chartplotters

[jaycee]

my boat is a 32ft.motorsailor,she is equiped with an oldish radar which works fine,and i also use a h/held garmin gps. my regular cruising field extends around the s.w. of ireland.i would(i think)like to invest in a chartplotter. forgetting the price for a minute i would like the following
.colour
.depth as an optional add on
.integrated antenna
.good coverage of s.w. ireland in particular
has anyone got experiences of using different plotters and was it worth the cost?
many thanks.

 

[jfm]

Chartplotters are fab. you will never want a numerical lat/long GPS job ever again. Get colour screen. There are none or virtually none with builtin antenna, so you will need a separate one, but that's fine

Suggest look at the end-of-line Raymarine HSB2 series, they are an absolute bargain only availble for the next few weeks

7inch RL70CRC is about £700 and 10inch is about £1000.

Both display depth if you get the raymarine transducer to plug in via seatalk, or feed in depth data via NMEA. If you want graphical depth like sonar you need a Raymarine DSM250 to plug in, with a special transducer, but that may be ott.

Charts are CMap and the southern ireland ones are fine. I use them out of kinsale, glandore, Rosscarbery

 

[MarkJohnson12345]

We use a Furuno, which happens to have a radar integrated.

However, colour comes with the package, but the plotter needs a seperate GPS, and echo sounder, plus a thingy compass if you want it orientated to north.

Charts are quite pricey, I imagine the South of Ireland would be on just one chip. I paid £180 for the Western half of the English Channel, same again for the Bristol Channel which goes well into Ireland, and last year had to buy another £180 'worth to go to Brittany.

Pricey way of doing it, and not really essential in my opinion. Bit of a luxury. It was the radar I wanted, so bougth the chart plotter as the option to buy both was there.

Regards

 

[Anonymous]

Navman do chartplotters with integrated aerials. I have the 5500i - the suffix 'i' indicates integrated GPS. The integral GPS doesn't work very reliably when in my steering position below but above decks it is fine (I have wired two sockets). I usually use mine set to external GPS (it is user selectable from the screen) but it is nice to know that it can work autonomously if the main GPS fails. I have wired mine into the NMEA bus so it controls the ST 7000 autopilot and puts a lollypop on the R80 radar and remote display. I paid £500 for the 5500i including the CMap cartridge. Yes, I feel that it was money well spent - it has been very useful. the 5600 has a larger display but I was trying to keep costs down - after all, we always managed to get about without a plotter so what improvement to our lifestyles would the £500 make? In our case, we are cruising to the Med and this has meant that I can manage with far fewer paper charts (I have bought a lot of old uncorrected charts) so has probably paid for itself.

 

[castaway]

I use a Yeoman plotter with a Garmin 128 GPS. In a motor sailor where presumably you have a wheel house (as I do) I really do rate it.

I recently did a trip to the Canaries on a delivery with a Benateau 393 that was fitted with a Raymarine C70 and had 12 days to get used to it, at the end I still thought of it as clever toy.

However the skipper who was very experienced (and getting on a bit) thought it was marvellous, and hated the Yeoman!

I just can't get used to viewing stuff on such a small screen. I guess I would be happier with the C120 size.

The thing is that if you were a conventional yacht with tiny chart area that is miles from the helm these fully electronic plotters are a real boon.

Regds Nick

www.yachtsite.co.uk/fairweather

 

[jaycee]

thank you all very much for your inputs,you know whats it like, as time advances there is new electronic wizardry but is it necessary(probably not)but, would it make life easier and safer,maybe. thanks.

 

[BlueMan]

jaycee,
Garmin come in for lots of stick here on the forums but I think the Garmin 172C may be just what you are looking for. An echo sounder can be added as an option or you can buy them together as the 178C. There is an integrated antenna option or you can have an external one as I have. The screen is small but excellent quality and the Garmin operating logic is much more intuitive than some other manufacturer's.

I am perfectly happy with the Bluechart coverage of the UK south coast but I can't comment on your area.

In my opinion it is definitely worth a look and prices have come down a lot over the last 12 months. I have mine at the wheel of my yacht and the real bonus is that when everyone is below I still know exactly where I am, what is around me, and can follow or adjust the planned route as necessary. A bigger display would be good but for me having it fit at the wheel is more important.

 

[EagerV]

Hi John

Have a look at the Lowrance 3500C Plotter. Most of us here at Kilmore Quay have left Garmin for Lowrance. The plotter is the only one in its class with 480 x 480 screen resolution , the clarity has to be seen to be believed. It leaves Garmin and others in the dark ages imho.
The Navionics Gold extra large chart covers the whole coast of Ireland and the Wales coast plus Scotland and down to Nortern Brittany. Detail for our area is also much better than CMap in my opinion. All for about 850 Euro incl charts. (£360 Plotter + £199 Chart) The garmin equiv incl charts for these areas would cost vastly more.

Cheers,
Nigel.

 

[FWB]

Agree ! I have the 3500C, it's the dogs wotsits !

 

[TigaWave]

I've found the laptop option to be the best for me, very versatile and I can plug in any one of three gps's into it for when they fail as they seem to. I had two hand held and one fixed all with nmea plug to laptop on my last boat.
Just that I've experienced two handheld Garmins failing within 12 hours of each other so I tend not to trust them.
Laptop gives great large screen and I can print off charts at different scales for pilotage on entry to new harbours, and for using as hard copy of position fixes on passages, all on A4 sheets in plastic wallets.
So really no need for paper charts at all.
If chart plotter fails you'll need paper.
Neil

 

[bob_tyler]

I concur with the recommendation for the Navman 5500i.

Out today and it was receiving 9 and using 7 satellites to establish position despite being mounted below, beneath a deck mounted solar panel!

Don't see the point of any external aerial which requires wiring and can be vulnerable to damage.

 

[Anonymous]

"Don't see the point of any external aerial which requires wiring and can be vulnerable to damage."

If you want to interface it to an autopilot or radar then it will need to be connected to the NMEA bus in any case, and if you already have a GPS on that bus it doesn't require any further wiring to use it. Then you have a backup. With my 5500i the internal GPS works OK below in dry weather but with a lot of dense raincloud and a wet deck it is unreliable.

 

[Rob_Webb]

Likewise I love my Navman. I've got the 5600 with larger 6.25in screen and separate aerial so my particular model isn't the one for you. But in general I've found all my Navman kit great value and a joy to use.

 

[petercornish]

What I don't like about chart plotters is the unstabilised display in bad weather unless you are in North Up mode.

I got a Yeoman which can be linked to your GPS and Radar and my wife, the navigator loved how simple it was to use and how accurate it was. You can do all sorts of things with it and you don't have to buy expensive electronic charts.

You can use any chart you like on them and you still have the comfort of a paper chart.

 

[bob_tyler]

I always leave my plotter in North up mode. I learnt to read OS maps in my youth in this mode and have continued this practice on both land and sea so the problem of instability does not arise.

 

[jfm]

Most navigators will use north up mode. (Would you turn your paper chart upside down if you were travelling south? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif)

 

[FWB]

I think North up is ok for a large screen, but for a small screen heading up seems more logical unless set to view a large area.