chart plotter v onboard pc

[lurob]

We're still at the planning stage for long-term cruising but will have to make a decision soon re electronic navigation. HWTHSBO reckons that a laptop PC with nav software linked to a GPS is the way to go, largely due to cost of C-MAP cartridges. I, on the other hand, think that we'd be better with a chart plotter because PCs draw much more power, are difficult to stow securely while in use and under seaway, also they are notoriously prone to crashing (usually just when you need them most) and are unhappy in a marine environment. Any thoughts/experiences would be welcome to help us resolve the matter before we reach the divorce courts.

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[DavidJ]

Guarenteed you will eventually end up with electronic navigation, so buy it now and skip the PC stage with it's non robustness/non waterproofness and much less fuctionality in comparison. I think they are all good and I'm delighted with my Raymarine 7" (which I could afford the 10")
They do a C-MAP NT super wide for about £250 which covers a huge area and contains over 1000 detailed charts.
David

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[davidbains]

I cosidered both and it seemed to come down to cost and screen size.
You can buy a "cheap" chartplotter and navigate on a 7'' or 10'' monochrome screen.
More comfortable is a 14'' laptop screen which is much cheaper than a large colour
chartplotter.
The downside is configuration problems ( especially if you use a Mac iBook!) but
USB ports may need adaptors for the GPS and dongles. Upside you probably have
one anyway and can use it at home to plan trips.
Laptops do need to be attached to the chart table (especially on a mono), and don't
like water or sunlight. However once configured they're much nicer to work on.
However you can never give up the paper charts for backup, I have the laptop sitting
on the relevant paper chart and when I want info in a hurry I still use the paper.
But the I didn't buy a 'puter till my fifties. My daughter finds the paper more difficult.
If you use a 'puter at work you'll find it easy to use one onboard.


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[tcm]

you are both correct. But the PC won't last a year, whereas a chartplotter will last quite a while. Note that second hand or large scale chips are perfectly fine - provided that you have proper charts almanacs. Indeed, long distance the chart plotter becomes just an interesting way of displaying how far you have come, and a check that any waypoints have been put in correctly. Note also that the most expensive chips in the world are for the solent.

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[Talbot]

C Map prices are the same for wherever you buy them. The area of superwide for southern England may be slightly smaller than some other superwides, but I expect that is because there are far more charts available for this area than some of the others, thus price may be equated to detail. For the PC - you can get waterproof screens to mount in the cockpit, but the additional energy budget for the pc solution over the chartplotter means that I use a chartplotter next to my wheel (and it is sheltered from UV) and will have a laptop sited at nav station for passage planning fed by alternative battery powered GPS, plus pilotage charts, plus some small chart folios and a back up sextant. (No I wasn't a boy scout - but hopefully this will cover all contingencies)

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[SydneyTim]

<<C Map prices are the same wherever you buy them>>

This is only true within a single country, a Super wide C Map costs US$250, GBP250 and A$750. There are plenty of on line US vendors and they deliver to Oz so the UK should be easy!!

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[Danthegorrila]

I think you will find that the vast majority of liveaboards use a PC for the navigation.
We have two one dedicated to navigation and the SSB for e-mail and weather faxes the other we use for everything else. Many marinas have a line you can use to access the web/e-mail by taking up your own machine.

We have trashed one lap top in 2 years and that was due to a power problem rather than wet or dropping. A replacement with a colour screen was £300 for a reconditioned one the colour makes all the difference do you rember how much clearer colour paper charts are? So if they last two years its still good value. Velcro to the chart table works realy well. Cling film over the key board is supposed to help but we have not bothered yet.

The other concideration are that the PC screen is so much bigger and much easier to see. On the software side I don't want to say too much but you will find that people share and swap charts on CD all the time, which you can't do so easily with cartridges.

No question for me PC's are the way to go.


NB laptopsandpcs.co.uk are very helpful and have good machines quite cheaply.


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[neutronstar]

Further to my posting on the other thread with a similar theme:

the size of the screen and the bright colour available on a laptop was the main advantage for me, plus the PC onboard is useful for many other things. (My eyes are not as good as they were a few years ago and on a yacht the unit must be inside and 2 - 3 metres away from the binacle)

The relyability issue is stressed by many contributors and I always have at least two of everything on board if possible, laptops being no exception. I bought several secondhand and made a strong bracket to hold the in-use one in place. A polycarbonate envelope with the unit fully opened and slightly inclined off the vertical was my solution.

With numerous back-up parts and spare units you have a good sporting chance of getting round failures but as one contributor stated above, the business of buying a new expensive unit is not all that good an idea when you can get 3 to 5 secondhand ones for the same price.

It is a personal decision and some PC know how is needed if you choose the laptop route. If you can get to see what people already do on their boats and find a tame mentor nearby to assist you may find the job easier.

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[graham42]

pc laptop is best.
been on board for 18months and versitility of laptop allows you to write email whilst your sailing and keeping an eye on where you are.
c-maps are the way togo.
any laptop with a rs232 connector or usb covertor to hang a gps or autopilot on.
at present carrefore in france are offering a dvd rw laptop at 999€


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[HaraldS]

Not sure I can give an advice that safes you from the divorce courts, but here is my experience with both variants.
We have a Simrad CA42 plotter mounted above the chart table and a second station next to the companion way, well visible from anywhere in the cockpit. We also have two laptops with MaxSea and various formats of charts, also a USB connected C-map cartride reader.
Given that we have the Simrad plotters, we don't usually run the PC's permanently.
The primary laptop is used for many tasks, like communication, planning, but I usually do the daily route planning on the Simrad. (It is possible to do on the PC and send to the plotter though).
Both Simrad plotters together use a bit less power than a single one of our laptops. Though, I just measured a new Pentium-M based one (Centrino) and it comes out roughly on par. The Simrad plotters have a very low basic consumption, much less than even a Centrino PC, but it goes up significantly with backlight level; at night the consumption is very low.
The displays are very different: The PC's have finer resolution, but if you bring them up to deck, you virtually see nothing in the bright daylight. The Simrad display still works fine, even though it isn't of the latest SunView series.
In the sometimes wet cockpit you can handle it with wet fingers and match vision with display, especially fine in night approaches.
I also like the linking of the chart cursor and the radar cursor and running split screen with radar and chart next to each other. I know all that is possible with some extra hardware on a PC. Similarly there are daylight SVGA displays for PCs and water proof radio keyboards.
We made the decision for this mix 4 years ago, and I'm not sure I would go PC only now. I just like the ease of use and the extreme robustness of the Simrad plotters. We also had problems with the primary PC, which was polluted with various communicatios software, the worst is the Iridium stuff, which lead to instability, and if you don't have all 100 CD's with you, doing a complete new install on board is almost impossible. Luckily we had the most imporatnt stuff also on the "entertainment PC" and could use that one for some time.

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