Has your chartplotter ever broken down?

[Babylon]

I sailed without a CP for the first five years of ownership (2007 to 2012 up, down and across the Channel), during which time nothing failed.

I only swapped out the old basic but superbly robust Simrad VHF for Standard Horizon kit (DSC VHF with AIS and CP300) because I began sailing with my then young son and wanted him to have an easy means of raising the alarm if I was unconscious/dead/lost.

Now the CP can't handle the AIS data any more and the VHF is constantly exploding with alarms.

What's wrong with paper charts (I always carry a full set for the area) and a handheld GPS for those very rare situations of real panic?

 

[GerardV]

The traditional argument against over-reliance on electronic navigation is of course that it can fail for any number of reasons and you have to be able to get home safely by traditional navigation. I am not disputing that.
But I am intrigued to know how high that risk really is.
I can remember the first decca we had on board, an AP Philips navigator, had a nasty habit of showing a red light when you most needed an accurate position. But since we have had gps I have never had to resort to traditional navigation because of a failure. No electricity blackout, no failed chartplotter and no satellites on strike. The problem of selective availability is long in the past. I have experienced a loss of signal in a very deep and narrow fjord, but there was no doubting my position then. And before you ask, yes when on passage I do plot my position hourly on the chart and enter it in the log book for good measure.
Oh, and should my chartplotter give up the ghost, I have a separate gps, and gps position data provided by the AIS and the VHF(separately), Navionics on my iPad and iPhone and I must have a handheld gps somewhere, just put in some batteries and ready to go.

Yes. Standard Horizon cp180i. Pulled and pushed back all internal cable connectors. Problem solved.

 

[Topcat47]

How do warships 'play silly buggers' with a gps signal?

It's called "electronic warfare".

 

[oldmanofthehills]

It's called "electronic warfare".

GPS notoriously doesnt work well near Devonport right by those big nuclear submarines - coincidence perhaps but then again....

They couldnt easily interfere with the signal itself but they could render it unreadable by jamming. The signals are only a few hundred watts from a satellite hundred of miles above us. If you want to consider how feeble that is at ground level think of trying to read by a table lamp that far away.

 

[jonic]

Yes.

Raymarine Axiom Pro got stuck in an endless loop on boot. Apparently it was a conflict with a non Raymarine AIS system.

 

[Gary Fox]

GPS notoriously doesnt work well near Devonport right by those big nuclear submarines - coincidence perhaps but then again....

They couldnt easily interfere with the signal itself but they could render it unreadable by jamming. The signals are only a few hundred watts from a satellite hundred of miles above us. If you want to consider how feeble that is at ground level think of trying to read by a table lamp that far away.

Quite and, allegedly, a friend of a friend, an international HGV driver, told me that GPS jammers have been cheaply available on fleabay for years, and are used to defeat trucking companies' trackers, allowing the knights of the autobahn a bit of wiggle room in their tight schedules. It sounds like the RN have caught up..

 

[Koeketiene]

Yes.

Raymarine Axiom Pro got stuck in an endless loop on boot. Apparently it was a conflict with a non Raymarine AIS system.

If Raymarine were a kid in school, its teacher would say 'doesn't play well with others'.

 

[Gary Fox]

Raymarine is not a team player, in fact he sometimes falls out with his kith and kin! (Once causing us to rely on the cook's iphone from the Azores to Falmouth!)

 

[Arcady]

Twice. My Simrad CR10 would inevitably stop functioning if it got too hot (probably my fault for installing it close to the windscreen) and my Raymarine C series display failed permanently.

 

[jonic]

If Raymarine were a kid in school, its teacher would say 'doesn't play well with others'.

...especially it's own older related siblings!

 

[prv]

In summary, lots of stories of individual bits of kit failing, but so far none of anyone being seriously embarrassed thereby, because these days we all have multiple electronic navigation devices on board, whether dedicated or ad-hoc.

Pete

 

[LadyInBed]

Fortunately I'm old school enough to have paper charts to get me there otherwise it would have been a lot of guesswork. And the plotter was still useful in the cockpit to keep a check I was on the track I'd made with the charts.

Even without paper charts, a base chart on a plotter is still useful.
Consult Almanac, pop in lighthouses, significant buoys etc on route as WP's then shape your course round them.

 

[LadyInBed]

Now the CP can't handle the AIS data any more and the VHF is constantly exploding with alarms.

Strange, my SH CP has no problem with AIS data, try turning off TTCPA alarm and reduce your DTCPA alarm to about 4 or 5 miles.
I've no suggestions for VHF except to remove MMSI info from it so you get no alarms! ?

 

[oldmanofthehills]

In summary, lots of stories of individual bits of kit failing, but so far none of anyone being seriously embarrassed thereby, because these days we all have multiple electronic navigation devices on board, whether dedicated or ad-hoc.
Pete

That is not quite how my Navigator put it when plotter failed at 3am while passing through a rocky sound and heading off for 15 hour passage.

Certainly not how Navigator put it in a F6 with torrential rain when we could not see anything at all while negotiating sand banks and plotter failed again. By then we had iphones, but they were not marine compatable as not waterproof so could not bring them so visible to helm. 1 hour of cursing and fretting in appalling weather.

The iphones charging port are very vulnerable to corrrosion and we have had to have two repaired just from leaving them in pilot house on fairish weather summer voyages. Same vulnerability with our ipad but we leave it in sealed bag or at home

My son has just bought me the latest iphone which is supposedly waterproof (wont stop corrosion of port), but cost considerably more than our chart plotter. Nor really a backup, more of an aid. A bit like having a 2 seat Maserati in case your 5 seat Ford Focus fails

 

[Babylon]

Strange, my SH CP has no problem with AIS data, try turning off TTCPA alarm and reduce your DTCPA alarm to about 4 or 5 miles.
I've no suggestions for VHF except to remove MMSI info from it so you get no alarms! ?

Re the CP300: somewhere in the bowels of the PBO forum is a very long troubleshooting thread on my problem - the nub of which is that with the AIS feed enabled the CP repeatedly but randomly re-boots itself. In conclusion of which, having tried everything possible, including speaking at length to the incredibly helpful guy at SH in Winchester, I've since simply disabled the AIS feed so that I can benefit from the thing NOT randomly re-booting on passage with the loss of all routes etc.