Chart plotter

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Richard D

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Thanks guys for all your info on tablets versus chart plotters, seems I need a chart plotter. What is best about 5 to 10 ins, does a 5 inch screen really cut it. Do they all have the facility to have them om the chart table and also to be in cockpit. I know price goes with size but what is best useable between £300 and a £1000. Never had one so no0 nothing about the finer points. Boat at Stranraert so expect to be cruising up west coast Scotland and Ireland.

Regards Richard
 
Proably something you have not considered is a Yoeman plotter & apologies if you have
I have plugs for it below & in the cockpit so I can have it on my lap in awkward situations when SH sailing
It uses paper charts & it is a fantastic piece of kit
 
Richard D said:
Do they all have the facility to have them om the chart table and also to be in cockpit.
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Not sure what you're asking here. Obviously one unit cannot be in both places at once. You can install it in either, or you could fit a plug in each place and be able to move between the two. I'm not aware of any modern plotters which are not waterproof, for use in the cockpit.

Pete
 
I don't think a 5" screen is big enough to use easily, so I'd suggest you look at 7" as a minimum. As important as size is screen definition - go for the most pixels you can find, to give a crisp, clear display which will be so much easier to use.

You can get a 7" Standard Horizon CP300i with 800x480 pixels for about £520. Or a touchscreen Lowrance HDS7m (also 7" and 800x480) for around £850. Or you can find an even higher definition Lowrance HDS8m 8.4" 800x600 (not touchscreen though) for under £1000.
 
There's also the Garmin 750, 7" touchscreen preloaded with charts which can be bought for around £725. Remember to include the price for charts if the plotter doesn't come preloaded.
I personally prefer to have the plotter at the helm as it can be adjusted/played with while underway.
 
Garmin, Lowrance, Raymarine or Standard Horizon are all worth considering. Get as big as you can afford and mount where you can see from the helm. I could only run to 5" but found it brilliant. Have an alternative mounting by the chart table so you can use it for planning. I personally don't like touch screen as they're not positive enough but try one with gloves on.
 
The only ones I have found with quickly detachable mountings to enable you to take them below are the Advansea T series. To make full use of that you will need a second mounting bracket and power cable. I have the T56 with a 5.6 inch 640 X 480 screen.
It is about the smallest useable size, but in my opinion you really need to use paper charts for all passage planning and serious navigation, just using the plotter for position checking. It is useful to be able to take a plotter below if you want to set up routes on it, after that the rolling road function is useful if you have a long straight motor to a waypoint which is out of sight.
 
Norman_E said:
The only ones I have found with quickly detachable mountings to enable you to take them below are the Advansea T series.
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Surely virtually every plotter on the market comes with a simple mounting bracket and has cables which just plug in the back? I use a Raymarine C120 in the cockpit, and just take it off the bracket and store it below when I leave the boat.
 
Take a look at the Garmin GPSMAP 620. Only 5 inch, but high resolution touch screen (which works fine, even when wet) and internal battery or 12V powered via a 'powered cradle' type bracket, which also charges the internal battery. Consequently simple to use at the helm or down below. The internal antenna is plenty sensitive enough for use below. Also has a car satnav mode, but I have not used this. Can display AIS. It covered all the bases for me and I have been very impressed by it, particularly with the G2 Vision chart, which you will need to buy separately as there is no preloaded chart unfortunately. Curently good offers on e-bay if you are prepared to buy from the US.
 
Like many others, I'd never buy Garmin again after they discontinued G-charts, leaving many thousands of buyers with obsolete plotters. Much safer to buy one of the other makes of plotter, which use commercially available chart cartridges rather than unique own-brand.
 
You can have a repeater at the helm with main unit below. I have a Standard Horizon CP180i, very basic by modern standards but very good to have. I made a bracket for it so it swings out from the companionway to be visible from steering position...
 
Different plotters use different charts. It is worth checking to see if you are happy using the type of chart. Some look just like Admialty charts, some don't.
Ideally, have the plotter where you can see it from the helm. Paper charts, inside, are arguably better for passage planning.
 
Daydream believer said:
Proably something you have not considered is a Yoeman plotter & apologies if you have
I have plugs for it below & in the cockpit so I can have it on my lap in awkward situations when SH sailing
It uses paper charts & it is a fantastic piece of kit
Click to expand...
I also recommend the Yeoman. I have one at the chart table and effectively it is my planner and log. Because on a paper chart you have a wider view than any plotter I refer to it for instance when deciding on a route through the Thames estuary banks. Under way the quick plot on the yeoman marked up every hour gives a continuous log of position, when it is a bit rough it is much easier than recording in a log book.
However I am a great fan of a plotter. We started with a 5" Navman plotter and although this was good I later upgraded to a Garmin 750 and have never regretted the expenditure. Not only is the 7" screen bigger and a lot better sharper ( with more pixels) the software is so much better with instant redrawing as you scroll around rather than on the Navman if you scrolled forward to look for a buoy it was easy to lose your bearings.
The limitation on any plotter is that when you zoom out to view a wider area you lose detail and it no longer shows navigation marks.
 
pvb said:
Like many others, I'd never buy Garmin again after they discontinued G-charts, leaving many thousands of buyers with obsolete plotters. Much safer to buy one of the other makes of plotter, which use commercially available chart cartridges rather than unique own-brand.
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(Un)fortunately technology moves on and while I have some sympathy with your dilemma I think that there are many more instances of obsolescence when you look at land based electronics. Do you still have Betamax tapes?
I remain a fan of Garmin and I would not boycott them because of the instance you relate. I only have to hope they do not do the same again. Any company these days has risks, look how long Raymarine were close to insolvency.
 
johnphilip said:
(Un)fortunately technology moves on and while I have some sympathy with your dilemma I think that there are many more instances of obsolescence when you look at land based electronics. Do you still have Betamax tapes?
I remain a fan of Garmin and I would not boycott them because of the instance you relate. I only have to hope they do not do the same again. Any company these days has risks, look how long Raymarine were close to insolvency.
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People like C-Map and Navionics still support quite old versions of their mapping cartridges. Garmin, as I recall, fell out with whoever was supplying their G-chart cartography and fairly abruptly discontinued it. A lot of people thought that was a callous manouevre.
 
I'd suggest looking at Simrad's NSS7, consider locating it at the helm. Buy the GoFree WiFi unit and then interface with an iPad, you then have a 9 inch screen you can use anywhere inside the boat (or outside if you have a waterproof case). The setup also works with the iPhone and, newer, iTouch. The Apps for the 'i' units are free. If you have an old iPad/iPhone/iTouch you might need to upgrade the OS (if this is the case, save any apps or photos - you will lose everything when you upgrade the OS). This is an economic way of getting a 9 inch screen - as long as you have the iPad to start with. The iPad will do anything the NSS can do, except run autopilot (and this might change). So you can look at and drive the radar, input waypoints - all on the iPad. So you can sit at the saloon table, in the warm and dry, set up new waypoints, develop a route for the day, do it with wife, kids, crew contributing and its all in the NSS for when you want to brave the elements. You can plug virtually any decent transducer into the NSS wiring loom. In Oz the NSS7 price has been cut, I suspect to compete with Raymarine's e7 (which I think does much the same thing with an iPad). The e7 screen is slightly bigger than the NSS7 - but I'm not sure you will tell the difference. Bigger screens are better - but the increase in price from 7 inch to 8 inch is larger than the cost of the best iPad (which is 9 inch). Navico's GoFree currently only works with their NSS units, but I'd expect that to change. I have this feeling the GoFree might work with other phones, tablets but am not sure. No relationships with Navico, Raymarine nor Apple (why do we feel it necessary to say so!). There are other apps, for which you need pay, but I'd expect other free Apps to be offered by Navico in the future, it seems a sensible way to lock in the customer base.
 
Sorry, should have added - we know all this because we have just upgraded. Installation, of the hardware, is easy. Its all plug and play. The only difficulty is feeding the wiring (and its time and patience). Downloading the app is easy. Upgrading the OS, we have an old iPad, took a bit of time, but not much skill. If you have an older NSS, prior 21 Dec 2012, you will need to download the new software (free) from Simrad and input to your NSS unit with a micro SD card, again easy.

We went the Simrad route because we wanted their Broadband radar.

Jonathan
 
I've been holding off for a Garmin as prices having been dropping over recent months. Updated best prices are

Garmin 551s £395

or

Garmin 750 £699

Google ;)

I was thinking about having the GPS swinging out on a bracket from the cabin but having visited the boat yesterday I will now have two mounting brackets. One inside the cabin and one in the cockpit!
 
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Buy a chart plotter with the biggest screen you can afford; 7 inch is the minimum, ideally you want a 10 inch to be able to see a wider area and more visible from distance in the cockpit
 
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC said:
Buy a chart plotter with the biggest screen you can afford; 7 inch is the minimum, ideally you want a 10 inch to be able to see a wider area and more visible from distance in the cockpit
Click to expand...

Whilst I agree with your sentiment, the OP did put an upper limit of £1000 and that won't buy anything much bigger than 7" or 8".

I use a 12" radar/plotter, mounted under the sprayhood, and it's great for route planning as well as being visible from the helm.
 
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