Does anyone still sail without a chart plotter?

[Laser310]

Yes. No chart plotter yet.
definitely much more comfortable with and prefer a chart.

confession time. I often don’t use either.

of course paper charts are fine...

but it is surprisingly easy, in an unfamiliar spot, to be somewhere other than where you think you are. In some situations, you have all the time in the world to study the chart and figure it out. In other situations, things are happening quickly, and you need to make decisions... Chartplotters are ideal for this.

it can be hard to look at paper charts when steering.

 

[NealB]

And I still carry Tidal Stream Atlases.

I must be getting old: it wouldn't even occur to me NOT to have a tidal stream atlas on board.

Plus, I've got loads, for different waters, stashed in the spare room at home for planning/ dreaming.

Tides have always been of great importance in most of my sailing over the years (for efficiency, safety and fun)

 

[Never Grumble]

I would also like to have both touch screen and knobs/buttons

I think you need deep pockets for a chart plotter with both.

 

[cherod]

I think you need deep pockets for a chart plotter with both.

£ 700 , plus a bit for cabling ( if you are lucky ,, 700 - 900 if you are not )

 

[Laser310]

I think you need deep pockets for a chart plotter with both.

in general - yes. I will probably look for a used one on ebay.

 

[Never Grumble]

£ 700 , plus a bit for cabling ( if you are lucky ,, 700 - 900 if you are not )

what do you get for 700 squids ... how big is the screen?

 

[capnsensible]

Cripes Mr C thought you would be a dedicated Lead and Tallow Skipper ?

Pull up a bollard, shipmate, I'll tell you a story. ?

Our yacht is a Moody 33. On our first Carib cruise, I was equipped with an old rotating neon depth sounder. The transducer sits in a bit of plastic pipe up in the fore peak and is filled with oil. Sometimes this bounces up and stops getting a proper reading. Here's how I found that out.

Avast, we was cruisin in the Spanish Main, and it had been as rough as a badgers bottom. Fetched up in Isla Culebra, Spanish Virgin Islands. As you do. Actually American....lots of them ashore. Incidentally the capital...village is called Dewey. This gives the opportunity to enquirered as to why they named it after one of Donald Ducks nephews. This draws blank stares.

Any ways, we entered the anchorage with the sounder dial doing disco crazy. So out comes the trusty lead line and after a short survey, selected our spot and got smartly dug in and secure. Water is un Carib and colour of, well, anywhere in England. However, jobs a goodun. It did though, perplex our elmer cousins who were convinced Brits do this all the time......

Turns out to be a simple fix on the sounder. Cooking oil works. And a rather splendid run ashore, clear in at the airfield. ?

 

[Adios]

However a few times per year, I do venture to unfamiliar waters.. and will occasionally enter a harbour that I don't know.

that should be the easiest part of navigation in theory, with all the buoys and lights to guide us in. But so often I've had a hell of a time spotting the buoy lights from all the background lights and then losing them and its when we're most likely tired. It would make things a lot easier having a plotter at that point, if its detailed enough anyway

 

[cherod]

what do you get for 700 squids ... how big is the screen?

raymarine E140w ( not new but unused, perfect condition ) screen is 14" ,, nearly always av on ebay for 750 + tho condition varies .

 

[doug748]

in general - yes. I will probably look for a used one on ebay.

Further to your earlier post.

If you have a sprayhood..................I found the ideal site for me was above the companionway. It's protected there, out of the sunlight and well placed, as the tiller comfortably places you at the forward end of the cockpit. Never gets in the way either,

Some people love the swinging arms but I never got on with them.

 

[scottie]

Having started sailing in a 188? Gaff cutter with a lead line and compass when I was aged 3?
Being able to have a chart with your position marked accurately is miraculous especially when is is integral to a phone
However I do believe that some people have a built in sense of direction whilst others could get lost in a telephone box

 

[LadyInBed]

Same here. If I was only allowed one instrument it would be the echo sounder.

My echo sounder has been playing silly devils for several years now (engine interference).
I get by ok using soundings and contours from the CP to put me into an anchorage or to tack into shore.
Even running up the Wareham Channel to my mooring and the sounder is working and reading 0.1ft under the keels I'm still happy without it.

 

[Adios]

Having started sailing in a 188? Gaff cutter with a lead line and compass when I was aged 3?
Being able to have a chart with your position marked accurately is miraculous especially when is is integral to a phone
However I do believe that some people have a built in sense of direction whilst others could get lost in a telephone box

No matter where i am in a building or outdoors I reckon I can always point roughly to north if asked. My wife and countless like her, inside their own house point to indicate somewhere nearby and are pointing in completely the wrong direction. I'm pretty sure its learnt though. I just pay attention to that sort of thing so know the rough orientation of any building I'm in relative to a map I looked at to get there. While she was driven there.

 

[siwhi]

A working depth sounder, good eyes, and handheld compass and a sense of caution are indispensable. But for working through skerries and reefs a GPS is fantastic (usual caveats apply such as assuming the charts are accurate).

We set off from the UK on our family trip to Oz with an old built in Raymarine plotter but by the time we got to Spain it stopped working. Didn't bother me as by then I realized programs like Weather 4d gave far superior functionality (weather, waves, tides for some places, currents, and routing on 'real' raster charts) for a fraction of the price on an old tablet. Plus you can take it to the pub to plan, and listen to tunes on it while on watch.

Offshore, plan B was Open CPN or Navionics also on the tablet; plan C was the position from the handheld VHF transposed to old photocopied charts, and plan D was the sextant, or DR and the waypoints from Jimmy Cornell's World Cruising Routes! I've also been known to chalk the Lat & Long of the destination's safe water mark on a locker door just in case all else failed (lightning strike / flood).

 

[mjcoon]

No matter where i am in a building or outdoors I reckon I can always point roughly to north if asked. My wife and countless like her, inside their own house point to indicate somewhere nearby and are pointing in completely the wrong direction. I'm pretty sure its learnt though. I just pay attention to that sort of thing so know the rough orientation of any building I'm in relative to a map I looked at to get there. While she was driven there.

Does she know whether she is pointing with the left or right hand?

 

[Adios]

Does she know whether she is pointing with the left or right hand?

She's a pretty capable person in most ways, just a blind spot for navigation from managing to get through life never trying. I print out a bit of OS map when we go for our regular walks in the country and the kids take it in turns to be that days navigator with a compass or without. We used to do geocaching to make it more interesting but then I realised its just more electronics and screen time.

 

[Poignard]

My echo sounder has been playing silly devils for several years now (engine interference).
I get by ok using soundings and contours from the CP to put me into an anchorage or to tack into shore.
Even running up the Wareham Channel to my mooring and the sounder is working and reading 0.1ft under the keels I'm still happy without it.

That's OK if you can rely on the accuracy of the charted depths displayed on the chartplotter.

Like Bartleby the Scrivener, "I would prefer not to"

 

[Adios]

I realized programs like Weather 4d gave far superior functionality (weather, waves, tides for some places, currents, and routing on 'real' raster charts) for a fraction of the price on an old tablet. Plus you can take it to the pub to plan, and listen to tunes on it while on watch.

I just looked at their website seems to be 70 euros a year for all the UK charts does that include tides and weather? weather4d | GeoGarage Can see the point if travelling a lot but if staying fairly local I guess its not much good. Though the charts are updated quarterly so that adds a fair bit of value if someone was the sort of person to keep their charts that up to date.

Offshore, plan B was Open CPN

I think I've got an ancient full set of CPN vector charts somewhere that I was planning to keep as a back up as well. Might need a more recent version of the program to use them in though. I could test my theory that bugger all changes on charts if I needed to use them.

 

[Laser310]

If you have a sprayhood..................I found the ideal site for me was above the companionway. It's protected there, out of the sunlight and well placed, as the tiller comfortably places you at the forward end of the cockpit. Never gets in the way either,

i don't.., and don't plan on getting one - not the right sort of boat for it

 

[mjcoon]

She's a pretty capable person in most ways, just a blind spot for navigation from managing to get through life never trying. I print out a bit of OS map when we go for our regular walks in the country and the kids take it in turns to be that days navigator with a compass or without. We used to do geocaching to make it more interesting but then I realised its just more electronics and screen time.

I had in mind the distinction between those who have to turn their atlas around when driving to route-up orientation before they can tell whether to turn left or right. Clockwise vs ACW doesn't cut it for them. Similar problems with charts and plotters...