rear view camera

[Mr Ben]

Salute to all, I am a long time lurker first time poster. I purchased a 16 25sc in June of last year. It was a clean fresh water boat with low hours. It now has more than double the hours from when I bought it. It has some problems I guess all boats do. Overall I have been very happy with my purchase. I'm a bachelor of 27 years hense the name. I keep the boat in a slip with the pointy end forward. I also run the river a lot. I do most of my boating just me and the dog. I am looking at mounting a rear view camera. Garmin has some nice "boat cameras" that require power and video wire. I also see some wi fi back up cameras being used that still require power. In searching around I don't see anyone mounting the camera on top of the mast. I was thinking of doing this. I need to check the view angle. Maybe I could shim it down a little. Being by myself it would be nice to see behind the boat backing out of the slip. It would also be nice to see vessels coming up behind to overtake me. Boating on the river there are a lot of toons. Around here marine rules of the road do not apply to toons, so it seems anyhow. Another advantage of a camera when fishing alone I could watch the rods while at the helm. Seems to me I could mount it high on the mast facing back and just use the same path for the wires as the other stuff on the mast. Maybe I could steal the power from the spotlight or something. Be cool if I could find a camera that rotated 360. In reality 90% of use would be rear. Anyone ever do this? Any reason not too?

 

[Bruce Moore]

Bumping post delayed in moderation queue.

 

[Severum88]

I am entertaining adding a Garmin VIRB camera. Wireless to your chart plotter. Look into it.....

Severum

 

[bob daily]

Mr Ben, Numerous owners have installed cameras on their boats and the options are limitless!
I installed a back-up camera on my R-21, for watching the fishing poles and kids, seeing what was coming up behind me. I went with a auto back-up for size, ease of installing and a dedicated monitor.
By placing high on the mast you will limit the distance you can see behind due to the down angle.
The wireless ones still require a power cable so your really not gaining anything.
Some pictures in my photo album of my unit, the camera installation and a few shots of the monitor.
Good luck on the upgrade. Bob

 

[S. Todd]

We had a 2015 R25SC and loved the boat that we purchased from Reed Yacht Sales there in your neighborhood. I purchased a unit designed for RVs that was wireless connection to the monitor. I mounted the camera on the rail behind the stern seat, off center so that it was not blocked by the flag. It was easy to pull power from the fuse block in the port cockpit locker and take it back to the camera. I mounted an on off pull power switch for the camera under the stern gunnel. The camera was perfect for backing into slips because it was wide angle enough that I could see the outer edges of the swim platform. I found it was nearly worthless for seeing boats behind me because the wide angle camera and the small viewing screen made 40 foot boats behind me at a distance where I wanted to know they were there, too small on the screen. The result was I still found it safest to turn around and look out the windows. Maybe there are better cameras and bigger screens than what I opted for. I still may use it for a back-up camera for highway purposes on our new R29, if the oversize load signage does not get in the way, but I have no plans to mount it for cruising purposes.