Chartplotter, Electronics fail while at sea, anyone suffered the misfortune?

[duncan]

some of the issues referenced here will be 'wiring dependent' and others remind me of the Yachtmaster examination where the pupil was anchored, the examiner kept increasing the wind. pupil kept responding that he would increase the rode.... examiner "where are you getting all this extra warp from?" pupil "same place you are getting the wind!"

I've only got a little boat, with the one engine (sans electronics) but an old GPS unit is wired to the radio and both are wired direct to a battery. two other plotters are wired through the battery switch in the normal way and a hand held plotter is in the grab bag.

I never physically log my position on a chart every hour because (1) I know where I am every minute with at least the accuracy of a 1 hour DR plot from last plotted position and (2) I would have to stop the boat, find a pencil, put up the cockpit table.... - sadly I live in the real world.

If I lost all GPS data instantly my initial decision is simple - it it safe to continue on that heading or should I reverse my course (based on where I was heading and where I've just come from) after which I just consider my future navigation challenge in the time honored ways.

 

[Seastoke]

Keep it clean please

yes and had handheld go down to. :ambivalence:

 

[Jim@sea]

I had total electrical failure when "everything" went off during the night when motor sailing from Falmouth to Holyhead.
I had bought a boat and a boatyard fitted two new batteries. They were higher than the original and I said that they looked insecure but they said that they would be OK.
During the night it was blowing a bit and we were motor sailing, one of the batteries leant against the adjacent diesel tank and the battery lugs shorted out on the metal causing a short.
Everything went off. The only thing working was the compass. No VHF,no lights, nothing.
Fortunately the engine carried on running and when I prised the battery off the side of the tank everything came back on again.
We went to the nearest port (Cork) where I switched the engine off and immediately tried to start it again but both batteries were totally dead.
It dosent matter how good your navigation aids are if the power supply goes down.

 

[Kawasaki]

yep loads of times 'things' have conked out
Well, over a long boaty career, better some years ago when vhf sets like the Sailor (the big green one with a telephone handle) and basic gps with just lat and long, they seemed to be more reliable than some of the stuff that tries to do too much nowadays!
I have a Garmin 276 C it's a great stand alone plotter, better than the current model I reckon for simplicity of use and reliability .
Great when moving peeps boats or doing Own Boat tuition
Quite often the Scenario goes like this
'Can you help me move my boat and show me some stuff on the way'?
'Yep no problem as long as there a Litre of single malt from around Islay at the end of the Gig'!
Is the usual reply, in fact it is now written in to the Contract
'Oh me plotter don't work, I got a new un comin but the leccy engineer fella says he can't do it till a week on Wednesday'
How the heck its always a week on Wednesday, Ill never know but it usually is
Then a week on Wednesday comes and he can't fit it cos the job he was doin a week on Tuesday took longer cos the bits didn't arrive!!
I,m sure you all know the score
Then there is 'I got a great Big Plotter all singin and dancing but I am not sure how it works and the previous owner of the boat has lost the manual (probably cos he never looked at it!) and I fired it up last week and now its got all strange cos I,m not sure if its North Up or Head up, I,ll get me Grandson ter fix it!'
Anyway
Me little Garmin has come in dead handy loads of times
Always do the paper thing anyway cos I enjoys it and it don't take long and it don't 'break'!
Seek them out them little Garmins folks
250 ter 350 on fleabay
Good kit

 

[Baddox]

I’ve had a GPS fail but still had a second plotter to rely on.
We had a family flotilla holiday sailing around the Ionian islands in a 36 yacht. For some reason we were put in with the more experienced fleet, who actually varied greatly in ability. One crew were particularly prone to mishaps and after a 27mile leg we were impressed to see that they had arrived at the right place. My wife complimented them on this and they replied that they simply turned the autopilot on. It transpired that our boat was the only one without GPS and relied on navigating by compass and chart. Old school nav added to the enjoyment of the two weeks holiday, especially as we didn’t get lost.

 

[kcrane]

I have a plotter, plus Navionics on the iphone and ipad. If each of these would fail once every 3 years on average, then the chances of all three devices failing at the same time is a billion to one (OK, you could argue a million to one at the point the first one fails, but that still makes it damned unlikely), so the only realistic chance of failure is the GPS satellite system going down or being switched off. It's only likely to be switched off with an imminent threat of major warfare, which would probably make the news, so that leaves GPS system failure. Last time I looked there were 31 GPS satellites, 10-16 in view at any time, and only 5 or so needed for a decent fix.

I think there are better things to worry about

+1

 

[Monique]

iPhone with "Compass" app will give you heading and LAT/LONG.

Plot it on your paper chart and determine the new COG, apply drift as per almanach and Bob's your uncle!

 

[Marsupial]

Yes, many times mostly displays giving up, but out here GPS and Chart alignment is so inaccurate that electronics is only ever an aid to navigation and not to be taken too seriously.

 

[speedfiend]

Hi ,
My GPS linked to chart plotter went down in The Dover Straight.
Panicked but reverted to paper chart and navigated back to Ipswich inside the Goodwin sands.
Felt a whole lot better for the experience!
It was a loose cable on the antenna.
S

 

[Fusebox]

Our Lowrance Globalmap 5300 iGPS lost position last saturday (may 24th, around 12 am (11 UTC/GMT)), calm and sunny day, nothing to upset wires or any shadow on the GPS antenna. This has happened a few times before, but only for a short while (a few minutes). This time it did not get a new fix for 10 minutes. Entered System menu and re-initialized satellite search. Got position fix within 30 seconds...

Didn't bother to check Raymarine C80 downstairs, due to very well known waters.

Very strange.

 

[Talulah]

These days with an AIS transponder you could even phone home and ask who's ever there to relay your position off marinetraffic.com ;-)