Marine electronics in Point Lookout, built for boats that leave the inlet.
Point Lookout is small, and it is one of the most boat-dense square miles on Long Island — with Jones Inlet right there and a lot of serious sportfish and center consoles that use it properly.
Offshore boats need electronics that fail gracefully, not just electronics that work on a calm Tuesday. Radar, AIS, DSC and real redundancy, fitted by NMEA-certified installers.
A different standard
Thirty miles out, a failure is not an inconvenience.
Inshore, almost any electronics failure is an annoyance. You lose the plotter, you know roughly where you are, you go home. There is cell coverage, there is traffic, and somebody will see you.
Out past Jones Inlet on a canyon run, the same failure is a different event. There is no cell signal, there may be nobody within sight, and the weather that was fine this morning has its own opinions by afternoon. The question stops being "does it work" and becomes "what happens when it stops".
That is the standard we build to for the offshore boats in Point Lookout. Not more expensive gear for its own sake — gear chosen and wired so a single failure does not take the whole helm with it.
What we would insist on
The four that are not optional.
Radar
Finding traffic and weather when visibility is gone. A dome suits most boats here; open arrays are for bigger vessels running further. We tell you which you need rather than defaulting to the pricier one.
AIS both ways
A transponder, not just a receiver. Seeing the ship is useful. The ship seeing you, as a named target with course and speed, is what actually keeps you out of trouble.
VHF wired to GPS
So a DSC distress call transmits your position automatically instead of relying on you to describe where you are in a bad moment.
A real backup
An independent second means of navigation that does not share a power feed or a network with the primary. If it fails when the main system fails, it was never a backup.
Ready to talk? Or keep reading below.
What backup actually means
A second screen on the same circuit is not redundancy.
This is the most common misunderstanding we correct on offshore boats. Two displays are not a backup if they share a breaker, a network backbone and a GPS source. When the fault is upstream — and it usually is — both go dark together and you have paid twice for one system.
Real redundancy means genuine separation. A second navigation source on its own power feed, independent of the main network. A handheld VHF, charged and reachable. A GPS that does not depend on the backbone. It is not glamorous and it is not expensive relative to the boat, and it is the difference between a problem and an emergency.
We will happily walk your existing setup and tell you where the single points of failure are. Often the fix is rewiring what you already own rather than buying anything.
Why offshore boats break things
It is almost never the box.
A boat that runs 25 knots into a head sea is a violent environment for electronics, and it is not the units that suffer. It is the connections.
A crimp that was "good enough" holds perfectly in flat water and works loose over a season of pounding. A cable run without proper support saws gently against a bulkhead until it does not. A ground that was adequate corrodes, and the symptom is an intermittent fault that never appears at the dock and always appears offshore.
So when we chase intermittent faults on Point Lookout boats we start at terminations, support and grounds, not at the units. And when we install, we over-support cable runs and use tinned conductors with sealed connections throughout, because the cost of doing that is measured in minutes and the cost of not doing it is measured in a trip.
What it costs
No travel charge here, and no minimum.
- $280 flat, first hour — Point Lookout is inside the included 30 minutes of travel
- $140/hr after, in 15-minute steps
- $440 / $220 per hour two-man crew for bigger installs
- No 4-hour minimum; multi-day jobs restart the first-hour rate each day
- Parts at cost plus markup, quoted before ordering
- 60-day labor warranty; equipment carries its manufacturer warranty
Time and materials always. If a job is running longer than we estimated, you hear it from us while there is still a decision to make.
ABYC Electrical Standards
Empire Wind NETP Approved Vendor
Fully Insured
$280 First Hour · $140/hr After
No Minimums
60-Day Labor Warranty
You Call, You Get The Installer
Boats that get used hard
What offshore owners say.
Tom B. — Mako 284 CC
★★★★★
LIME installed a full Simrad NSS setup with Halo radar and Active Target sonar. Perfect install, everything configured before they left the boat. These are real pros — not guys who install and leave you to figure it out.
John B. — Freeport
★★★★★
Had LIME come out to install a new Garmin chartplotter on my 26 center console. They showed up on time, had everything with them, and the job was done in about three hours. Wiring was clean and the NMEA network was configured properly. I've had other guys work on my boat before — this was clearly a different level.
Rich S. — Contender 39 ST
★★★★★
Had another "installer" mess up my electronics. LIME came in, diagnosed the wiring nightmare, fixed it correctly, and upgraded the whole helm. These guys know what they're doing.
Point Lookout questions
Offshore questions, straight answers.
What is the offshore electronics list you would actually insist on?Radar, AIS, a VHF wired to GPS for DSC, and a genuinely independent backup means of navigation. Everything else is preference. The reasoning is simple: 30 miles out, a failure you cannot work around stops being an inconvenience and becomes a situation. Redundancy is the whole point.
Radar, AIS, a VHF wired to GPS for DSC, and a genuinely independent backup means of navigation. Everything else is preference. The reasoning is simple: 30 miles out, a failure you cannot work around stops being an inconvenience and becomes a situation. Redundancy is the whole point.
Is a handheld VHF enough as a backup?
As a backup, yes, and every offshore boat should have one — charged, and somewhere you can reach it rather than buried in a locker. As a primary it is not enough: the range from a handheld at deck level is a fraction of a fixed set with a masthead or hardtop antenna. Have both.
Point Lookout is small. Do you bother coming out here?
Yes. Point Lookout is inside the 30 minutes of travel already covered by the first-hour rate, so there is no travel charge, and the boats here are exactly the kind we like working on — they get used hard and the owners care whether the gear works.
My electronics work fine inshore but act up offshore. Any idea why?
Vibration and motion are the usual culprits. A connection that is merely adequate holds fine in flat water and works itself loose crossing a rip at 25 knots. When we chase intermittent offshore faults we go straight to terminations, cable support and grounds, and it is very often a connection that was never crimped properly.
Should I go with a dome or an open-array radar?
For most Point Lookout boats a dome is the right call — lighter, cheaper, and plenty for finding traffic and weather at the ranges you actually use. Open arrays give better target separation at distance and matter on bigger boats running further. We will tell you which side of that line your boat falls, and we do not upsell to the open array by default.
How far ahead do I need to book for the season?
For anything substantial, book in the winter. Between November and March we can plan the job, get parts without lead-time drama, and sea trial it. From May onward every offshore boat on the South Shore wants the same weekend and the same parts.
Find the weak point before the ocean does.
We will walk your helm and show you the single points of failure. Often the fix is rewiring what you already have.