Course Up?

Typical journey for me. Cardiff to Bristol. Leave Cardiff via slightly tricky channel at low ish water often less than half a metre clearance. Eyeball pilotage, frequent looks down to the plotter to show tidal effect on projected course,in course up, as discussed above. North up would be confusing. Out in the channel north up zoomed out, following waypoints. I'm in two minds if the overview of distant AIS targets is better than living in my own world of eyeball and alarm. Towards river entrance back to course up, as waypoint passed becomes effectively head up for more eyeball / transit pilotage with frequent looks down for confirmation.North up again confusing.

K

K
 
Elessar said:
Well that shows you understand the difference and that is very logical. It makes sense, but you cant use course up for pilotage can you? Unless you have loads of waypoints.
Click to expand...

I often put the final destination as a waypoint, say a port or head of a river, not lots of waypoints en route. The display then sits very stable, the river or estuary may twist and turn a bit but the plotter chart remains generally orientated in the direction I'm going. It doesn't matter which people use but they need to know what they're looking at. For us a tricky new destination has us both working the pilotage and sharing a course up chartplotter, it makes sense for someone to point to a light or mark on the plotter and point forward to where they think that is. Heading south toward St Peter Port would make that collaborative pilotage tricky for us with a north up orientation.
 
Kerenza said:
Typical journey for me. Cardiff to Bristol. Leave Cardiff via slightly tricky channel at low ish water often less than half a metre clearance. Eyeball pilotage, frequent looks down to the plotter to show tidal effect on projected course,in course up, as discussed above. North up would be confusing. Out in the channel north up zoomed out, following waypoints. I'm in two minds if the overview of distant AIS targets is better than living in my own world of eyeball and alarm. Towards river entrance back to course up, as waypoint passed becomes effectively head up for more eyeball / transit pilotage with frequent looks down for confirmation.North up again confusing.

K

K
Click to expand...

I know the channel well I sailed out of Penarth for years racing every week of the year.

It shows it is each to their own. I find anyrhing other than north up, even in the situation you describe, confusing.

But the fact that you and so many others find it confusing is a surprise and (as an instructor) a wake up call.
 
LadyInBed said:
it is nice when coming up on deck sleepy eyed to look at the plotter and know that what is at the top of the screen is in front of you rather than have to check the compass first to see which way we are pointing!
Click to expand...

I don't have to check the compass!

All three displays (plotter, AIS, radar) have a "ship's head" line showing which way we're going. I find that a very natural way of understanding the situation.

(Strictly speaking the AIS one is COG rather than heading as it only has GPS data, but the difference is irrelevant for orientation purposes. The radar line is heading, and the plotter shows both which is very useful.)

Pete
 
As well as a heading and course line, my boat is represented on the plotter by a "boat", so orientation is self-evident.
 
Kerenza said:
I wonder if it's something genetic like being able to roll your tongue etc? Different people are certainly very strong in their preferences.

K
Click to expand...

Could be but is probably an age thing, there will be exceptions but I'd guess then generally older people will prefer North up and younger people prefer course up or head up. If sat nav feels likes a new thing to you then probably so will course up. The two older children instinctively know what's presented on the plotter in course up.
 
An interesting discussion, and food for thought. I've never used anything but north-up on the boat. In the car I nearly always us course-up, though I have recently realised that if I'm not following a route, north-up provides me with a map that is much easier to understand.

I will try course-up on the boat. I think it will make it easier to find buoys and other features sometimes. My main reservation is that vertical dimension of the screen is the smaller one, made worse by the bad of numerical data displayed along the top. That could be moved to one side but would make the whole exercise a bigger learning curve as at the moment I instinctively know where to look for the desired data.

As a slight aside, I find screens a bit annoying when the boat (or car) are displayed in the middle of the screen. I'm much more interested in what's in front than what's behind, so half the screen area is being wasted. My Raymarine C70 is set up so that 2/3 of the screen is "ahead", but that's not possible in my car.
 
I've always used North-up, and I'm happy with it, but this discussion has got me thinking. Next week when I'm rock dodging in some narrow channel, I'll try head up, or course up, or whatever the options are, which I've never used, on my new plotter.
 
prv said:
I guess it's a personal preference thing - but I would always use north up, to match the chart in my head.

Before decent fluxgate compasses, budget radars were heading-up because that's all the technology could do. I imagine there are a fair number here who got used to that and now use their radars in course-up mode (basically head-up with some damping). But having got a radar for the first time last year, I'm sticking with the advice in Robert Avis's book that "no professional seafarer should ever use anything but north-up".

Pete
Click to expand...

I always orientate maps if I'm out walking, also charts if I'm trying to relate to what I'm seeing around me. As we normally travel forwards and want to avoid bumping into something which is in a fixed position, it also makes more sense to me to have radar and plotter set to course up.
 
Head up for me, same as when flying. Completely agree with the spacial awareness argument which is why we never use north up in aircraft except for preflight planning.
 
The car or aeroplane analogy is relevant to pilotage situations where things happen faster than nav in open waters (where north-up is the usual obvious mode), therefore head-up is a good option here for those who struggle with visual gymnastics - think of the rolling road type of pilotage plan with three columns on a notepad. North is irrelevant here, what's important is what you can see or shortly expect to see from the cockpit to port or starboard as you wind up or down a channel. Course up with an ultimate destination way beyond a series of sharp bends would be annoying if not plain confusing.

On my unintegrated radar, which I only really use for big ship avoidance, I'm stuck with head-up - but with 'trace' on or wax pencil plots on the screen I can quickly estimate CPA.

In the car my Samsung's satnav does both. North-up for journey planning and route options (nav) and head-up for driving along (pilotage).
 
Kerenza said:
My plotter has several preconfigured pages. Page one is chart North up similar zoom to real chart size. Page 2 is chart course up, zoomed in. I find it most convenient to see the overview as if looking at a real chart and swop pages for approaching hazards or following a river.
Click to expand...

I guess that is similar to what I do in a car, so perhaps I'll give it a try.
 
Kerenza said:
Although the difference between course up and head up on a large ship is another discussion, the following is interesting reading.

http://www.niqld.net/resources/bridge_instrument_orientation.pdf

Essentially argues spatial awareness and work load factors favour non mental realignment.
Click to expand...


Fine stuff.

I guess you then have to mentally realign, from one to t'other, at some stage. So you push the opportunity for confusion down the line a bit. The good Captain seems to make a few leaps of faith in the logic department.

Who is Dr Porathe? Sounds like we should get 007 onto him. A bibliography would have helped.
 
I have already written why i use heading up http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?406672-Course-Up&p=4907365#post4907365

Some picture of the screen of my MFD from this summer cruise, we where sailing in all these cases.
BD05229A-EE49-4A1A-ABE1-AF3F5392080A_zpsepiu0fs6.jpg


6C50819E-2629-42B2-8722-60E9786F1087_zpseftid5xa.jpg


This is with track showing also
A723B6D6-E311-4B3F-8C51-54480397E46C_zpsgyrchje7.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

lustyd
VHF course help
4 5 6
Replies
113
Views
1K
billskip
billskip
Refueler
Navionics Boating gives me river nav coverage .....
Replies
8
Views
267
Refueler
Refueler

Share this page

Top