has equipped its new Starfisher 830 with the latest in marine electronics including the FLIR M364C thermal and low light camera, a multi-beam fishfinder and Furuno displays.
Whilst the trial is on a small fishing boat, TIMEZERO is confident that the equipment package would be equally at home on a search and rescue cutter, super yacht or large commercial fishing vessel.
Sales and marketing director Frédéric Algalarrondo estimates the electronics equipment package represents nearly half of the boat’s total value.
“We believe that the way FLIR’s thermal imaging cameras integrate with TIMEZERO and Furuno is a game-changer,” he said.
“This FLIR M364C integration onboard our test boat is more than an additional sensor to plug into our software. The data that the camera outputs becomes central to the safety of the boat at any times of navigational doubt and the integration is well designed so even when the skipper has been away from the helm it is easy for them to return and understand very quickly from the MFD screen what has changed and what’s important.”
Critical information including depth, tracked objects, route, waypoints, track and weather routing is presented on Furuno’s multi-function display screen and radar, AIS and other sensor data is also overlaid into the camera view.
The FLIR thermal imaging camera also includes a high-resolution daylight camera with a 30x optical zoom. New, proprietary colour thermal vision technology integrates the views from the daylight and thermal cameras displaying the two views side by side on the vessel’s MFD.
