RAYMARINE, INTERVIEW WITH CARLO BAY

We’ve just met Carlo Bay, Country Manager of Raymarine Italia, at Genoa Boat Show for a short interview. Today, there’re more visitors than yesterday and Raymarine’s stand is very crowded.

The person who welcomes us is a really satisfied one. ” Raymarine is growing this year, too. Not a real turning point but we are talking about positive signs anyway. The worst is over“.

What allowed Raymarine to resist crisis and consolidate its leading position is related to the fact that ” Flir Group has always invested too much even in the most troubled years in the belief that crisis would have finished sooner or later. So, for example, we launched new Lighthouse software in 2010″, says Carlo Bay.

This year, Raymarine takes part to Genoa Boat Show with lots of news. ” For us, fishing world is always very interesting and with many potentialities. Prices of Chirp devices have decreased and people increasingly ask for them”.

Sailing, too, has given Raymarine much satisfaction. New Evolution R4 autopilot software is very innovative, since it works both on the compass and a 9-axes accelerometer which is able to recognize the boat’s list in a very efficient way.

Another important aspect for Raymarine concerns integrations ” cartographic is an increasingly powerful means, able to provide the user with lots of information. We’ve developed an embedded system which takes the boat control on the plotter screen. Our weather App, launched some months ago, is going well, too”. This system was developed in collaboration with Theyr and it allows to see global weather data on the Raymatine multifunction display.

Finally, this is also an excellent period for FLIR cameras and thermal cameras; once used only in the military environments, thermal cameras have become increasingly more popular and even cheaper. Today, they’re practically a standard equipment on 60-foot boats, like pocket-sized Ocean Scout TK which costs just 533 euros, VAT excluded.

Finally, in Italy, Raymarine’s general catalogue has the famous sailor Andrea Mura, ambassador and beta tester of the group, on its front page,