Danny Jo
Well-Known Member
. . . who occasionally, just occasionally, wonders if it wasn't more fun the old way.
Freestyle finally bit the bullet and had a chartplotter installed this year. The intention was to use it primarily to display AIS data, and for navigation purposes only as a backup to conventional navigation on paper charts.
Experience with displays over the chart table of radar (on an ancient CRT screen) and a stand-alone AIS display convinced me that the proper place for the chartplotter was in the cockpit. For that purpose it has proved outstandingly successful, although I regret not following the advice of another forumite, which was to instal a separate switch to the AIS engine so as to shut off the incessant stream of "Dangerous target" alarms that occurs in harbour. (Since corrected while storm-bound in Burtonport.)
But my resolve to carry on with paper charts and GPS position data as my primary navigational tool did not last long. The crew started the rot. At the time of Freestyle's Hebridean cruise in June, I had not completed all the winter refit tasks, and so as to concentrate on them I delegated the navigation and passage planning to a much more experienced sailor (ex ocean racer, Winston Churchill watch leader, etc). He and his techno-savvy assistant (rescue helicopter pilot) took to the chartplotter like ducks to water, and before long the memory chip was stuffed with routes to and from all the nicest anchorages. Even so, we had a rule that critical waypoints had to be entered numerically as latitude and longitude read off the paper chart.
Not having the benefit of such an experienced crew for Freestyle's return via the West coast of Ireland, I found myself cutting corners, using the cursor to enter waypoints and setting routes entirely on the chartplotter. Others, I am sure, will point out the many snares and pitfalls of this approach awaiting the unwary, but those aside, what surprised me was how easy it was. I found myself undertaking passages using the chartplotter that I would not have attempted using paper charts without (a) more crew and (b) considerably more preparation. The inner passage at Malin Head and the South Sound of Aran are two examples.
I guess that I have set myself up to be charged with irresponsibility for placing so much reliance on a collection of silicon chips. But what concerns me more is a niggling sense of loss: some of the fun, perhaps even the sense of achievement, of navigating in the old way has gone, and there is no going back.
Freestyle finally bit the bullet and had a chartplotter installed this year. The intention was to use it primarily to display AIS data, and for navigation purposes only as a backup to conventional navigation on paper charts.
Experience with displays over the chart table of radar (on an ancient CRT screen) and a stand-alone AIS display convinced me that the proper place for the chartplotter was in the cockpit. For that purpose it has proved outstandingly successful, although I regret not following the advice of another forumite, which was to instal a separate switch to the AIS engine so as to shut off the incessant stream of "Dangerous target" alarms that occurs in harbour. (Since corrected while storm-bound in Burtonport.)
But my resolve to carry on with paper charts and GPS position data as my primary navigational tool did not last long. The crew started the rot. At the time of Freestyle's Hebridean cruise in June, I had not completed all the winter refit tasks, and so as to concentrate on them I delegated the navigation and passage planning to a much more experienced sailor (ex ocean racer, Winston Churchill watch leader, etc). He and his techno-savvy assistant (rescue helicopter pilot) took to the chartplotter like ducks to water, and before long the memory chip was stuffed with routes to and from all the nicest anchorages. Even so, we had a rule that critical waypoints had to be entered numerically as latitude and longitude read off the paper chart.
Not having the benefit of such an experienced crew for Freestyle's return via the West coast of Ireland, I found myself cutting corners, using the cursor to enter waypoints and setting routes entirely on the chartplotter. Others, I am sure, will point out the many snares and pitfalls of this approach awaiting the unwary, but those aside, what surprised me was how easy it was. I found myself undertaking passages using the chartplotter that I would not have attempted using paper charts without (a) more crew and (b) considerably more preparation. The inner passage at Malin Head and the South Sound of Aran are two examples.
I guess that I have set myself up to be charged with irresponsibility for placing so much reliance on a collection of silicon chips. But what concerns me more is a niggling sense of loss: some of the fun, perhaps even the sense of achievement, of navigating in the old way has gone, and there is no going back.
