Does anyone still sail without a chart plotter?

[LadyInBed]

Never understood why you need a plotter at sea.

AIS display mainly plus VMG, SOG, COG etc.

Do they mark the containers floating about?

No but the chance of seeing one in rain or on a moonless / moon in the wrong direction night is very slim.

 

[LadyInBed]

Equally it beats me why people mount a complicated piece of equipment, capable of all sorts of things, where all it does in practice is to tell someone to steer right or left a bit. A plotter mounted in front of the wheel doesn't look very practical for passage planning.

I have my CP and RADAR bulkhead mounted on swinging arms, as I sail solo, the AH goes on asap and I spend very little time behind the wheel.

 

[Laminar Flow]

AIS display mainly plus VMG, SOG, COG etc

All of the above and when you plot your position noon to noon, while crossing an ocean, are pretty much irrelevant.

The chances of spotting a container, unless you happen to be looking ahead at the time, are pretty much nil during daytime as well.

 

[Gary Fox]

All of the above and when you plot your position noon to noon, while crossing an ocean, are pretty much irrelevant.

The chances of spotting a container, unless you happen to be looking ahead at the time, are pretty much nil during daytime as well.

Agreed, except..'looking ahead all the time' should not be under-rated

 

[LadyInBed]

when you plot your position noon to noon, while crossing an ocean, are pretty much irrelevant.

Not done Oceans, but across Biscay I record a 6 hr fix. I see no point in turning the CP off, equally no point in having the echo sounder on!

 

[MADRIGAL]

Many skippers seem to get on using iPhone and iPad navigation apps as plotters, but what happens when they lose the mobile signal? That can happen even in coastal waters. The MAIB published an investigation report about a motor launch that got lost in a fog on the River Humber when the iPad lost its signal. The vessel strayed into the shipping channel and was sunk by a ferry. Fortunately, no lives were lost, although an historic vessel was.

 

[dancrane]

You do your work in advance. Sit down with the chart on a table, almanac and TSA, and draw and write on the chart everything you might need to consult. By the time you have worked it out, most of it should be in your memory anyway. I love old-school passage planning in pencil, but I genuinely feel sorry for those who think it's about fiddling with buttons on gadgets.

I had cruised some more than 40,000 miles - always with paper charts, pilot books and a sextant & tables...when the prices became affordable, I bought a GPS. It provided me with a position, speed and, good for astro navigation, time...Electronics may have made navigation easier, and more convenient, but we have lost some of that very magic that made the art of navigation so satisfying.

Fascinating thread.

I didn't know so many people don't find time to enjoy chartwork. I've always wanted a bigger boat, but I hadn't realised I don't really want a better-equipped one. GPS, yes, but only to verify what I can establish with senses and mapping, if I'm in doubt.

I bought the Admiralty 'Solent and Approaches' folio a while back. We didn't go very much further in the yacht (now sold) than in the dinghy, so compass and eyeball were ample, and the folio stayed in plastic. It's a lovely set of charts to study though.

I can see a plotter makes sense in rotten visibility, when it must seem a godsend. But treating it as a primary everyday input? It must turn navigating into Uber-driver automation.

Are they going to knock the big Fawley chimney down, or leave it up for our benefit? Damn shame to see it go.

 

[James_Calvert]

Many skippers seem to get on using iPhone and iPad navigation apps as plotters, but what happens when they lose the mobile signal? That can happen even in coastal waters. The MAIB published an investigation report about a motor launch that got lost in a fog on the River Humber when the iPad lost its signal. The vessel strayed into the shipping channel and was sunk by a ferry. Fortunately, no lives were lost, although an historic vessel was.

Providing the charting for the area has been downloaded in advance, there's no impact from losing the mobile signal.

Easily done, you just open up the area whilst you have a connection (mobile or WiFi)

 

[doug748]

Not in absolute speed.

Not so sure, you seem to have him nailed upwind: "............. at 35 degr. in 8 kts true, 4.8 kts"

I think you would have an Anderson 22 on the rack.

.

 

[Adios]

It must turn navigating into Uber-driver automation.

I hate our reliance on technology. By that I mean I hate my being sucked into it. Even for short journeys around the city I tap my phone screen a few times and get the route in order to highlight if there are any traffic hold ups. Coming with that convenience and maybe saving a few minutes is never learning my way around without it.

Sailing by compass from buoy to transit point along the coast meant studying it all carefully and getting to know each buoy and inch of coastline intimately.

Most of most peoples sailing is on familiar waters so after a few years they would have an ingrained knowledge of their surroundings. Gradually the brain becomes the primary navigation aid and the charts are there as a backup.

Using a plotter the brain probably never develops into the navigation aid as I'm finding with satnav. Even though people carry charts as a back-up I would think using them for the first time when the plotter fails at a typically inopportune moment will not be as easy even though on what should be familiar water.

The ideal is probably keeping a basic plotter for a back up, but doing it with charts and compass until hardly needing them.

 

[dancrane]

I was discouraged by your initial apparent readiness to believe that nobody could be so old fashioned as to still do chartwork...

Anyone choosing to stay without a chart-plotter? Do people think you're crazy or a dangerous menace?

...so I'm glad we see it the same way...

I hate our reliance on technology. Sailing by compass from buoy to transit point along the coast meant studying it all carefully and getting to know each buoy and inch of coastline intimately. Gradually the brain becomes the primary navigation aid and the charts are there as a backup. The ideal is a basic plotter for a back up, but doing it with charts and compass until hardly needing them.

I'm interested in what the absolute minimum responsible electronic kit is...though that may deserve its own thread...

...obviously it will relate to whereabouts one sails, and other aspects. High summer daylight sailing in familiar waters, only ever in the weather we chose to be out there, we needed nothing more than we had in the dinghy...though I was suddenly very aware that if we went aground, there was no centreboard to kick up, freeing us.

I suppose having the option of various data inputs on board and ever-ready, isn't a problem - it's the ease with which we habitually default to relying on them, rather than honing the senses and techniques that would have served instead, decades ago.

 

[Adios]

I was discouraged by your initial apparent readiness to believe that nobody could be so old fashioned as to still do chartwork...

gawd no but we know how it works, once some new method is invented the people still doing it the way it was sufficient for a thousand year get told they are letting the side down somehow.

I'm interested in what the absolute minimum responsible electronic kit is...though that may deserve its own thread...

...obviously it will relate to whereabouts one sails, and other aspects. High summer daylight sailing in familiar waters

Ah and there's the slippery slope right there. Dinosaurs will be allowed to carry on but increasingly frowned upon for going beyond what the people with no local knowlede thought was safe. daylight, x number of miles from land etc.

My second boat, had no electronics still, just a compass, but I'd gone as far as having a digital watch with an illuminating face to time buoy flashes which I find a great help. One memorable night I went from Rochester to Queenborough using a list I'd made of buoys with their lights and direction to the next one. No depth sounder to confirm my position, no autohelm to steer while I studied a chart. When buoy lights started getting lost in the background of the Grain terminal lights it became a serious challenge. But that was the fun of it!! If I'd had a plotter it would have been tourism. Just standing there looking at the view.

But then it depends what we want out of sailing which is a totally individual thing of course. But I do like a bit of a challenge to go with my nice views. Plus after I'd done it a few times, with that amount of focused attention it would have been imprinted in my mind and i'd be on my way to becoming a proper old fashioned local knowledge laden salty sea dog.

 

[dancrane]

...there's the slippery slope right there. Dinosaurs will be allowed to carry on but increasingly frowned upon for going beyond what the people with no local knowledge thought was safe.

You're right. It's an inversion of where respect belongs, just because tech is served up to shortcut learning and practice.

The irony is how much pleasure comes from knowing and using chartwork, unmissed and unknown by those who took the shortcut.

 

[MADRIGAL]

I've spent hours updating my paper charts am I the only one

You are not the only one! I always wait with anticipation for the next notices to mariners to come out, especially during the long, dark months of winter, hoping for an excuse to pore over my paper charts while the boat is on the hard and the ice chokes the harbour.

 

[arc1]

2020 IHO future of paper charts

Not sure if link above will work but is to vaguely interesting IHO paper on the future of paper charts. Onboard my boat, like many, I have a plotter which gets used day to day and paper available if required (confident I can switch between the 2).

Throughout time in RN I went from paper only (including my time as a Navigator), through to people stating very strongly that paper navigation will never be replaced, to my final job at sea where there wasn't a paper chart to be seen other than as a briefing display. All planning and execution 100% electronic by the end. With continual advances in batteries and displays coupled with a new generation coming through I suspect that leisure boating will go the same way.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

You're right. It's an inversion of where respect belongs, just because tech is served up to shortcut learning and practice.

The irony is how much pleasure comes from knowing and using chartwork, unmissed and unknown by those who took the shortcut.

On a personal note, I do like to be feel of the environment rather than on the outside looking in. Being outside plays a big part. It's hard to feel part of the scenery on a ship.

It was inevitable that ship safety technology was going to be handed down to play sailors. It does bring a bit of a dilemma that other sports/pastimes have not had to meet. Where do you pitch it ? It's has to be personal choice.

I try to not have an opinion about the conditions I am in. Even if it's cold and wet . Just try and get on with it. The full pleasure might not be fully appreciated until you are driving in the car home.

 

[dancrane]

...if it's cold and wet, just try and get on with it. The full pleasure might not be fully appreciated until you are driving in the car home.

Not so sure about that. Two British summers with an open-cockpit yacht reinforced what I'd already known...

...a wheelhouse as well as an outside helm is the key to happiness. A wheelhouse with a chart table, obviously.

 

[westernman]

No chart plotter. But I do have auto-pilot which I use a lot, and GPS which I use from time to time.

Don't forget the real purpose of navigation is not to know where you are, but in which direction you should be pointing, and at what time you will arrive for dinner.

If you are in the middle of the Med between Barcelona and Minorca you certainly don't need to know your position within 10 yards. Within 10 miles is plenty precise enough.

 

[MADRIGAL]

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.

The ferry “Queen Of The North” struck an island and sank in the coastal waters of British Columbia. Given the romantic circumstances on the bridge described by Laminar Flow, it would appear that even paper charts would not have saved them. This should be a link to the investigation report.https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/marine/2006/m06w0052/m06w0052.html#1.0

 

[Stemar]

The ferry “Queen Of The North” struck an island and sank in the coastal waters of British Columbia. Given the romantic circumstances on the bridge described by Laminar Flow, it would appear that even paper charts would not have saved them. This should be a link to the investigation report.https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/marine/2006/m06w0052/m06w0052.html#1.0

They were expecting the earth to move for them I didn't.