Anyone bought a chart plotter from the states? I take it they work ok in Uk once a Uk card is fitted?
Many US chartplotter are geofenced. They will always show a location warning on startup and not display in Metric. Some will not offer certain navigation features such as autorouting. Warranty will be return to sender...
Anyone bought a chart plotter from the states? I take it they work ok in Uk once a Uk card is fitted?
Short answer no. But unless you are going to smuggle it in to the UK, you will very likely also get hit for VAT & Import duty + "handling fees", this will easily add 30% to the purchase price.
There are currently some very good deals on UK spec Lowrance kit.
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I bought a hummingbird from the states had no probs with it, i just bought some electrical plugs from there too under the global shipping program £16 to ship no duty to pay you would have to look in to it for a plotter
As mentioned above, geofencing is an issue (although you would wonder what happens as you sail across 30W- The Truman Show springs to mind)
I was advised by WestMarine that the best and easiest thing to do is to speak directly to each manufacturer's US customer care department- generally free to call if you are in the US or email- and ask them if the plotter you want to buy is geofenced.
When you include the cost of local charts (most come with US basemap, or 1 free US chart) I found it hard to see a big enough advantage to going down this route, US warranties, returning faulty units, etc..
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