Estimated position

I use a gps plotter, but also have the relevant paper charts. If I don't mark 'em I write up the log with time, postion, speed and COG every hour (or less if required)
 
You are not wrong, I can't remember the last time that I plotted a fix on a chart. We have a chart plotter and a repeater and a laptop with navving software on it and we have a back up manual GPS.

If the chartplotter goes down onto laptop, if that, too, goes down on with handheld GPS and then praps plots on charts. I guess it all depends on how confident you are of using other methods in a hurry if your main systems go down.

Why should you have to plot on paper as well? Where is the magic formula that says that the plot you put on paper is right. It's OK if you are piloting and can see stuff but if you can't see owt but sea then how do you know that your plot is right?
 
Each to his own I suppose.

I think it is worth being able and confident in using charts, and that means keeping the skills going. One day you may be glad of it (possibly not on your own boat) as we have seen with catastrophic results.

Also seeing hourly plots across a chart often gives you very visible information on tidal flows and progess. They are much bigger than plotters, so passage planning is much easier in some respects.

That is not to say that GPS derived positions is not a useful means to putting a mark on a chart.

It is also very satisfying to do it yourself and not rely on a box to do it for you.
 
Old habits die hard. Unless local sailing, a position goes in the log every hour or 2 at most if busy elsewhere. On a long trip, or approaching coast we'll also plot the hourly position on the chart. This gives us enough to work forwards from known positions. It also makes the log more valuable as a record

We've just gone space age with chart plotter, AIS and MARPA radar. Interesting question arises. Would you approach an unknown refuge with chartplotter alone, and if so how would you organise the approach?
 
like many above, hourly plots on chart, and log entry with compass course, boat speed through the water, visuals where appropriate and log.. plus usually a lon/lat from GPS.... (as an aside, I also always enter pressure and wind direction.. thats just habit)

I passage plan thoroughly on paper, but don't put it on the chart....

Most of my nav nowadays is via the GPS.... I only calculate a CTS the traditional way if the leg is over about 8nm, otherwise I don't think its worth the bother.....
 
Big question.... my general answer would be no.... I'd probably be more OK with just a plotter if I had a good pilot book..... but unless circumstances dictated it as a neccessity, then i'd avoid it if possible...

If I had to... approach would probably be quite slowly... plenty of time to assimilate marks, and overall geography in my head... I would prior to closing take a good look at the overall area from the plotter, and probably sketch out a drawing on paper if the channel was complex, or bouyage difficult.... one of the reasons I am uncomfortable with plotter only, is the lack of the 'big picture' that is presented... As per comments about old habits dying hard, I do like to see a whole area on an opened out chart... for me this is the main reason for not using plotter only....

I would also possibly navigate a battleship course, and revert to more traditional techniques such as following a contour if I felt particularly uncomfortable with the refuge.....
 
[ QUOTE ]
Crikey I could be 2-5 miles out, No paper Chart where would I be?

[/ QUOTE ] er the same 2-5 miles out..................

I have the same basic set up - one engine...........your check list seems pretty good for me.

at 30 knots recording position every hour doesn't make a whole lot of sense - you know where you are before this sudden miraculous failure; you know when you left, how fast you were travelling in what direction so I don't understand the problem for fast motor boats.

on sailing craft on passage plotting to paper is a pleasure!
 
Plotter screens are just too damned small. I log my GPS position every hour(ish) and transfer it to my chart when making a passage. That way I know where I was sometime within the last hour and can EP from there if the GPS goes down (more likely than the satellites). My small boat charts are A3, esily three times the size of even a large plotter screen.
 
I never bother plotting or doing an hourly record when trogging along the coast. I just record when I am at significant points.
X channel I take an hourly position and put a chinagraph X on my home made A4 chart.
If everything failed but the wind I would end up at about the same place that I was planning to end up at if nothing had failed! I'm then back to trogging along the coast navigating by Mk1 eyeball.

The question Tome posed re approaching an unknown port only on a chart plotter - Yes, every time, providing it is in western europe /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
The time spent taking bearings or noting gps positions then plotting them is unacceptable, especially as I am normally single handed.
 
In reality I cruise at 12kts ish.
Therefore I plot every 1/2 hour ie every 6 miles.
Typical passage in My waters is up and down The Menai Straits, if in clear vis "eyeball method" + local knowledge is used.
If on a trip to say IOM or Ireland etc I will formulate a passage plan.
Usual stuff winds ,tides, cts etc etc.
Stick all down on paper, drawing lines on the chart all that stuff cos I enjoy it + I feel safer.
Cos I,ve got a mobo, range between "fill ups" is appx 150 miles so a typical cruise is no more than 65 miles,ie Anglesy to IOM or similar to Ireland.
So I stick GPS "Waypoints" on a bit of paper, gleaned of a chart and use them for reference to see if I,m pointing in the correct direction.
If the lectric bits fail at least by DR I,ve got a fair idea where I,m at.
So it,s Chartwork,bits of paper,backed up by a GPS for me.
If I do get a rope or something around My only Prop and method of propulsion.
Have to don the wet suit and make like J Weismuller (How old does that make Me?)
At least when I surface I,ve got a fair idea where I am ,should I need to ask for help,(2 vhf,s don,t forget!).
Must admit the Radar is handy when belting along at twice the speed of the Rag and Stick brigade cos things arrive at you quicker than you guys can imagine!
When the Mist arrives (Regurlarly on the approach to Ellin Vallin!) fog Horn(pump up type),Loud Hailer, Megaphone are by My side.
Was thinking of putting a set of Cymballs and a drum kit on board as well, just in case!
Plus I,ve got a fixed Compass x 2 handhelds!
 
Regarding unkonwn refgure on CP alone, yep, how else do you cruise to new territories?

Reading a chartplotter is a skill like any other and arguably going into a new harbour with a cp is safer than with a chart because you can do tricks like pointing the boat at a feature and verifying it quickly, something you could do with a handbearing and a chart but much slower.

I don't deny that there is a certain satisfaction with old stuff like charts but I predict that soon charts will be as out dated as sextants. Yes, I have a sextant and can use one, but prefer GPS (it doesn't need a clear sky to use it either /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif )
 
[ QUOTE ]
Must be a nightmare putting waypoints into all the spares.

[/ QUOTE ]No I use a laptop with a card reader to put WPTs into fixed GPS and Handheld backups.

Paper v's GPS is just a personal preference, not a matter of right and wrong. Airliners haven't use or carried paper nav charts for over 30 years, they rely soley on electronics and radar. It's a long time since navigators took star sights through a window in the roof of the cockpit in a Boeing 707 on a trans atlatic run.

Despite being a GPS evangelist, I still enjoy paper plotting just for fun and curiosity on long solo runs, and to pass the time. I can see a time in the future when reliable redundanct system become the norm, and paper charts will no longer need to be carried on boats. It's a while away yet though so relax if you prefer the traditional pencil and chart.

The paperless office dream never happened! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Yacht_Cloona.

Welcome!

I was 20 odd yrs away and when I came back I was amazed at the amount of kit is deemed 'essential' these days.

I do find that a vhf is handy as is a handheld gps, the latter purely because it gives a constant and accurate readout of position, either in lat and long or I prefer bearing and distance to a known point.

But I still write it down regularly in case it all goes horribly wrong.

When I was an instructor one of the exercises would be 'fog navigation' whereby I would lure the 'navigator' below, then blank out the windows, tell him the fog had come down and we would only steer courses he gave us.

Without a starting point that is not possible unless you have a working gps.
 
Well, it would appear that fortunately you are wrong. I rarely plot anything when I'm pootling around in the Solent, 'cos I feel I can look around me and put a finger on the chart for where I am after all these years. Unless it's foggy. I do keep a log though. Elsewhere, an hourly plot on a paper chart, even if it is from a gps position from our "little friend", the Etrex. I don't have anything more complicated, because going sailing is my way of getting away from all those sort of gizmos that I deal with at work.
 
similar - passages are normally xchannel @ 60/80 but I do have a range up around 350........... /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif fuel wise but not re boredom threshold!

I am still uncertain how I would ever loose all electrics/systems 'permenantly' so tend to be happy to potter along with my position plotted ever second in real time exactly where I am on the planet..............(note I have lost all electrics when a B/S failed but that's what tools kits are inboard for - bypass the switch and off you go!)
 
I'm with Chris-E and others who rarely plot on paper these days although we carry a full set of paper charts. If we DO put a plot on the paper chart, usually on a longer trip out of sight of land, it will be done using a Yeoman electronic plotter anyway! We keep the English Channel West chart, plus the Yeoman, permanently on our chart table under a thin perspex cover that can be written on so putting a plot down is easy enough on a boring passage.

We carry 3 other plotters! One older B&W one with a 10" screen with it's own GPS is kept these days as a back up. We then have have 2 colour screen Navman plotters, one at the chart table next to the radar and 2nd autopilot control head and the other on the coachroof visible anywhere in the cockpit, each of these have their own GPS (the cockpit one is integral) and each are on separate battery banks. The plotters all have the same waypoints and routes loaded (via user cards for backup) and these are also backed up to our laptop but this isn't used at sea, just used for planning, WiFi and if needed WeFax/RTTY forecasts in harbour from SSB.

However we are quite capable of plotting in the old fashioned way and did so for many years before the days even of leisure Decca let alone GPS. We still have a RDF set on board albeit not the original Seafix, still have a Walker trailing log and yes even a sextant, albeit with a Casio mini computer or another program on the laptop to work the fixes though I do have my own join the dot forms and tables to do it manually!. We do plan and work up CTS etc from tidetables, chart and so on but these days as a check against the computer passage planning software (we use Neptune and another from a forumite 'Cross Channel Plotter').
 
I was on the bridge of the Harwich= Cuxhaven ferry a couple of years ago. Radar, GPS, plotters all flashing and beeping away, and the OOW carefully plotting positions, course etc on a paper chart.

When I asked why, the reply was - 'its the only way we can be sure of our position'.

I must admit I dont feel comfortable offshore if I am not keeping a plot even though single handing it can be quite difficult - its a 'what if...?' precaution.

What price seamanship?
 
Ah, but when you're 'pootling around the Solent' you know where you are as you're on pilotage and using local knowledge and mark one eyeball rather than navigating.

I'm not trying to say that you should keep sounding the bottom and doing hand bearing or sextant fixes every fifteen minutes, just that knowing where you are and making a note of it where another crew member knows where to look is a vital safety measure in case of a failure of electric navigation aids or navigators incapacity.
 
I agree. On an ocean passage I make a note of the lat - long in the log book every 4 hours and at noon I plot the position on a paper chart.

Across Biscay I would do the same but going down the Portuguese coast non stop, I would probably plot my position on a paper chart every 4 hours - so I could clearly see what is coming up.

In a worst case scenario I know by DR where I would be if it were 3h59min that the GPS and plotter died... Pretty easy and fast to work up -

For most shorter passages I probably would not bother to mark anything on a paper chart but would always note lat-long in the log book and I like to have a paper passage chart open so I can at a glance see the alternatives...

Michael
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top