How often are chart plotters used in home waters?

bitbaltic said:
Just an idle thought.

If your boat has a chart plotter, how far would you sail from your home mooring before you felt the need to switch it on?

Assuming well charted waters with good buoyage, almanac coverage and reasonable weather.
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Mine's on from casting off to tying up again. I don't need it for navigation - I know the waters well enough for that - but it displays AIS information, gives warnings of potentially dangerous targets, and (most importantly!) records my track. It also allows me to control the tiller-pilot using waypoints. There are only a few passages round here where I really need it - mainly to avoid the exclusion zone near a military facility, as it isn't buoyed.
 
Depends on how you are using it. I have one at the helm and switch it on just about every time I go out. The one at the chart table on a PC is used for planning and longer voyages so would only switch that on when the passage justified it.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I don't need it for navigation - I know the waters well enough for that
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That's what I would assume for the majority here.

but it displays AIS information
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Okay, but that's a nice to have. Especially in bad weather, but I was asking about reasonable conditions. By which I meant eyeballing big ships.

and (most importantly!) records my track. It also allows me to control the tiller-pilot using waypoints.
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Just like a fixed GPS. :p
 
So far the story seems consistent

I should've said in the OP, how far do you sail in home waters before you start using the chart plotter as anything more than a GPS unit (waypoints/autohelm control)- on the assumption that many don't have standalone GPS units.

Cheers
 
bitbaltic said:
I should've said in the OP, how far do you sail in home waters before you start using the chart plotter as anything more than a GPS unit...
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Like others here we switch our cockpit chartplotter on before the boat's under way. Amongst its many functions I use the trip odometer.

Turning on the VHF, nav table chart plotter, wind instrument, depth, log and cockpit chartplotter are simply routine.
 
bitbaltic said:
That's what I would assume for the majority here.



Okay, but that's a nice to have. Especially in bad weather, but I was asking about reasonable conditions. By which I meant eyeballing big ships.



Just like a fixed GPS. :p
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The chart-plotter is my only interface with the GPS in my set up; the GPS is simply a receiver with no display. And even in good weather, I can't see round corners and there's a ship channel outside the marina!
 
OK that's a common thing, that's why I should've qualified it.

I have an ABP shipping channel immediately outside my marina too (or, outside Cardiff Bay).

Normally I dual monitor the barrage and ABP VHF channels on locking out.

Is the AIS part of the plotter or a standalone engine like the GPS?
 
The plotter goes on from when I leave the mooring to my return- otherwise the VHF DSC complains bitterly.
The VHF is, obviously, always on when underway.
 
My VHF is only used to call the occasional water taxi, otherwise it stays off.
The Chartplotter is on all of the time, as well as the chart it displays ground speed, the time and battery voltage.
All instruments are in the cockpit, most repeated below by the ICS Navtex.
 
Learned to sail without. Lately - use depends on how the electronics are organized on boat. Prefer normal old GPS receiver (no plotter) to be turned on from start; and I have position put on paper, in log and chart.
Plotter (or laptop is my preference) is extra - when on tight waters as Norvegian Fjords, Danish straights etc, or where traffic is (for AIS).
As for 'home waters' - haven't been there for years... :o
 
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Don't use the plotter in the Solent.

Use it as an AIS display for cross-Channel.

Would have found it useful the first time I visited Poole Harbour, except I hadn't yet bought it then.

Probably wasted my money in buying it, given how little I've used it, though I don't really regret it.

Fact is that it's unnecessary in areas I'm familiar with, and due to KS's sedate pace plus some awkward weather in the two years since I bought the plotter, my journeying to unfamiliar places has been limited.

Hopefully this will change with the new boat.

Pete
 
On some boats I sailed there was no GPS receiver (just receiver only, showing position and no maps), guess this is what OP had in mind. Theoretically no need when chartplotter is used, but... I like to have independent one, drawing little current, not connected with anything else.
 
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hvae an old gps as well as the plotter and i switch that on every time to give me course over ground speed and feed the vhf dsc signal. we sail in the crouch and know the waters fairly well. switch the plotter on if we are going up the coast into rivers we don't know so well. for example going up the deben we used it to stay in the channel - but not for serious navigation. would use it all the time if we crossed the channel to give a quick read out of shipping channels ets.
 
I have one, so it is on. But if it was broken I would still sail in my home waters without it, or my iPhone, or my iPad.

Like most sailors I am perfectly capable of looking out the window and working out where I am on my chart.

If the chart flew overboard that wouldn't really phase me either. You did say home waters. Do you need a map in your garden?
 
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