Chart and plotter whinge

Kukri

Kukri

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Have plotter with Navionics UK and Ireland pack up to date; also carry Imray paper packs for Solent, Kent and Sussex and Thames estuary. What could go wrong?

Hah! Off Eastbourne on passage to Harwich we sailed off the chart onto a blank map so far as the plotter was concerned. Don’t know what happened there, but coverage restarted at Lowestoft. Fat lot of use.

No problem - we’ll use the paper charts...

Guess what Imray choose to leave off their pack of charts - the Long Sand Head!

Problem solved by updating the Navionics pack on my iPhone as we were in cell range passing Dover. £34.99 for information I has already paid much more for on the plotter.

And what cretins stop their coverage of the Thames Estuary just short of Long Sand Head?

Seriously p....d off with Navionics and with Imray.
 
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Think yourself lucky, bloke I knew was on his WTW trip and hit a reef on autopilot. Not that the reef was unknown, quite the opposite, but his chartplotter was missing a page..
Some sort of arrangement was come to:)
 
Neeves said:
Stop complaining :)

We have charts, of Tasmania with big white patches, which we cross, where it says 'Not Surveyed'.

Jonathan
Click to expand...

Yes, and the bits that have been surveyed were probably done by the RN in the year dot. You're not unique though, parts of the West Coast are "Unsurveyed" as well. "Here be Dragons" :D

Lots of the West Coast was surveyed in the 1850s, notably by Captain Henry Otter of HMS Porcupine, steam and sail. Considering that these were lead line surveys done by sailors in rowing boats, they have mostly been pretty good. There have lately been a few cases of "new" rocks being found, mainly by the new, and bigger generation of fish farm work boats, finding them the "hard" way.
 
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My plotter came with a 'silver' version of a Navionics chart covering a wide area. I could sail from Iceland to Pord Said if I wished, with reasonable detail, though it hasn't been and can't be updated.
 
Passage plans don't seem as popular as they once were, (me too :) ) but good idea for electronic as it flags up things like that before leaving. Opencpn is good for that, have a good look on tablet/laptop anywhere then scribble the way points onto the bit of paper and transfer over to plotter/gps if it supports it. .
 
Minn said:
Have plotter with Navionics UK and Ireland pack up to date; also carry Imray paper packs for Solent, Kent and Sussex and Thames estuary. What could go wrong?

Hah! Off Eastbourne on passage to Harwich we sailed off the chart onto a blank map so far as the plotter was concerned. Don’t know what happened there, but coverage restarted at Lowestoft. Fat lot of use.

No problem - we’ll use the paper charts...

Guess what Imray choose to leave off their pack of charts - the Long Sand Head!

Problem solved by updating the Navionics pack on my iPhone as we were in cell range passing Dover. £34.99 for information I has already paid much more for on the plotter.

And what cretins stop their coverage of the Thames Estuary just short of Long Sand Head?

Seriously p....d off with Navionics and with Imray.
Click to expand...

Well...

I'll tell Imray. They would appreciate the feel back and I'll pass that direct to Matthew. Of course if you got Imray's ID10 (now Meridien Chartwork's software using Imray charts), it would include the Long Sand Head - cos that is where I get the image for the NtM. Not sure why you both with Navionics. When I looked at their chart at the Crouch there were two major buoys omitted, another buoy half a mile out and the soundings hopelessly inaccurate. It occured to me if I used Navionics I would need to know where we are going already.
 
tillergirl said:
Well...

I'll tell Imray. They would appreciate the feel back and I'll pass that direct to Matthew. Of course if you got Imray's ID10 (now Meridien Chartwork's software using Imray charts), it would include the Long Sand Head - cos that is where I get the image for the NtM. Not sure why you both with Navionics. When I looked at their chart at the Crouch there were two major buoys omitted, another buoy half a mile out and the soundings hopelessly inaccurate. It occured to me if I used Navionics I would need to know where we are going already.
Click to expand...

Thanks Roger.

I'm a beginner with electronic navigation ( I did say to one of the younger crew members, "You have been on a voyage back to the nineteen seventies - dead engine, worries about the battery, (so no radar and hand pumped cold water!) sailing off the edge of the paper charts - we used to do this all the time!")

As a beginner, I bought what the chandlers sold me.

In fairness to Imray Laurie Norie and Wilson, the chart pack that I bought for the Thames Estuary is actually called "Coasts of Essex and Suffolk", not "Thames Estuary - Northern Part" But I do think that it should include the Long Sand Head (otherwise, its hard to use your excellent book!).
 
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Just shows what a waste of time the folios are for the Thames estuary are. Just need to one Imray chart for the area. All that paper shuffling is a pain.
& why go to the Longsand Head any way?
Just go up the Black Deep until the Echo sounder tells you that you have cleared the end of the Sunk Sands & keep a bit left. You can see Felixtowe from there.
 
Daydream believer said:
Just shows what a waste of time the folios are for the Thames estuary are. Just need to one Imray chart for the area. All that paper shuffling is a pain.
& why go to the Longsand Head any way?
Just go up the Black Deep until the Echo sounder tells you that you have cleared the end of the Sunk Sands & keep a bit left. You can see Felixstowe from there.
Click to expand...

We did think about that, but at the decision point, at the north end of the Gull Stream, it was 0200 am on a moonless night, it was blowing F8, SW, forecast to veer NW and increase to 9 (which it didn't do, luckily,) visibility wasn't wonderful and I didn't fancy either the un-buoyed Edinburghs or the buoyed but narrow and steep to Fisherman's Gat, and certainly not Foulgers and the windfarm.
 
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Minn said:
We did think about that, but at the decision point, at the north end of the Gull Stream, it was 0200 am on a moonless night, it was blowing F8, SW, forecast to veer NW and increase to 9 (which it didn't do, luckily,) visibility wasn't wonderful and I didn't fancy either the un-buoyed Edinburghs or the buoyed but narrow and steep to Fisherman's Gat, and certainly not Foulgers and the windfarm.
Click to expand...

I always go the outside route, much less stressful than all those narrow shallow bits.
 
It is not unknown for genuine Navionics charts to have a couple of files missing.

Ten years ago I experienced this with a new Raymarine C80 loaded with Navionics gold for the UK and Northern France.

Everything was fine untill we got between Beaulieu River and Lymington, where the detail dissapeared, just leaving the shape of the land.

Stopped at Plymouth at Navionics HQ and was loud in my complaints.

They checked it and pronounced it good. I asked him to put it on a plotter showing the GPS position-he was using the Solway Firth area as a test.

When he did, no detail.

Two files missing, Beaulieu River to Lands End.

Where had we decided to cruise-exactly that area!

They were most apologetic and issued a new card, plus seriously discounting a card reader for passage planning at home.

Your problem is not unknown!
 
rotrax said:
It is not unknown for genuine Navionics charts to have a couple of files missing.

Ten years ago I experienced this with a new Raymarine C80 loaded with Navionics gold for the UK and Northern France.

Everything was fine untill we got between Beaulieu River and Lymington, where the detail dissapeared, just leaving the shape of the land.

Stopped at Plymouth at Navionics HQ and was loud in my complaints.

They checked it and pronounced it good. I asked him to put it on a plotter showing the GPS position-he was using the Solway Firth area as a test.

When he did, no detail.

Two files missing, Beaulieu River to Lands End.

Where had we decided to cruise-exactly that area!

They were most apologetic and issued a new card, plus seriously discounting a card reader for passage planning at home.

Your problem is not unknown!
Click to expand...

That’s exactly what we had. Thank you very much indeed. I feel much more confident in confronting Raymarine, Navionics and Force 4 now.

It’s not as if they haven’t trousered several thousand of my post tax pounds in the last few months.
 
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