Are paper charts still necessary and relevant?

tcm said:
Point of order: Noah most certainly do NOT have up-to-date paper/stone charts due to Flood. Hence the chart would have been just blue, and all the depths wrong. Also his clueless-ness ilustrated by sending out various birds, eventually a dove returning with olive branch.
Click to expand...
Fair point but the Big Man upstairs provided the tablets so if he couldn't get the charts right, who the hell could? Actually the original version of the Bible said that Noah sent out a dove to buy a new impellor from the local Volvo dealer but the stupid bird came back with a useless olive branch instead. F*****g birds, eh? Can't trust 'em
 
Deleted User said:
Fair point but the Big Man upstairs provided the tablets so if he couldn't get the charts right, who the hell could? Actually the original version of the Bible said that Noah sent out a dove to buy a new impellor from the local Volvo dealer but the stupid bird came back with a useless olive branch instead. F*****g birds, eh? Can't trust 'em
Click to expand...

Forget the tablets - they were much later technology, way after doves and came later, in Exodus, whereas Noah is Genesis. No tablets yet. Just rain.

Actually afaik Moses had to provide the blank stone tablets himself, and the Lord said he would write the info on them. So really, they were dodgy photocopies, not OEM at all.

Rtw I used lectronics, as would anyone due to not having a bendy ruler to calculate CTS on great circle plus the fact that you wd need to sell the boat to buy a billion paper charts, and then eat the used ones for meals since no space for food...
 
tcm said:
Rtw I used lectronics
Click to expand...
LOL, so much for the debate about paper charts being necessary for cruising.
Makes me wonder what else the RYA believers will argue... :D

As an aside, I'm impressed by your biblical knowledge.
I was going to argue with Deleted User that even if Noah, fine mobo connoisseur as he was, obviously specced the same engines of my boat for his arch, had nothing to see with Moses anyway. But your accurate summary of the events is much more effective. You weren't already around in those days, were you?
 
tcm said:
Point of order: Noah most certainly do NOT have up-to-date paper/stone charts due to Flood. Hence the chart would have been just blue, and all the depths wrong. Also his clueless-ness ilustrated by sending out various birds, eventually a dove returning with olive branch.
Click to expand...

Yes, we need to know the height of olive branches at LWS and also the draft of the said Ark, plus the course of the dove and taking account of the flood above chart datum.

Once the course of the dove is verified, we can plot a receptacle "whatever" course to the said olive branch.

Taking into account, deviation and variation. as said above, presuming the Ark has a chart plotter and up dated for each of the forty days and forty nights.

Using all navigational aids available, as advised by COLREGS, I would suggest the Giraffe was made first officer.

Note. Not the female Giraffe as this could cause confusion and the Arks rolling pin being applied to Noah's head. Causing even more confusion.
 
MapisM said:
LOL, so much for the debate about paper charts being necessary for cruising.
Makes me wonder what else the RYA believers will argue... :D
Click to expand...
Not at all. My stepdaughter and her partner are currently cruising from Scotland to Australia in a steel sailing boat, having already done the other half of the circumnavigation from Australia to Scotland a few years ago. They have begged, borrowed and bought as many paper charts as they can get in advance of their trip because they don't trust electronic charts. Each to his own, I guess
 
The way I look at it is that working with paper charts is useful when you are learning, because when you do something yourself (e.g. working out CTS), it gives you a greater appreciation of what the gizmo is doing when you hit the button. (We teach kids long division, but when was the last time you divided manually without a knife?). Then again, I'm a nuts and bolts kind of person. I like to know more about what is going on underneath the covers - I can imagine that impatient project manager types might want to go "Straight to C" and just learn which buttons to hit :)

The other advantage of a paper chart is that it's BIG. Cross-channel, if you zoom out so you can see progress, you lose all the detail. If you zoom in to see the detail, you lose all sense of progress. Just planting a small pencil "X" on a paper chart every half an hour or so is quite satisfying.

It's not really about backup, because on-board I have a Raymarine E80, a Garmin 276C that will run off it's internal batteries for a few hours, an iPad and Mrs FP's iPhone running Navionics. The chances of all four failing at the same time are vanishingly small, unless World War III starts and the yanks shut down GPS. (If Armageddon happens, not having an accurate GPS fix will be the least of your issues).
 
oGaryo said:
Here you go, the fly boys have the right idea with arguably greater consequences if it goes pear shaped i.e. running out of fuel if you get lost tends to have more immediate consequences up there than on the water. Still cannot understand why us boaty brigade aren't going the same way

http://www.intomobile.com/2013/06/2...ts-ditch-paper-maps-and-charts-embrace-ipads/
Click to expand...
There is no comparison between piloting a plane and skippering a boat. All a commercial aircraft has to do is to follow regulated flight paths and even if their Ipads go blank they have a plethora of other equipment on board for guidance and ground control to help them. Also the last time I looked, there weren't inaccurately charted rocks or sandbanks in the sky. As I say, each to his own. If any boaters feel that they can safely navigate themselves and their family into the blue yonder based solely on information given to them by a flickering screen, that's fine by me but I'll stick to my paper charts as well as my flickering screen, thanks very much
 
Deleted User said:
Each to his own, I guess
Click to expand...
My point exactly.
I never said that it's stupid to use paper charts, or that I see no reason why they are RELEVANT for someone.
Quite the opposite, in fact - see the last paragraph in my post #102.

But NECESSARY they ain't, and this is not subjective, but rather a matter of simple logic:
the negative case (people who never would cruise without paper charts) does NOT prove that they're necessary.
people who went rtw without them, that's a proof beyond any reasonable doubt that they are not.
 
Deleted User said:
There is no comparison between piloting a plane and skippering a boat. All a commercial aircraft has to do is to follow regulated flight paths and even if their Ipads go blank they have a plethora of other equipment on board for guidance and ground control to help them. Also the last time I looked, there weren't inaccurately charted rocks or sandbanks in the sky. As I say, each to his own. If any boaters feel that they can safely navigate themselves and their family into the blue yonder based solely on information given to them by a flickering screen, that's fine by me but I'll stick to my paper charts as well as my flickering screen, thanks very much
Click to expand...

each to their own as you say but the more folk press for paper the less robust and up to date electronic charts will become

I think your points are invalid I'm afraid:

1: inaccurately charted stuff in electronic versions WILL get better if there is more reliance on the electronic maps, it's simple supply and demand, more demand = more onus on getting it right. besides, I've seen plenty of paper chart that are wrong.

2: paper charts will be out of date when compared to electronic for the likes of plotting new hazards such as wrecks etc

3: new tech screens don't flicker

yes, boating is different but I very much see a correlation:

10,000ft up - main hazard being other aircraft and turbulance = open sea boating - main hazard being other boats and rough seas
100ft up - main hazard being buildings, trees, wind turbines etc = shallow water hazards rocks, sandbanks etc

I need to have a little think back to my days as an avionics systems technician but here's a quick comparison to do away with the misconception that boat system are dissimilar to aircraft in their purpose.

Altimeter = depth sounder on a boat
Airspeed pitot tube = Airmar spinny speed transducer thingy on a boat
Radar = radar on a boat
Gyro Magnetic Compass = Gyro Magnetic Compass on a boat
GPS = GPS on a boat
INS (Inertial Navigation System) = not really needed on a boat but I guess stabilisation system on the big boats equates
cannot recall what the equivalent of AIS is on an aircraft


think that's about it and should clear up that boats aren't really much different to aircraft in regards to navigation
 
Last edited:
1: inaccurately charted stuff in electronic versions WILL get better if there is more reliance on the electronic maps, it's simple supply and demand, more demand = more onus on getting it right. besides, I've seen plenty of paper chart that are wrong.
Click to expand...
Thats a very big assumption

2: paper charts will be out of date when compared to electronic for the likes of plotting new hazards such as wrecks etc
Click to expand...
Not true. Paper charts can be continuously corrected from Notices to Mariners for ever whereas for electronic charts you are relying on a commercial organisation to process corrections and if they decide they no longer want to support your particular chart format, you're stuffed



Altimeter = depth sounder on a boat
Airspeed pitot tube = Airmar spinny speed transducer thingy on a boat
Radar = radar on a boat
Gyro Magnetic Compass = Gyro Magnetic Compass on a boat
GPS = GPS on a boat
INS (Inertial Navigation System) = not really needed on a boat but I guess stabilisation system on the big boats equates
cannot recall what the equivalent of AIS is on an aircraft
Click to expand...

Of course the navigational equipment in a plane can be compared to a boat but we are arguing about the need for paper charts here and I still argue that the need is far greater on a boat than a plane
 
MapisM said:
But NECESSARY they ain't, and this is not subjective, but rather a matter of simple logic:
the negative case (people who never would cruise without paper charts) does NOT prove that they're necessary.
people who went rtw without them, that's a proof beyond any reasonable doubt that they are not.
Click to expand...
That's your logic but not mine
 
rafiki_ said:
Changing altitude on a boat (sinking), is a consequence of not taking avoiding action.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. There are indeed vessels which aren't restricted to the surface.
In fact, they are also INS equipped, so the comparison made by oGaryo is valid also in that respect.
(re. the AIS equivalent, IIRC it's called ADS transponder on aircrafts)
 
Ok, this thread still has some legs left!

I have a full inventory of paper charts for our past cruising areas. But I haven't pulled them out of the drawer for the past six years.

I won't bother buying any more paper charts for new areas. Since 2004 I have done our passage planning on laptops and more recently iPads (easier to use at home, in the cabin or office than sitting at the helm). I have multiple redundant systems and multiple independent power sources, so risk of electronics failure effecting safe passage is low. New plotters models have receivers for GPS and Glonas sat constellations, with the Galileo system becoming available in the future, so now multiple independent sources of sat signals. While I learned navigation on paper and used paper in the past it has now become both unnecessary and no longer relevant. I haven't pulled a paper chart out since 2007. Pilot books and guides will increasingly become tablet based rather than paper. I've used tablets for tide heights, tidal streams, real time weather, weather forecasts and passage planning since 2010. I bought my last paper pilot book in 2011.

One of the great advantages of the switch to tablets for marine info, is its easy to move the info between home, office and the boat, instead of lugging paper about or discovering one has left it on board or at home during the winter. On board my primary plotter is a proper marine unit. I'm not advocating tablets for primary navigation.

Ps. The lightening strike argument has no relevance as in the event of a strike navigating will be the least of ones worries. Anyway the engines most likely won't run so there will be nowhere to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top