eNavigation

[SaltyC]

You're a slave to paper, what's your point? We're all free to choose, except we're not because the regs don't recognise the systems people actually use day to day.

I'm not trying to take your precious paper away, why are you trying to suggest I shouldn't be able to use electronics?

???Why am I a slave to paper? Why am I suggesting take away your electronics? That is once again you twisting comments.

It is more you who is a slave to electronics and claim they are infallible.

If I am a slave to paper why have I just spent a weekend installing new plotters, radar and instruments?

You ridicule the 'old foggies' and your perception that they use parchment with there be dragons here, where reality is we long ago adopted digital first BUT experience makes us cautious abd we still have paper as a back up - completely independant of all external influences.

We know the advantages of chart plotters, we also know the positional accuracy is far greater than many charts surveyed by leadline and the old transits are generally 'safe'. Those of us who sail Scottish waters are aware of the contribution of Bob Bradfield - all areas need a Bob! However we sailed the waters safely before, there are now vays which we would have avoided but not many.

What I am saying is you need to understand traditional nav to safely use modern electronics, they are not infallible and they can fail .

I have witnessed many who after the covid boat boom, have purchased a boar, no knowledge and implicit faith in their chart plotter! The lack of understanding is frightening to me.

 

[ylop]

It says nothing about having them on the boat.

Correct, leisure vessels in UK waters have no obligation to carry charts (paper or digital) although when your plans are dynamic it probably makes sense in some format. Coded vessels operating beyond Cat 6 (the lowest spec) are required to carry charts (either paper or a compliant electronic system). Electronic systems require backup/contingency. It’s all laid out in black and white for people who actually have to comply. UKHO seems to be trying to make that easier and international (so less likely a grumpy official with broken English is demanding paper charts even if technically he has no jurisdication on your UK vessel). An international standard should attract more manufacturers and so cost of compliant system should be lower. What’s not to like?

 

[lustyd]

What I am saying is you need to understand traditional nav to safely use modern electronics, they are not infallible and they can fail

And I’m saying you’re wrong. There is nothing in traditional techniques that forms a prerequisite to learning electronic navigation. There’s a lot of crossover but neither is a prerequisite to the other. You’re confusing how you learned with how everyone learns.

I have witnessed many who after the covid boat boom, have purchased a boar, no knowledge and implicit faith in their chart plotter! The lack of understanding is frightening to me

And before that there were idiots using AA road atlases to navigate. What’s your point, this is nothing new and is entirely unrelated to navigation tooling.

 

[lustyd]

An international standard should attract more manufacturers and so cost of compliant system should be lower. What’s not to like?

There are plenty of manufacturers right now, all producing perfectly safe and usable systems and innovating and listening to customer feedback.
A standard may be helpful but legal mandates will stifle innovation for no real gain. It also raises costs for all involved, for no good reason. Mandating “appropriate” is sufficient here, and we don’t need to define appropriate as that changes more quickly than the regulations do as history has shown. This is a principle in use for many situations in law and works very well. We also used it in air traffic control very heavily and that seems to work well enough.

 

[lustyd]

I wonder if many on the thread are thinking only of specific use cases (like a cruising yacht).
When did we all last see a coded RIB or workboat get a paper chart out? I can’t imagine many have approved plotters on board

 

[RunAgroundHard]

Yes but to remind you how it drifted from digital navigation to passage planning - someone pointed out that access to appropriate charts was a Solas V expectation for passage plans so not unreasonable that someone has to work out what appropriate means.

When SOLA V was introduced to the world of UK leisure sailing, post 2002, there was a lot of discussion and debate around what appropriate means. Many assumed wrongly that it was a written plan in great detail that included everything from crew capability to chicken ports when that hidden storm pounced unexpectedly. Wild claims that the harbour ferrymen who rowed tourists from one side of the harbour to the next would have to carry charts, pilot books, VHF radio and make a detailed passage plan, in writing, triplicated and posted to the CG and a responsible person on shore for each trip. The hysteria was ridiculous and the assumptions made the citizens of Royal Tunbridge Wells look like bastions of reasoned deliberation.

I thought we had moved on from all of that, as the RYA and magazines wrote a number of articles describing what it all meant. The rowing ferrymen for example, just had to look over the wall for the arriving weather, look around for other traffic, and not overload their boat, all done in their heads as they always did. The same approach was offered as compliant for the regular sailor, in familiar waters, taking into account of the tide and the weather forecast for the time at sea. The longer distance sailor may want to write down a passage plan. Indeed, it was even written in the articles that if there was an incident, how would you justify that you made passage plan as legally required, in court. This did get disgusted from Tunbridge Wells take pen to paper.

Anyway, we have all arrived at 2026 and the paper writing of passage plans is rapidly heading towards the realm of slate and chalk.

 

[ylop]

There are plenty of manufacturers right now, all producing perfectly safe and usable systems and innovating and listening to customer feedback.

They are perfectly safe in Lusty’s view but: Orca (one of the innovators) will navigate you up the Cuan sound when the 8 knot tide carries you onto the rocks; Savvy Navvy “forgot” that fish farms exist; OpenCPN is maintained by keen amateurs and will take maps from “any” source. Navionics has an option for crowd sourced data which some people swear by and some swear is useless! So which systems are perfectly safe and have robust feedback mechanisms and which are not suitable for a commercial vessel with paying customers on board?

A standard may be helpful but legal mandates will stifle innovation for no real gain.

A well written standard doesn’t need to.

It also raises costs for all involved, for no good reason.

Not necessarily.

Mandating “appropriate” is sufficient here, and we don’t need to define appropriate as that changes more quickly than the regulations do as history has shown.

But then you end up in the dock trying to justify why in your view your approach was appropriate. A clear standard resolves that.

This is a principle in use for many situations in law and works very well.

It makes lawyers and consultants lots of money advising and arguing what things like appropriate, sufficient and reasonable mean in the circumstances

We also used it in air traffic control very heavily and that seems to work well enough.

Not an area I’ve had any involvement with but I’ve dealt with other safety critical software systems and it would be surprising if there were no standards, no policies, no guidance and everyone just adopted the newest cool thing and we’ll fix it if the planes bump into each other.

 

[SaltyC]

You’ve sailed with my wife then!

And in reality as a leisure skipper you will most likely get some robust words encouraging you to do better at most. If you have paying passengers on board it might be worse and in either case if there’s been a really serious incident then MCA enforcement will come looking for something you’ve done wrong - because the media/public expect some sort of sanction when there has been harm.

I’m not sure it was ever that common!

You’ve sailed with my wife then!

Worst day sail I had, went out with new to yachts for theit experience. Only day sail 3 hours around the bay. In mast furling jammed on return causing delay entering harbour, upon entry just in time to see flap gate lift!!!

 

[lustyd]

Orca (one of the innovators) will navigate you up the Cuan sound when the 8 knot tide carries you onto the rocks; Savvy Navvy “forgot” that fish farms exist; OpenCPN is maintained by keen amateurs and will take maps from “any” source. Navionics has an option for crowd sourced data which some people swear by and some swear is useless! So which systems are perfectly safe and have robust feedback mechanisms and which are not suitable for a commercial vessel with paying customers on board?

Every system has issues, including paper. Issues get raised and fixed, that's just the way the world works, including on commercial ECDIS systems.
If you don't see a fish farm on a chart and assume it's fine to plough ahead into the buoyed area, that's on you as a skipper, same if you choose not to be aware of tides. We didn't use paper at all around the Scottish islands and somehow survived to tell the tale. Those fish farms (and wind farms) will be missing from 90% of the paper charts people have on their boats too as I've yet to meet someone who actually applies updates regularly. I imagine there are some nerdy types who spend more time updating charts than sailing, but they are rare.

 

[lustyd]

But then you end up in the dock trying to justify why in your view your approach was appropriate.

Generally if you're using standard equipment, someone would have to show why it wasn't appropriate. We have a B&G system on board which is in use on tens of thousands of boats worldwide. Easy enough to argue that for a leisure boat (coded or not) that is appropriate and sufficient, and any qualified instructor would likely agree.
There is a concept of "COTS" in Air Traffic. "Commercial, Off The Shelf" meaning a system designed for the task at hand. These are generally considered sufficiently appropriate as designed for the task unless shown otherwise.

 

[SaltyC]

You’ve sailed with my wife then!

Try again - No problem, nice day sail over the inlet and back when flap gste open.
Then, the liveaboards dropped the bombshell omly hot 6 teabahs and no food - it was shopping day!
Sailing was fantastic but 2 cups of tea and a packet of crisps in 10 hours?

Learning point never assume people have staples on board.

 

[geem]

No the expectation for a passage plan is it’s not just about the chart - it’s about considering everything that applies to that voyage (weather, tides, hazards etc) - but if you are simply relying on the chart plotter you possibly aren’t looking where you are going or situationally aware - a passage plan, in its broadest of terms would mean you knew when you needed of be focussed on the plotter (because there’s a shallow bit, rock, channel, tss, etc) and when you can afford to be less focussed on the screen; or indeed where the plotter isn’t the best way to now where to go and the channel markers or aiming between the middle of the concrete breakwaters is a more immediate feedback loop! Some people here have probably sailed the same waters every weekend for 40 yrs and don’t believe they make a passage plan - but they probably do.

I grew up sailing in the era of no VHF radio and no GPS. We had a RDF direction finder and a depth sounder. You learn to be aware of the hazards around you.
We now have chart plotters with all sorts of features (most we don't need from feature rich, reliability low devices) but we would never be totally reliant on them. I still look at the natural features to confirm our GPS position, ditto depth to back up what the chart says. It would be foolish not to.
However, we have carried a draw full of paper charts the last 30 years and we consult them less and less. Last year was the first time I left a huge wad of them at home. We simply never look at them anymore.

 

[ylop]

Generally if you're using standard equipment, someone would have to show why it wasn't appropriate. We have a B&G system on board which is in use on tens of thousands of boats worldwide. Easy enough to argue that for a leisure boat (coded or not) that is appropriate and sufficient, and any qualified instructor would likely agree.
There is a concept of "COTS" in Air Traffic. "Commercial, Off The Shelf" meaning a system designed for the task at hand. These are generally considered sufficiently appropriate as designed for the task unless shown otherwise.

COTS is widely used in other safety critical industries too - but normally with some sort of risk assessment process (not by the end user but by people who are supposed to understand risk and failure modes) and not just accepted off the shelf because the manufacturer claims it works. In the case of your B&G system it would fail that very first hurdle because the splash screen says “don’t use for your intended purpose”. So a standard is needed so B&G can say “suitable for use as a small vessel navigation tool operating under IMO rules X”.

But your response when I mentioned Apps yesterday shows the problem. B&G, Garmin, Raymarine etc all produce dedicated hardware that is in your view “battle proven” - what about it Orca, Onwa etc? If Orca and Navionics is OK on their dedicated hardware is it Ok on a tablet? If apps are Ok then what about OpenCPN or Memory Map? And if the COTS version of Android OpenCPN is fine then what about the non commercial open source version? OpenCPN and MemoryMap don’t supply the maps and that seems like it is important. Savvy Navvy has shown that even when maps come from trusted sources some layers may not be displayed.

If B&G, Raymarine, Garmin etc are already brilliant solutions they should easily meet any reasonable standard that is produced. I’m sure they’ll be lobbying IMO / UKHO etc to make sure their products conform with minimal effort.

 

[RunAgroundHard]

I think leisure plotter providers are less interested in what the UK does. Their R&D is dominated by sport fishermen requirements in other countries. A BBC article today on a famous pornography web site shows what happens when a country implements restrictive controls, the company responds negatively, they just pull out, no pun intended.

 

[lustyd]

In the case of your B&G system it would fail that very first hurdle because the splash screen says “don’t use for your intended purpose

You're like a broken record. That's only there because the regs require it, not because it's not suitable. That's the whole point of the thread, all they need to do is remove that requirement and those plotters would be compliant and remove the warning. You've yet to identify any actual need that's not met by current systems, nor any actual danger facing the many people currently using those systems. How many commercial/coded RIB or small workboat skippers have you seen in the past 10 years using a paper chart or ECDIS system?

So a standard is needed so B&G can say “suitable for use as a small vessel navigation tool operating under IMO rules X”.

No, it isn't. The system is obviously suitable and any skipper who spends five minutes using it can see that. The onus can be on the skipper to ensure that the system is appropriate and up to date, just like it is with paper. You can't have a paper chart showing the whole UK and claim compliance on a trip from Portsmouth to Isle of Wight, and if that paper chart has not had the latest updates then it is similarly innapropriate. No warning screen for you though, so apparently you'd just plow ahead? Of course you wouldn't.

If you're unable to navigate without a regulatory body telling you every little detail of how to do so then that's a problem in my opinion. Good navigators are able to use and understand multiple tools and adapt as necessary.

 

[lustyd]

Their R&D is dominated by sport fishermen requirements in other countries

To be fair, that's largely because sports fishing has requirements not currently being met. If someone identified a sailing requirement not being met that people genuinely needed, I'm quite certain Garmin and Navico would implement it in a heartbeat. Garmin copied all of B&G wind and race features, for example, because people told them they wanted them.
As I see it though, there are no genuine needs not being met. There are a bunch of fairytale requirements that paper navigators want, but plotter users on small boats wouldn't use them if they were there and have not asked for them.

 

[Never Grumble]

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.

I've not read through the whole thread but one would assume large ships using electronic means are 1 manned by persons with some training who might be able to understand the shortcomings and 2 standard operating procedures also include requirements for updating the chart package.

 

[ylop]

You're like a broken record. That's only there because the regs require it, not because it's not suitable.

Which regulations? There are no regulations in the UK market that stop B&G or others from producing a system and labelling it as suitable for navigation. There's no requirement for a system to highlight to commercial users (or others) that it doesn't meet the ECDIS or MGN262 requirements.

That's the whole point of the thread, all they need to do is remove that requirement and those plotters would be compliant and remove the warning.

Which, as far as you know, is exactly what the UKHO recommendation to the IMO is. The RYA "story" was highlighting the progress on this, and yet you are furious because they've not just said, "ah any old system will do".

You've yet to identify any actual need that's not met by current systems, nor any actual danger facing the many people currently using those systems. How many commercial/coded RIB or small workboat skippers have you seen in the past 10 years using a paper chart or ECDIS system?

A number of people have mentioned power failure (or similar hardware faults) rendering the system useless. I've repeatedly mentioned GPS jamming. I've mentioned features of some of the more innovative offerings, which might lead an overtrusting user into danger. None of which you've addressed in your free-for-all solution. I would be surprised, and disappointed, if the UKHO proposal didn't include some of the solutions already available - I expect they will talk about backup/contingency, data sources and integrity, perhaps minimum ranges of symbology. My question remains, though, are ALL systems currently available suitable?

No, it isn't. The system is obviously suitable and any skipper who spends five minutes using it can see that.
The onus can be on the skipper to ensure that the system is appropriate and up to date, just like it is with paper.

If owners and skippers could be trusted to assess suitability, we wouldn't need coding for commercial vessels!

You can't have a paper chart showing the whole UK and claim compliance on a trip from Portsmouth to Isle of Wight, and if that paper chart has not had the latest updates then it is similarly innapropriate.

That's right - and the MCA felt it was necessary to stipulate the requirements:

Charts and other nautical publications to plan and display the vessel’s route for the intended voyage and to plot and monitor positions throughout the voyage should be carried. The charts must be of such a scale and contain sufficient detail to show clearly all relevant navigational marks, known navigational hazards and, where appropriate, information concerning ship's routeing and ship reporting schemes.

(BTW as a correction to my earlier post it looks like charts are required on board Cat 6 vessels except in special circumstances - its "nautical publications" which are relaxed for Cat 6).

No warning screen for you though, so apparently you'd just plow ahead? Of course you wouldn't.
If you're unable to navigate without a regulatory body telling you every little detail of how to do so then that's a problem in my opinion. Good navigators are able to use and understand multiple tools and adapt as necessary.

Straw man arguments. Standards don't get written for "good" professionals; they get created to stop others cutting corners. I don't want to be on a small ferry when the gloom comes down and reduces the visibility to 300m and see the skipper navigating on a small phone screen - only to be interrupted by a whatapp call from his missus. I don't want to send my loved one on a charter yacht out of sight of shore and phone signal when an electrical fault renders them blind and hoping to pick their way back between the rocks until they can get enough signal to get a backup solution. I don't want one workboat operator to feel he needs to cut corners because his competitor gets away with it, and its the only way to compete. Equally, I don't want to be sharing a channel at night with a fast boat skipper who passed his YM in the 80's and has had no training on how to use the plotter, so is focusing on fiddling with the settings not where he's going. But to be 100% clear - I'm not "anti e-navigation" or even "anti digital first" and I do think the UKHO is overdue finding a solution, I just don't think "work it out for yourselves" is an approach which will work, and definitely won't be one other jurisdictions accept for boats that travel outside UK waters.

 

[ylop]

I've not read through the whole thread but one would assume large ships using electronic means are 1 manned by persons with some training who might be able to understand the shortcomings and 2 standard operating procedures also include requirements for updating the chart package.

Large ships have to have complex approved systems with update regimes, not only manned by people with training, but with backup systems in case of electrical failure etc.

 

[Never Grumble]

Large ships have to have complex approved systems with update regimes, not only manned by people with training, but with backup systems in case of electrical failure etc.

Indeed, think that was pretty much my point, in the days when I navigated a frigate or two we had someone whose sole responsibility was to continually update the charts and navigation publications, and part of my job was to check he had done so. The paper charts also gave easy reference to the source data i.e. date of survey which helped with understanding their reliability. I suspect most leisure boaters dont pay quite so much attention to these matters.