Oct 10, 2017

The National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) held its 46th annual conference and expo in Bellevue, Washington last week. In addition to four days filled with marine electronics training and exhibiting the latest products, the show is also where the association hands out their exclusive NMEA “Product of Excellence” awards. This year, Furuno proudly claimed the highly sought-after 2017 NMEA Technology Award for their new DFF3D Multi-Beam Sonar.

“We are extremely humbled to have received the ‘NMEA Technology Award’ for the second year in a row after our DRS4D-NXT Solid State Radar was honored with the same award last year,” stated Brad Reents, President and CFO of Furuno USA. “Furuno specializes in developing unmatched sensor technology for the maritime industry and the DFF3D is our most recent example how Furuno continues to move our industry forward.”

Though many innovative features of the new DFF3D Multi-Beam Sonar contributed to it winning the NMEA Technology Award, the game-changing feature is the fact that it delivers a side scan detection range of an unprecedented 650+ feet, while being able to see straight down over 1,000 feet. The DFF3D is completely at home in both deep and shallow water for finding fish, wrecks, and structure. It is remarkably easy to use and understand and brings you the ability to see the underwater world all around your vessel in real-time. Fish targets are shown in 3D within the water column, allowing you to pinpoint fishing hot spots and mark them as waypoints. Amazingly, waypoints also contain depth data, so you’ll know right where to drop your line!

This was the second year for the “Commercial Product of Excellence” category, and Furuno once again was the winner as their FAR2127 25kW IMO Radar claimed the award in the Commercial category, among a substantial field of 10 nominees. This workhorse Radar, which is part of a larger series that includes bothX-Band and S-Band Radars can be found installed on thousands of commercial vessels worldwide and is also widely used on larger recreational boats and yachts.

Furuno’s long and distinguished tradition of producing top performing and highly reliable Fish Finding and Radar products was reaffirmed with these awards from the NMEA. For those of you keeping score at home, that brings Furuno’s grand total to an astounding 220 NMEA awards!