Can't say enough good things about Standard Horizon. I literally drove over one with my car, and it still transmitted and received (display was toast). I sent it in for repair, they replaced it and didn't charge me (I sent a letter explaining exactly what I had stupidly done, that's probably hanging on a wall in their offices now).

Anyway, I prefer the HX471S model, much smaller size (fits nicely in PFD pocket) and lots of features, but you can't go wrong with any of them.

The floating models are also worth consideration.

ICOM has some good ones too, I think they're supposed to have the longest battery life (do a google search, I know there are articles about this out there).

I spent a night capsized once. I never go on a boat without my radio now. Never, ever, ever.

Mike