Adios
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Are there repeaters with minimal info from the plotter and a more visible display available for the cockpit?
edit: googled and of course there is. More expense!
Does anyone still sail without a chart plotter?
- Thread starter Adios
- Start date
edit: googled and of course there is. More expense!
Minchsailor
Well-known member
About the most useful bit of navigational kit on my boat is the NASA GPS repeater mounted above the companionway showing the course to steer and the distance to the next waypoint. I have a standalone GPS.
Graham376
Well-known member
Not being UK based, we don't do "wet" any longer, just wait a day for the sun to reappear
Capt Popeye
Well-known member
Yea well, cannot beat a Lead Line armed with Tallow plus a handy Pole or Length of timber plus a Compass and a real Chart
dunedin
Well-known member
On our boat we have a term “doing skipperly things!”. This does include putting in waypoints, checking pilot books, putting on the kettle to make coffee etc. But it has been noticed that skipper does nip below to “do skipperly things” much more often when it starts to rain
PS. To avoid being ruled offside for thread drift, we have plotters at chart table and at helm (plus iPad) - but skipper tends to put routes and waypoints in at chart table, cross checking with paper, whilst helm can see chart and next waypoint by the wheel.
Graham376
Well-known member
Nothing mounted at the wheel is much use unless you want to stand there to monitor. All our instruments or repeaters including radar and plotter are under the sprayhood and we're usually on autohelm. Passage planning on paper charts with destination/waypoints into gps before departure.
Adios
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lol i'm looking at your location and thinking "faroe, faroe? Doesn't do rain???" Eventually I got where you areNot being UK based, we don't do "wet" any longer, just wait a day for the sun to reappear
prv
Well-known member
Indeed, I don't like either of those places ?
Mine is behind the windscreen at the forward end of the cockpit, where I can use it while also looking at the pilotage and/or traffic situation around us. And keep an eye on it from anywhere in the cockpit.
When passage planning is required, I do it at the chart table on paper. I like to step off distances with dividers - it's quicker, if the route isn't a straight line - and I don't see any value in pre-placing a string of waypoints in the plotter.
Pete
Laminar Flow
Well-known member
The most useful piece of navigational kit on a sailing vessel is a proper wheelhouse, period. There you can do all the "skipperly things" in the dry and under the watchful eye of crew and admiralty and do not ever have to worry so much about the manufacturer's claims as to the supposed "water proofness" ,or as is more often stated "water resistance", of your expensive electronic gear.
You may even choose to use a definitively not water proof laptop, as we have done, strapped to the dash with an elastic cord, or an equally water-shy tablet as we do now with a much more sophisticated looking tablet holder.
I generally think that plotters are a boon, but I do not trust them. Traveling up the Aulne river I manfully resisted Imray's urging to navigate across cow pastures, or follow repeated suggestions to take short cuts across the river loops. Equally, Navionics helped us discover an unmarked rock off Ploumanac'h on a low tide (following age-old custom, I should like it to be named after the person, in this case the device/program, that found it).
Adios
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I'm with you on that. Had a couple of motorboats over the years and its like "why the hell don't yachts have these?". A friend of mine was a motorcycle courier in London. Despite years of that in all weathers after an overnight trip in february he agreed there was nowhere colder than the cockpit of my yacht at night. Just standing there in the damp or huddled behind a spray hood, masochistic really. But the choice is so limited. Is that a Fisher you've got there? I always eye them up when I see them. Looks like a proper boat to me. Not sure it looks fast but I can live with that if its more comfortable being out. There seems to be a bit more choice of yachts with wheelhouses these days though i'm not keen on a half hearted pilot house job, the sort with a slightly raised coach roof with some weak looking windows you can hardly see out of because they're too far away to get your nose up against the glass. Needs to be a proper wheelhouse like on a fisher. It would transform the way we do yachting. In the fairly temperate climate we have I bet the only reason rivers empty of boats over winter is the lack of wheelhouses. That is what made us consider it a summer activity as otherwise its a perfectly good time to be out.
Gary Fox
N/A
Plotters destroy your night vision, looking from a screen out to sea at night is absurd, including the dark screen setting.
I once crewed on an ocean delivery, with a big plotter at the helm. It was forbidden to turn it off, so I covered it with a cornflake box to maintain night vision. This was considered eccentric. It's a funny old world.
I once crewed on an ocean delivery, with a big plotter at the helm. It was forbidden to turn it off, so I covered it with a cornflake box to maintain night vision. This was considered eccentric. It's a funny old world.
Laminar Flow
Well-known member
She's a supercharged Watson 32 with more than twice the SA compared to the standard offering and a significantly improved steering and tail end. Fast, dunno? At 60 degr. in 8kts true: close enough to 6kts as to make no difference; at 35 degr. in 8 kts true, 4.8 kts (flattish water, commensurate with wind speed of course), Above 15kts: hull speed and more all the way, just not to weather, obviously, (ketch, garden shed an' all). Wheelhouse fully enclosed, roomy, heated, 6'4" headroom, best in class, IMHO.
Laminar Flow
Well-known member
Never understood why you need a plotter at sea. Do they mark the containers floating about?
doug748
Well-known member
Adios
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Literally twice the sail area than standard? Are the standard ones very under powered then?
Laminar Flow
Well-known member
Not in absolute speed.
Gary Fox
N/A
On that trip I learned that dolphins play around yachts at night, but are only visible in outline, a magical dolphin-shaped trail of bioluminescence. Thanks to my plotter-free perfect night vision.
Laminar Flow
Well-known member
The standard model has a SA/Displ ratio of 8.3 Mine is 17.8 or 214% of the standard. A ratio of 8 or less is a MOBO with steady sail. 373 sqft (less actually as there is an error in the quoted mizzen area) versus 770 sqft.
westhinder
Well-known member
Largely the same setup: plotter and instruments under the sprayhood. But the plotter is on a long lead and can be removed and used or stowed inside. I do work my passage plan into a route in the plotter, which is very convenient in unfamiliar waters or difficult conditions. It is easy to adapt or abandon if circumstances dictate.
The helm has a repeater with all the instrument data, CTS, distance to waypoint, COG... But on passage, the autopilot does most of the steering
Laminar Flow
Well-known member
Plotters do not only destroy night vision, they by all accounts, also adversely affect the romantic mood.
In my neck of the woods, the ferry service that runs the northern route through the inside passage (narrow passages, lots of rocks - you get the picture) lost a ship just a very few years ago when it hit an island at night and sunk. Initially, it was claimed they had hit a rock (uncharted, or so), but it eventually transpired they had broadsided that poor piece of real estate.
Tragically two passengers died; luckily, it was the off-season and there were only a 150 people on board.
In the subsequent inquiry it was was determined that the officer of the watch and the female quartermaster, the only two people on the bridge at the time, were busy rekindling their relationship and had turned off the radar/plotter screen as the light was too bright and they did not know how to dim it. The vessel was proceeding under autopilot, engaged in other non-nautical activity, they missed the turnoff for the course correction. Apparently, they also had disengaged the course alarm. You know how intrusive that can be, at such a special moment, I mean. By the time "they could see the trees", it was too late, they said.