“Fishing is a passion, and when you start winning, you start to search for the best people and the best equipment.” – Captain Arik Bergerman

A Trophy Team

For 24 years, Captain Arik Bergerman has led Team Caliente to many victories in fishing tournaments, confidently navigating the waters of Florida, the Gulf of Mexico and up and down the Atlantic Coast with Raymarine marine electronics at his command. The team of five, including Captain Randy Keys, Danny Hamilton, Dominic Molfettas and Anthony Cellamare, pulls out all the stops. With National Champions, King of the Beach winners, Junior Champions, Pro Series winners and Senior Champions amongst their accolades, they are no strangers to tackling the sea’s biggest challenges. Their proudest accomplishment? Consecutive wins of two major professional Southern Kingfish Association (SKA) events in the same year–the only team to ever accomplish such a feat.

Views of Victory

“The combination of Raymarine and FLIR is perfect and has definitely contributed to our record of success,” says Bergerman. The crew relies on four Raymarine Axiom series multifunction displays (MFDs) to display the critical information for safe navigation and fish finding. With an Axiom XL 24 at the helm, along with an Axiom Pro 12 and an Axiom Pro 9, Team Caliente can view sonar and radar information as well as real-time video from four Raymarine CAM220 IP marine cameras and a FLIR M364C thermal camera.

Safely to Success

“We can call up the views from any of these cameras on any Axiom screen and overlay AIS information in ClearCruise AR to immediately tell us what buoys or vessels we are looking at. The combination allows us to run with greatly increased safety day or night, and the view on the big Axiom XL 24 is like looking into a window at night,” says Captain Arik, whose setup allows the crew to easily see what’s happening around and below the vessel at any given second. Team Caliente also employs just about every available situational awareness-enhancing Raymarine technology, including FLIR thermal and visible light cameras, Magnum radar and the full suite of Raymarine sonar channels, including CHIRP sonar, DownVision, SideVision, and RealVision 3D. Bergerman goes on to emphasize, “We have an opportunity to compete and make some money, but it’s most important to enjoy yourself and be safe on the water.”