A little knowledge can be dangerous.

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spannerman

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Just attended a one day Raymarine course and heard a funny but scary tale from the customer support guy. A couple had bought themselves a used Fairline and driven it about 200 miles down the coast from Oslo to Arundel.
As the owner approached Arundel harbour he realised the radar picture bore no relation to what he was seeing out of the window, so he called Raymarine insisting there was something wrong with the radar and plotter, after a lengthy conversation the technical guy asked him if he could see 3 letters at the top of the screen saying SIM, yes he replied I have that on the screen. It turned out he'd been extremely fortunate to navigate along the coast and through hundreds of islands, skerries and shoals with the chartplotter in Simulator mode and with an Isle of Wight to Lands End card in the plotter!
I know from numerous installs that customers often don't familiarise themselves with the functions on the expensive bit of kit they've just had installed, e.g. one rang me to say his new touch screen was faulty, turned out he'd accidentally turned off the touch function.
 
Mobo so not surprising :D :D

I think a lot of the problem is due to the fact that some of today's gizmos are just to complicated & to involved.
How many people use even half of the functions on a modern plotter ?
 
I know of someone running his fish finder in Simulation, and complaining about hitting the bottom, and a hand held radio "parked" next to the compass!! still running his chart plotter in course up. PLONKER
 
spannerman said:
Just attended a one day Raymarine course and heard a funny but scary tale from the customer support guy. A couple had bought themselves a used Fairline and driven it about 200 miles down the coast from Oslo to Arundel.
As the owner approached Arundel harbour he realised the radar picture bore no relation to what he was seeing out of the window, so he called Raymarine insisting there was something wrong with the radar and plotter, after a lengthy conversation the technical guy asked him if he could see 3 letters at the top of the screen saying SIM, yes he replied I have that on the screen. It turned out he'd been extremely fortunate to navigate along the coast and through hundreds of islands, skerries and shoals with the chartplotter in Simulator mode and with an Isle of Wight to Lands End card in the plotter!
I know from numerous installs that customers often don't familiarise themselves with the functions on the expensive bit of kit they've just had installed, e.g. one rang me to say his new touch screen was faulty, turned out he'd accidentally turned off the touch function.
Click to expand...

Some of the funniest stories are true!

Some friends of ours were taking their Yachtmaster -sail in Gibralter. Along on the course were a pair of Irish guys as students.
On one windy day, force 7-8, they broached and took on a fair amount of water that appeared to go down the open hatch.

Paddy shouts down to Murphy, "Have you got any water down there?"

Murphy calls back about 2 mins later, "No... We have no water, but we have some Coke!"

The next day it was too windy to sail, the instructor thought it would be a good idea to talk collision regs...
He asked the group, "If you were to see a fast flashing Amber light at night, what would it be?"


Silence for a whole minute and then Paddy took a sharp intake of breath and said,










WAIT FOR IT.....................















"Could it be a forklift?":encouragement:

RR
 
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I recently sailed for a week on a friend's yacht. The Nasa Navtex reciever, right outside my cabin, beeped every few minutes, 24 hours a day. After one night of seriously interrupted sleep, I asked if he could silence the thing. He didn't know how :rolleyes:. I got the manual out, and found it was set to receive all messages, of any type, priority, or sea area, and to beep on reception at maximum volume.
 
spannerman said:
I know from numerous installs that customers often don't familiarise themselves with the functions on the expensive bit of kit they've just had installed, e.g. one rang me to say his new touch screen was faulty, turned out he'd accidentally turned off the touch function.
Click to expand...

Marine Electronics vendors need to take a leaf out of the late Steve jobs school of user interface design. Less is more. Keep it simple. All the main players should look at the simplicity of use of apps on devices like iPad. Raymarine kit is good equipment but IMHO unessesarily complicated for much of their target market base. Garmin seem somewhat easier to use but both could learn from smart mobile devices.
 
spannerman said:
Arundel in the UK is a lot more than 200 miles from Oslo, we have an Arundel in Norway, with a harbour!
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It was late and I had consumed much rum - I either misread or totally missed the mileage! :)

stephen_h said:
You have to sail in at Littlehampton and follow the Arun :)
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I am aware of that hence my original posting - my 'distance run' was a little off! :)

W.
 
Couple of great stories there. There's no doubt there's too much stuff packed into these devices, but I guess for some that's also a good thing. But why can't these messages be clearer? Why can't the display just say 'Alert - Simulation Mode Only' as opposed to 'SIM'? That would at least help somewhat?
Anyway, taking out the forklift for a quick run up the river later......just in case any of you see a flashing amber light.....
 
Sheppy said:
Couple of great stories there. There's no doubt there's too much stuff packed into these devices, but I guess for some that's also a good thing. But why can't these messages be clearer? Why can't the display just say 'Alert - Simulation Mode Only' as opposed to 'SIM'? That would at least help somewhat?
Anyway, taking out the forklift for a quick run up the river later......just in case any of you see a flashing amber light.....
Click to expand...

TBH I bought a tide watch a year or two back. It had poo loads of features, but was virtually unuseable without a manual & excellent light. The writing on the face & case that was intended to guide me around the options was small & low contrast - really no excuse for either & as you switched between the various options you simply got a different set of numbers on the screen with no indication if it was date, time, tide or whatever. It was OK as a watch & with the manual & a bit of care I could do anything, but without the manual it was hopeless. I have an analogue watch again now & just remember the tide info I need.
 
A few years ago a person from warmer climes ( Greece) was buying a large motorboat and the acceptance trials were in CI waters, the whole thing revolved with the owner taking the boat on sea trials to see whether it would attain the contractual speed.

After several prop changes it was established they were using the GPS and Speed over the Ground readings when a chap I worked with asked if the owner had taken the tide into consideration, at that point there was a deathly hush and then the owner asked.............................."why, would it make a difference?"

There were no more sea trials and the boat was accepted.
 
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