eNavigation

lustyd

lustyd

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Just had an email from RYA on “the rise of eNavigation”. Seems to me it’s 20 years too late to talk about the rise of it or to call it eNavigation. In 2026 surely it’s just navigation and is the standard.

“The RYA is working to define and embed the core principles and techniques needed to safely navigate digitally.”
No RYA, you missed it.
 
lustyd said:
Just had an email from RYA on “the rise of eNavigation”. Seems to me it’s 20 years too late to talk about the rise of it or to call it eNavigation. In 2026 surely it’s just navigation and is the standard.

“The RYA is working to define and embed the core principles and techniques needed to safely navigate digitally.”
No RYA, you missed it.
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RYA has been training on both paper and electronic navigation for a couple of decades. And they have been moving the emphasis more onto the electronic over the years.
But have you looked at the wording associated with your chart plotter when you start up ? The Raymarine wording on ours is below.

So currently it has been difficult for any official body to formally adopt use of electronic navigation as the sole or primary source, when the products themselves say not to be used for primary navigation.

WARNING - LIMITATIONS ON USE
This product is intended to be used only as an aid to navigation. It is the captain's responsibility to use official government charts, notices to mariners, caution, sound judgment and proper navigational skill when operating their vessel or using this or any other Raymarine product.
1. I acknowledge the above warning, accept the limitations of this product and the electronic charts, and assume total responsibility for and risk associated with using this product.
2. I have read the documentation for this product and the end-user license agreement for any chart I intend to use and agree to be bound by their
 
Whether it’s sole or not they’re talking like it’s the 1990’s and it’s new. The linked article even starts with “The way we navigate is set to change.”. My point was that for most people that happened 20 years ago and we now just call it Navigation.

The RYA has a way of speaking like your grandad explaining the Internet, it’s embarrassing and they need to get some fresh blood on this stuff. How can we support an organisation that comes across as so completely out of touch?
 
The change they're discussing is the RYA, MCA etc. work with the IMO to create an international standard for small craft plotters that would remove the text @dunedin mentions.

That will then allow sailing schools to start using eNavigation only.
 
It’s the way they talk about it, if they want to be taken seriously, or frankly even retain any members who aren’t obliged to pay them (instructors, for instance) then they need to get with the times.
It’s not “e-Navigation” it’s just navigation. It’s not new, we’ve been doing it for decades. We don’t need to come up with ways to use these new fangled plotter things, we’ve been using them quite effectively for a long time.
Yes, the RYA team seems to need to catch up, but we don’t need their input we need them to stop holding everyone back. If there’s a problem then they should highlight it, otherwise the time to discuss has long since passed.
 
The problem is that a coded yacht can't legally use a plotter by itself so there needs to be one they can, and there are so few coded yachts, it would be uneconomic for manufacturers make a special version, so they need all plotters to comply.
 
Yes I know. I wonder which organisation has been holding it back? Oh yes. RYA.
If they want to be able to draw on the screen just say so, we don’t need a committee to faff around for another ten years to say that. Nobody on a small boat will ever use those features, if that was likely the features would be there now. If they can’t tell us today what’s missing then approve what we do have and add to it later. This is just the old mens club old mens clubbing as they always have done, and they look foolish.
 
st599 said:
The spec needs to be published by the International Maritime Organisation which is a UN organisation - it will take quite some time.
Click to expand...
And meanwhile nobody really cares. We’re all navigating using well proven tools. Even coded boats keep their paper stuff in the drawer just for compliance.
Granddad at the RYA is telling us we should care about this electromagomical stuff, but aside from that the world carries on turning.
 
lustyd said:
And meanwhile nobody really cares. We’re all navigating using well proven tools. Even coded boats keep their paper stuff in the drawer just for compliance.
Granddad at the RYA is telling us we should care about this electromagomical stuff, but aside from that the world carries on turning.
Click to expand...

Everytime someone replies to you, you keep moving the goal posts.

I really don't get why the wording of that sentence has set you off so much.
And in case you hadn't noticed, charts (the paper kind) are getting much harder to get hold of & more expensive.

Large ships for years have been able to navigate exlcusively with electronic means, it took a lot longer (decades) for smaller commercial vessels (under 24m) to finally get a proper approval for an all electronic setup. (SV-ECS)
So its hardly surprising that its taking even longer to filter down to leisure levels, where lets face it half the people seem to navigate with an iPad anyway. For all its faults, I don't think you can throw this one at the RYAs doorstep.
 
Ceirwan said:
And in case you hadn't noticed, charts (the paper kind) are getting much harder to get hold of & more expensive.
Click to expand...
Because nobody uses them. Coded boats are buying them because they’re obliged to, not because they use them.
Ceirwan said:
So its hardly surprising that its taking even longer to filter down to leisure levels, where lets face it half the people seem to navigate with an iPad anyway.
Click to expand...
That’s the point though, everyone already does it. The only reason there’s no standard is nobody was willing to make one unless it allowed paper navigation on electronic devices. The RYA and others have obstructed progress for years on this and now claim to be working the problem. There is no problem outside of their own walls.
 
Irrespective of the RYA, the progress from analogue to digital is easily measured by counting the number of Yacht Club socials and Navigation classes now held aboard ex-light ships.
 
lustyd said:
Just had an email from RYA on “the rise of eNavigation”. Seems to me it’s 20 years too late to talk about the rise of it or to call it eNavigation. In 2026 surely it’s just navigation and is the standard.

“The RYA is working to define and embed the core principles and techniques needed to safely navigate digitally.”
No RYA, you missed it.
Click to expand...
Just the usual RYA BS. They were covering e navigation when I was instructing and that has to be 20 years ago. I hope the pure electronic isnt the sole method taught - we have enough mobo driver assuming that their boats are just cars on water without going to thinking of navigation as just using a sat nav. They do fail - admittedly rarely - but it has happened to me twice both times at night and both in electrical storms which made satellites unavailable. Thats when you need the basic skills and paper charts. and above all a log kept up to date.,
 
You’ve twice been in electrical storms bad enough to knock out equipment and apparently make satellites unavailable but close enough to land to use paper navigation? At night?
Thankfully none of the skippers on my boat are that bad.
 
The market and consumers have already decided how to navigate safely with digital charts and devices to enable it. Anecdotally many of the consumer offerings are satisfactory products. I don’t think that the current MGNs service the consumer market well, or the small coded vessels, and are in fact barriers to development and commerce in that space. However, that doesn’t mean that there is not a requirement for a standard or specification. A recent example was Savy Navy, that had decided to leave out a layer of data that eliminated clearance heights and fish farms from their charts. Savvy Navy were active in pushing their product to YMI. It took an intervention directly to them explaining that data was missing before they acted. Savvy Navy have now corrected this omission by including the data in their charts. Also Time Zero vector charts miss out data such as conspicuous objects that have been used for generations of navigators to plot positions. If there is to be a base level of compliance, such as adding lines of position (LOP) then such discrepancies need to be addressed in consumer products. The point is, that consumer market offerings were in place that excluded navigation critical data.

Having red the email from the RYA, I agree with @lustyd main thrust of his OP. I think that there is a case for consumer products but instead of folks trying to establish if the market offerings are acceptable, they are trying to force an opinion on the market. The failure of mini ECDIS is a case in point. Commercially it was lower cost just to keep some charts onboard and navigate with an iPad, sort of idea. The RASTER chart that demands paper charts on small commercial vessel is another area of shitification that sits with the UKHO. I suspect though that RASTER will be a redundant technology when the UKHO moves fully to vector charts.

The MCA are failing a whole sector of UK sailing society and while I believe the RYA and CA et cetera are well meaning, I don’t believe that they are effective in getting the MCA to change course. To be frank, the UK is at liberty to decide what it wants to do regarding implementation of navigation systems on small commercial vessels. Segmentation of markets into levels of compliance does happen e.g. microlights v planes. Instead we see the MCA trying to force fit ECDIS ideas into small vessels. It’s a joke, and very much a sign of an organization that is out of touch with the realities of small craft navigation.

Right now, in the UK, we can use Angel Nav to plot positions using LOPs on RASTER charts, but that can’t be used without paper charts on small commercial vessels. This is a good example of how out of touch the MCA are. There is no reason why regulation could not be made to allow RASTER to be used, even as an interim position until the market develops compliant vector chart offerings at a price point that is acceptable.

The current situation is poor governance, nothing else.
 
RunAgroundHard said:
To be frank, the UK is at liberty to decide what it wants to do regarding implementation of navigation systems on small commercial vessels
Click to expand...
And the one option nobody on a comittee is considering is just letting people use whatever is appropriate. The very idea that we must have a standard and must thrust it upon commercial vessels is borne of comittee thinking. The vast majority of small commercial boats have no requirement for any navigation equipment on board at all, never leave familiar waters, never go to new places, never go out in adverse conditions.
 
lustyd said:
Because nobody uses them. Coded boats are buying them because they’re obliged to, not because they use them.

That’s the point though, everyone already does it. The only reason there’s no standard is nobody was willing to make one unless it allowed paper navigation on electronic devices. The RYA and others have obstructed progress for years on this and now claim to be working the problem. There is no problem outside of their own walls.
Click to expand...
I'm sure you must have raised your concerns with the RYA and i would be interested in their response to you.

You must also know that the Maritime Coastguard Agency sets out the Code of Practice for small commercial vessels and require a number of safety backups to many systems on board. I'm also sure that you would expect a high level of professionalism from the skipper and the maintenence of any vessel that puts to sea with any member of your family paying for the experience.

In the same way as you would expect a cruise ship skipper, airline pilot, train driver or taxi man to be entrusted to do their job and abide by the rules that regulate their lives.

It may be a mistake, actually quite common on here, to 'assume' that just because one is an 'expert' on one topic that everyone else is as well.....
 
No, I didn't raise it with RYA. If they want to sit around discussing settled issues that's on them, I only got my membership to get the free ICC and won't be renewing as they constantly remind me why they are out of touch.

Yes, the MCA do set out the rules. Yes, I think those rules are overbearing and were set up by groupthink rather than common sense. Some of the rules are good, some are not, and the rules around navigation on small boats are entirely out of touch with the current real world of navigation. We know it, they know it, but the solution isn't to sit around and discuss how navigation could work in this brave new world. All of us know how it works and what might be missing, and this very forum has discussed it many times over the years.

All we need right now is to de-restrict use of available plotters. If and when any real world deficiency is actually found, update the rules.
 
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