electronic displays in the cockpit?

[maby]

Most folk when on a long passage sit ahead of a wheel so binnacle mounted instruments cannot be seen.
steering an aircraft @ 180kts is quite a different from a cruising yacht @ 7kts with an auto pilot doing the steering

That's true of long legs of a passage in open water and good visibility - but you really don't need the plotter/radar/ais for that. If I'm in a busy seaway, or visibility is poor, the autopilot goes off and I'm at the helm - that's where I want my instruments. If I'm in open water with a visibility of ten miles or more and no other ship in sight (without the aid of binoculars, at least), then I don't feel the need to be looking at the screen very often.

 

[prv]

Possibly, but that is not quite what Pete was saying - he seemed to be implying that looking at a plotter screen made him wander off course :

"If I have to concentrate on something inside the boat for any length of time, I generally start wandering off course."

A plotter is generally ok, at least for just looking rather than messing about with menus. The picture is clear, so I don't need to stare at it for so long.

I absolutely agree with what Dave says about needing to interpret a radar picture, though. What was the name of that collision on the east coast where both yacht and ship were watching each other on radar, but not properly plotting, and ran into each other when they thought they would pass clear?

Pete

 

[prv]

I too used to have that touching faith in chart plotters but they are only as good as the incoming data. One in Greece showed us sailing directly over the top of Skorpios, out by several hundred yards. A Yachtmaster instructor pointed out that our supa dupa up to date electronic chart was based on soundings taken in 1890something and that in an area of sandbanks and shifting channels. We were given a short, grumpy lesson on the danger of navigating the chart rather than the reality. We use our chartplotter to give us the gist of where we are, but for actual on the spot coastal nav, echosounder and eyeball every time. We have subsequently seen first hand that the plotter is unreliable finding deep channels in our home waters so I wouldn't treat it as infallible anywhere else.

This is exactly what I was thinking as I read John's post number 30

Jinking around Thames Estuary sandbanks based only on survey data? Shudder. There have been any number of cases where the reality doesn't match the charts, even with the latest available corrections. The one that springs to mind is that motorboat that ended up high and dry, and rescued by the lifeboat, in what the latest chart said should be three metres below datum.

Pete

 

[Dockhead]

I guess my setup is going to fall under the condemned "Starship Enterprise" type.

But anyway, I consider that the nav table, helm, and scuttle are all essential workplaces where access to nav data is really needed. I spend a lot of time at the nav table when not single-handed, where I do most of the navigation and a lot of radar watch and other jobs. So I have there a B&G Zeus 8" non-touchscreen MFD, plus a B&G Triton, plus a Maretron DSM-250. The Triton is often set to a screen which shows true wind in relation to the compass, with outside temp and baro also displayed, but it has lots of useful screens, including especially the GPS screen which has all the essential data from an old-fashioned hand-held GPS (COG, SOG, DTW, ETA, time, coordinates). The DSM-250 is for engine monitoring when motoring (RPM, coolant temp, oil pressure, fuel flow), for wind when anchored (ground wind speed and compass direction, 24 hour barograph, temp inside and out, time, date, etc. The Zeus, besides giving chart and radar, can control the pilot. So I can actually run and steer the boat from the nav table if I like, as long as someone is keeping a visual watch above.

At the helm, I have another Zeus, this one the touchscreen version, plus another Triton, pilot keypad, and FLS display. On the scuttle, visible from helm or anywhere else in the cockpit, are four more Tritons. Typically set on Speed/Depth, GPS, Wind, and one wild card which is used for all kinds of things including wind graph, engine monitoring, steering compass, other useful Triton screens.

That leaves me without a plotter if I'm keeping watch from under the sprayhood while the autopilot steers. So I usually use an IPlod with INavX there. I've been trying to get GoFree to work on it, but the miserable Apple product crashes with it. Oh well.

 

[prv]

I guess my setup is going to fall under the condemned "Starship Enterprise" type.

Not according to my definition thereof. You certainly have a lot of toys, but what I was objecting to was concentrating all instruments on the binnacle directly in front of the helm. That's not what you're doing.

I've never used FLS, but that seems like a case where the helm is absolutely the right place.

Pete

 

[Dockhead]

Not according to my definition thereof. You certainly have a lot of toys, but what I was objecting to was concentrating all instruments on the binnacle directly in front of the helm. That's not what you're doing.

I've never used FLS, but that seems like a case where the helm is absolutely the right place.

Pete

I guess this is mostly a question of where you do what job.

At the helm, I think you need plotter and pilot control minimum. The plotter there is mostly for fine pilotage when you may be hand steering but need to know continuously where you are. Then you can also keep a radar watch at the helm, but that's the least desirable place to do that.

I'm speaking of electronic instruments; the magnetic compass is for me the main instrument altogether, and I refer to it more than to the electronic instruments. The Tritons have an excellent compass display screen you can use when you're not behind the real magnetic compass.

Other instruments should be at the scuttle or mast base, so that you can see them from anywhere in the cockpit, I think. I guess most of us who trust our pilots will not keep watch from behind the helm. I usually do it from the front part of the cockpit, from where I can also do sail trimming. In bad weather I hunker down under the sprayhood, or even stand on the companionway with my head and shoulders sticking up out of the companionway hatch, looking out over the foredeck, if the weather is really miserable. It would be good to have another MFD there, and it used to be common to have your MFD under the sprayhood rather than on the binnacle. But then you can't use it for fine pilotage while hand steering. And having three MFD's seems a bit OTT to me.

So it means that when I'm single-handed I often find myself stuck behind the helm when I'd prefer to be under the sprayhood. With crew, I can usually do most of the work on passage from the nav table, while crew sits comfortably under the sprayhood keeping a visual watch, and trimming the sails.

 

[lustyd]

A plotter is generally ok, at least for just looking rather than messing about with menus. The picture is clear, so I don't need to stare at it for so long.

I absolutely agree with what Dave says about needing to interpret a radar picture, though. What was the name of that collision on the east coast where both yacht and ship were watching each other on radar, but not properly plotting, and ran into each other when they thought they would pass clear?

Pete

Just because it's come up and quite a few people will be saying to themselves "but RADAR is easy to use, what are these numpties on about..." here is a little link http://www.playdeau.com/radar-assisted-collisions-and-marpa/
It doesn't list radar assisted collisions but helps to point out that almost everyone will use the system wrong if left untrained - I certainly would have!

 

[GHA]

And having three MFD's seems a bit OTT to me.

Just a bit
Doubt if I'll ever get round to having one. I still want the impossible, hardly anything on the cockpit until those rare moments when you want everything, though mostly that's from offshore solo, keep the boat happy and if it's going roughly the right way then even better.
AIS is so wonderful but if there is a downside it's that you need to keep the gps on and can't completely unhook from the exact world of electronics and practice relaxing in uncertainty

Ever a compromise is sailing

 

[maby]

Just a bit
Doubt if I'll ever get round to having one. I still want the impossible, hardly anything on the cockpit until those rare moments when you want everything, though mostly that's from offshore solo, keep the boat happy and if it's going roughly the right way then even better.
AIS is so wonderful but if there is a downside it's that you need to keep the gps on and can't completely unhook from the exact world of electronics and practice relaxing in uncertainty

Ever a compromise is sailing

Oh, no! I want electronic bling... I want so much electronic bling that the lights dim when I turn the navigation on! I want a binnacle that leaves the captain of a modern warship envious!

 

[ianj99]

Oh, no! I want electronic bling... I want so much electronic bling that the lights dim when I turn the navigation on! I want a binnacle that leaves the captain of a modern warship envious!

It might be cheaper (and safer for everyone) if you built a sailing simulator complete with all the virtual instruments you can dream of.http://www.ybw.com/forums/images/smilies/smile.png

 

[prv]

AIS is so wonderful but if there is a downside it's that you need to keep the gps on and can't completely unhook from the exact world of electronics and practice relaxing in uncertainty

You could use a "puck" type GPS, then there's no display to stare at, at least

Pete

 

[maby]

You could use a "puck" type GPS, then there's no display to stare at, at least

Pete

I'm not sure how AIS without a display would work. Alarm goes off and you know that something is going to hit you, but you don't know what, where or when!

 

[prv]

I'm not sure how AIS without a display would work. Alarm goes off and you know that something is going to hit you, but you don't know what, where or when!

It's the GPS that lacks a display, not the AIS. I was imagining leaving my AIS display on but turning everything else off. My VHF and AIS share a puck GPS, so there'd be no specific position display (though you can extract a lat/long from both devices if you want to).

That said, I got the impression the OP was thinking of ocean sailing - where perhaps a simple alert that there's something out there is useful.

Pete

 

[BruceDanforth]

I have a Garmin 450 plotter, depth and compass on the bulkheads in the cockpit. Behind me on the rail is the log.

 

[GHA]

That said, I got the impression the OP was thinking of ocean sailing - where perhaps a simple alert that there's something out there is useful.

Pete

Offshore (ocean) the single handed top 3 don't leave home without I have are nasa AIS standalone, masthead led and wind vane, then when the engine packs up and the batteries give up you can still have steering, an alarm alert of other traffic (99% anyway, the few out there are big and transmitting) and a light at night.

Solo it would be nice to go completely off the grid but not really practical.

Coastal high hopes are still riding on an experia mirroring a cubietruck with OpenCpn. And a standard horizon remote mic.

 

[Storyline]

Have always fancied having a small plotter at the wheel but as others have said, a lot of the time when on passage George is in control and we are free to stick our heads through the hatch to look at the roof mounted plotter/radar. Do not want to sound like an old codger but I feel the longer you have been sailing thr less you look at instuments. The refit of our first boat saw all sorts of meters but when we refitted Storyline we had different priorites such as dedicated crane for o/b, new wonderful stem head fitting, wind generator etc. The only cockpit displays now are depth/log, compass and a dodgy Tack**** which is broken in one quadrant. Really do not miss anything and rely on tbe windy at the top of the mast.

In fog, our system is to have one person down below working the radar more or less constantly and the other on the helm or at least within easy reach of George's control panel