Chart Plotter Choices

Goldie

Goldie

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OK I confess, I'm a navigational luddite. I LIKE using paper, hand bearing compass and pencil, I LIKE using a sextant to confirm my GPS is in the ballpark, BUT....my GPS (now unsupported by the manufacturer) is playing up. Me - I'm happy to buy another standalone GPS but SWMBO is trying to persuade me that as the price differential is reducing all the time, I should buy (her) a chart plotter. I can find my way around the likes of Raymarine, Furuno and Garmin hardware, but as I see it, my choice is likely to be influenced by the chart software. I've heard of vector charts, raster charts et al - but then I've also heard of ancient Greek!!! What are the options, the pros and cons, the pitfalls etc? Before I humour her by traipsing around the stands at SIBS, what are the major factors I should consider? For example, apart from chart software choices, do I need to have the gizmo powered up when in open sea and well offshore, just to feed data to the DSC radio (when I get around to fitting one)? What is the power consumption like? How would I incorporate chart corrections? Can I draw lines on it with a pencil (OK, only joking on the last one - I think...).

Ladies and Gentlemen, your pearls of wisdom are eagerly awaited......
 
It's a minefield. Decide on which system you like...Garmin, Navionics, cmap etc then choose the plotter. I thought long and hard and went for Navionics Gold. The chartplotter I chose was the Lowrance 3500C. After some intial probs this has proven to be best for me. But the boat show is the place to decide. Isnt that why they're having it?
 
It all depends on your budget.

If notsomuchmoney and smallboat: I'm pleased with my Garmin 276C. Runs off 12v, has an internal battery pack that would give 8hrs if the 12v failed. £420 plus £125 for a set of charts that covers the South Coast from the Marine Super Store, Port Solent. Chart format is BlueChart, proprietary to Garmin. You can update every 6months at a cost if paranoid. No real facility to enter corrections to the base cartography yourself.

If lots-of-money and bigboat, then I would look at Raymarine E-80 or E120. Navionics Gold charts give coloured contours etc. and are usable in other plotters. Navionics "Platinum" charts available shortly will have aerial photos of ports, 3-D bathymetric views: looks fab, although how usable in real life remains to be seen. Unsure what the correction/update policy is, although I'm sure there is one.

Loads of other kit available, but the above would be my starting point. Advice would be to look at several of these things side by side and have a fiddle.

dv.
 
Navman 5600 is well worth a good look, (I have its smaller brother the 5500 - also a great plotter) these use C-Map. The plotter uses abt .5amp/hr and can drive DSC and autopilot.

I also have a laptop with C-Map

Paper charts

sextant

but have yet to invest in a leadline!
 
I use a Navman 5110 (black and white) it provides information (NMEA) for the computer and the repeater on the bridge, it is simple to use and will do all the routes waypoints ect that you would need.

Tom

The last thing you need when things get rough is something difficult to use!
 
Hi

Some years ago I had a diff GPS plus Raychart 520 fitted on the chart table at the same time as the RL70 radar in the cockpit. Radome just above the cross trees.

Result is I can use the radar or chart plotter or both together in either location. I do yearly updates of the c-map NT charts just before our annual VIP cruise - if that's not an oxymoron! - this year cost about £135 for a complete update set from the Westerschelde to St Malo.

Power consumption is minimal at about .8 amp total for the three. I don't reckon the extra cost for colour is worth it - but some people do.

I do reckon MARPA is worth it and I would prefer an option to actually overlay the radar picture on the chart picture. T'would help crossing busy channels in fog.

Depends on budget i suppose.

Fair winds

Ken
 
Agreed. I have virtually the same, except I have the 5600, cos I wanted the bigger screen for cockpit use.

Personally I like the C-Map charts.

No sextant, but I've got a lead line!
 
We replaced an old autohelm navstation this year with a Raymarine C80 - interfaces seamlessly with the other bits of kit eg autopilot. Good screen, easy interface, Navionics Gold charts are excellent - thoroughly pleased with it.
 
You can both walk away happy.

Buy yourself a Garmin 152, thats yer GPS, and a good one too. Hook that up to a Yeoman chartplotter. That way you can still put dots and lines on paper charts, put a GPS generated fix on the chart in seconds and in whatever the weather plus as an added bonus, you still have the paper copy you would have to generate if you use an electronic version.

Other benifits include, you still get to see the BIG picture, you already own the paper charts so saving money that you can spend on some out toys!
 
Very happy with my Raymarine C80, installed last winter. It's in the cockpit and I haven't taken the paper charts out of the chart table while at sea. Just do the log entries, just in case...
 
I agree. Look at the chart systems first then chose one that uses that. I now have the latest E series using Navionics Gold but prefer the pevious one that uses C map.
Look for somwhere you know say Cherbourg then change scale. On the C map I could always see the outer rade walls but with Navionics they only show once you go to larger scale.

I also ploughed through the solid granite cliffs this year going up the river Trieux. So either the naughty French moved them or the Navionic have them plotted wrong which is suprising as my friend uses the French equivalent of our OS maps on his Yoeman Plotter and find the estuaries and all Marine info dead accurate.
 
[ QUOTE ]
my friend uses the French equivalent of our OS maps on his Yoeman Plotter and find the estuaries and all Marine info dead accurate.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find the same with good old UKHO charts, why complicate navigation with:

[ QUOTE ]
I also ploughed through the solid granite cliffs this year going up the river Trieux. So either the naughty French moved them or the Navionic have them plotted wrong

[/ QUOTE ]

Go for Yeoman!
 
E series is only really any good if you want video input or Navionics platinum, Otherwise save your money. Navionics platinum (with all the 3D and aerial picts etc) doesnt work on the C series (which I bought this season) tidal info is useful, especially so when anchoring on the east coast.
But I still like the yeoman plotter as you can see it all.
 
I tipped my toe into this minefield a couple of months ago.
I decided to go the laptop route, as I had one laying about.
Bought a PCMCIA GPS receiver on Ebay for £35 and a couple of RYA/Admiralty folios half price at £20 each.

Plugged it all together and it works a treat.
The downside; we keep the PC below by the chart table, so it's not viewable from the helm.
The charting software does not include tidal information and you have to buy it fresh each season.

The PC option also gives me the flexibility of a wireless broadband internet connection in the marina or a dial-up internet connection.
We can also watch the odd DVD on a wet Wednesday or when stormbound.
It's also quick and easy to remove when leaving the boat.
 
Whilst I agree the Yeoman is a nice piece of kit and we do have one despite 3 electronic plotters (1 up top, 1 below and one spare!), but in the example given I doubt it would have shown a track going over the dry/solid land. This is not because of higher accuracy but simply because the chart set on it would be very unlikely to be one of large enough scale to show it whereas within our C-Map cartridges there are VERY large scale charts that you can instantly zoom in on.

We had an instance in our last year before we bought our first plotter but had a Yeoman. We were leaving Concarneau very early one morning in the dark and were overtaken on our way out by one of the girt great deapsea trawlers that are based there. Unwittingly, because I never deliberately follow another boat, we missed a mark out, it was HW and the trawler (we later discovered) had missed it out but in his case knowingly, we on the other hand were left looking for the last buoy which in fact we had already cleared. Now the entrance is quite rocky, our trawler friend was long gone, and we THINK we are still inside the rocky entrance even though the Yeoman says we are outside and clear - but that is on the chart set up for our passage not on a large scale harbour chart. 20 mins later we confirmed we were out by doing what we should have done in the first place, looking at the light characteristics not just ticking them off as we passed! Nowadays the chart plotter (and we have a waterproof one in the cockpit) reasssuringly blinks away with a continuous fix showing exactly where we are, as well as which way the boat is moving (COG) as well as BTW and SOG and DTW, TTG and ALL the chart detail we could possibly want with instant zoom available at the press of a button. There is absolutely no way I would have bought paper charts of that scale for all the harbours we visit, but they are included in our C-Map cartidges.

When we changed boat 4 years ago we did buy another Yeoman for it. Nowadays it is kept primarily as a backup (and yes we do have all the charts and they are referenced for Yeoman use) but it only gets used on longer passages using the Channel chart which I keep under a perspex top permanently on the chart table, the Yeoman is under this ready. Larger scale charts are put on top of the perspex using Yeoman's clips stuck in place when required with blue tack, but I cannot remember the last time I bothered....

Believe me, modern plotters are hugely convenient. we have a Navman 5600 below at the chart table and a smaller Navman 5500i in the cockpit which is a standalone one with built in GPS and powered from a separate battery bank to the one below. In fog and close quarters I can work below and can watch plotter and radar at the same time, even steering via a 2nd pilot control head mounted there, this leaves SWMBO up top with mark 1 eyeballs and No2 plotter.

IMHO laptop/PC plotters are great for in harbour use or for powerboats or motorsailors with enclosed steering positions. On a yacht I don't trust them not to crash at a crucial time especially when salt water drips on them from wet oilies. Additionally if you do longer passages the power consumption of laptops is excessive by comparison with smaller plotters, probably by a factor of 4. We have a laptop and use it for navigation planning, tides and even weatherfax, but at sea it goes in a case and gets tucked safely away!

Try a modern plotter, you will not want to go back!

As to which one, I would choose the chart format first, my preference some years back when I first bought a plotter was C-Map and it still is. I would NEVER buy a plotter that could only use in-house chart cartridges like Garmin or Furuno because I don't trust them to keep things backwards compatible - Garmin changed their format and left existing plotter owners up a creek without a paddle in that they no longer sell cartridges for them, in my view that is a PR no-no and Garmin are off my look at list for everything or anything as a result.
 
Robin

Very interesting and I dont argue anything you say. In fact given the cash, I would also ADD a chart plotter to my nav kit, for pilotage, which I think you have said is where plotters come into their own. Out of interest, with a limited budget, what would you buy, a chart plotter or as an owner of the paper charts already a Yeoman?

I also run a PDA with Maptech charts on, but only as a novelty really.
 
Actually now I would chose the plotter first as plotting on paper can be done anyway without a Yeoman, the Yeoman just makes it easier and quicker. When I bought my first Yeoman, plotters were cumbersome, expensive and used lots of power even for black and white screens and colour screens were not viewable in sunlight. Nowadays there are good daylight viewable color plotters available with low power consumption and costing not a lot more than a simple GPS did back then.

I bought our 5500i Navman with built in GPS here in the UK 18 months ago and it is much cheaper now than it was then. Our 5600 Navman with a separate GPS (but included) was a gift from family in the USA when we were over there earlier this year, it cost them just £380 in proper money from West Marine with a rebate from Navman USA sadly only available to US/Canadian residents, over here I think it is between £650/£700 -sucks doesn't it!

Chart cartridges have also dropped in price dramatically and are much bigger capacity so fewer are needed for the same area covered. If you look at which charts are included in each cartridge (C-Map show a list on their website with the Admiralty Chart number) it is huge, far more as I said before than you would ever buy in paper format and far more than the harbour inserts included with Imray charts or in pilot books.

Robin
 
I dare say that when I recover from the cost of new house and new boat etc and paid for some of the essentials that are needed, then I will most likely buy a plotter. But even then I would expect to use it for pilotage rather than passage planning etc. I fear if used as a primary navigation device, then I may become lazy (or should that be lazier!)

I dont see plotters as the must have that some peeps view them, I'm no luddite and when was the last time anyone had a major power failure on board, that crashed their nav equip? But I do find it reasuring to see the lines on the chart.

It is so easy for someone to pop in a waypoint and 'sail' toward it. I remember our first channel crossing, we were the smallest and slowest of 5 boats sailing in company. As we approached Cherbourg SWMBO got rather agitated as the other boats got further and further away from us, I double checked my calculations, I was happy.

I had calculated for the strong cross tide and had been headed almost for the western entrance, as the tide pulled us east we found the eastern entrance correctly in front of us. The other boats had to climb back up against the tide and arrived about half an hour after us! I suspect there was a little 'sailing to the waypoint' there!
 
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