How often are chart plotters used in home waters?

Rossynant said:
Not a question of "how anyone would know which boats were in the vicinity, and which had their radios switched on" - a question is are you a seaman and should you care for safety of others - or are you not.
This used to be simple to answer, time past :mad:

Have made a "SRC license" lately, to be current. RYA course. No mention of "duty to monitor the frequency for safety reason", as I was taught before...

This is a shame. As those remarks above are.
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Entirely agree.
 
Simple really. I use it to communicate. Sometimes I do not want to communicate so I leave it off. If I go for a potter in the Carrick Roads it would be off. If I crossed the channel it might be on.

If the airwaves weren't full of muppets doing radio checks on main channels instead of calling a mate on a handheld, or the marina office, or other muppets organising lunch, or fishermen chatting, then I might be more inclined to leave it on. I go sailing for peace, not to listen to the world and his wife's social calendar.

As for legislation, you could argue that it should be just as illegal to walk around without a mobile phone. Please save me from such madness.
 
Ex-SolentBoy said:
Simple really. I use it to communicate. Sometimes I do not want to communicate so I leave it off. If I go for a potter in the Carrick Roads it would be off. If I crossed the channel it might be on.

.
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You make two very interesting, and very different statements there. I quite understand that there might be times that you just want to be on your own, and not "Communicate". Fair enough, if you feel that way.

Your second statement is not so easy to understand. Why, if you are quite happy pottering around Carrick Roads, you switch your VHF off, do you have it switched on if crossing the Channel?

I think there must be a culural difference between those of us who sail in the less frequented areas, and those who sail dahn sarf.
 
Ex-SolentBoy said:
Simple really. I use it to communicate. Sometimes I do not want to communicate so I leave it off.
As for legislation, you could argue that it should be just as illegal to walk around without a mobile phone. Please save me from such madness.
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This I agree with all my heart :D
Keeping mobile turned off myself, so not to be bothered.
There is no legal obligation to listen, especially to meaningless noise. Still I'd turn radio on when the weather is rough, where the traffic is heavy, or in an area not full of ships. Who knows.
I'm one who frequent deserted places, on land. Had to help people lost in wilderness, there was no-one else to help them; nowadays many people are so dependent on others or 'civilisation' not able to survive by themselves...
 
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Well lets hope that when those who usually have their VHF off make a May Day etc call, every one has not taken their his advice and turned off their VHF also.
I use my plotter from leaving the pontoon to arriving back and I love using it as I also love plotting my course on paper charts I guess that if we didn't have GPS then we would all still be using Decca, but I enjoy watching my preplanned course on the plotter prove my calculations correct or wrong.
Mike
 
NormanS said:
I think there must be a culural difference between those of us who sail in the less frequented areas, and those who sail dahn sarf.
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I do think that is part of it, when I sailed up North the VHF would invariably be on...

Down in the Solent, I am in the peace and quite point of view though off season I listen normally. If not the constant drivel of people calling each other is just not something I care to listen to (have they not heard of mobile phones).

In fact boaty friends down here know not to call me on the VHF, if they want me I am on the phone. I do not want to bore the world with my ETA at the next watering hole.

I am surprised at the venom that some on here believe you should listen to the radio.
I can understand in more remote places but when the airways are that busy I will leave it to the people who are using the radio to listen for me...
 
maby said:
OK - back to the original question - it depends on the nature of your home waters - we sail in a river estuary and do a lot of creek crawling - channels are narrow and depths uncertain - I cannot remember them all and the plotter at the helm is a valuable aid.
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At last, a sensible answer to the original question.

Of course there is no single right thing to do regardless of circumstances. My mooring is in a fairly remote sea-loch with no buoys or other local aids to navigation. If I go east from my mooring the loch is deep and the shoreline mainly steep-to, so I feel no need to turn on the plotter. If I go west, however, the first mile or so is through a tricky area of rocks and shallows and I use the plotter to help me keep clear of them.
 
On all the time,good for range bearing,mob etc.Also good to keep up to speed with it so i can trust it 100% at night or in fog.
 
pvb said:
Mine's off most of the time!
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+1 mine to. Ch 16 bloody anoying. If your sinking set of a flare. I dont listen to 16 due to all the pointless chatter.
actualy usualy turned down realy low. my ears tune in to Mayday. But not much else.
it amazing how often people feel the need to pratle on to each other even when a distress is being worked.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
If you wish to take it further, I recommend wading through the ITU requirements, which are the basis of all radio licenses. The RYA course leading to the SRC includes Watchkeeping Requirements in the Syllabus; I have a strong recollection of being taught it, and a respectable (USCG - I couldn't find the equivalent for the UK) web-site gives chapter and verse of the international requirements.

In any case, how about this scenario?

You have a VHF.
You prefer not to be bothered by it, so it isn't on.
A nearby vessel sends out a MayDay, which you don't hear. It is something urgent, like a gas explosion or petrol fire.
You don't hear the Mayday, and carry on.
People lose their lives because the nearest assistance was too far away.
You could have reached them and probably saved lives if you'd had your VHF on.

How do you think the subsequent enquiry and (possibly) court case would go? How do you think you would feel?
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Ask Capt lord. Californian April 1912
 
Rossynant said:
Can't say for UK waters, but here is a route with a kind of turning point from danish straights to Baltic, big ships going in line one by one. Tricky. So they adjust the position and place, course, speed, side, etc among them all the time, by VHF, interesting listening when you tack across whole lot ;)
Any accent possible, Germans, Fins, Svedes, Russians, Poles and so on.

Well, me understand bit english too :cool:
The only people I found trouble to understand are from UK - some could reeeely do us foreigners a favour learning to pronounce clearly.

Not to mention important thing: we foreigners learned English language. Nobody teaches us London Slang... :eek:
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Sorry no speaky london slang. Can't stand East Enders. Glesgapatterjimmy
 
bitbaltic said:
Please don't mind me butting into this VHF thread :)

My original question came about because I had a choice this season of whether to install a plotter or second GPS for the cockpit (we have fixed GPS at the chart table), I thought long and hard about it and decided I'd not really use the plotter in our home waters, so went for a GPS on the basis that we know what's out there. The question was prompted by a fellow pontoonee who installed a plotter straight away last season because 'there are lots of buoys out there'! It looks to me as though most use their plotters primarily for GPS functions (track, SOG etc) in home waters, so I think I made the right decision on balance.

Now, did somebody say something about VHF?

Cheers
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I have to say I don't get you logic. or You conclusion is not logical Capt.

You GPS readout will give you a multi decimal point acurate to an amazing degree position in Lat and Long. Meaningless unless you have memorised the lat and long of all your local hazards.
A plotter will give meaning to the information and visual referance.
I don't have ither by my helm but if I did it would be a plotter.
 
Uricanejack said:
I have to say I don't get you logic. or You conclusion is not logical Capt.

You GPS readout will give you a multi decimal point acurate to an amazing degree position in Lat and Long. Meaningless unless you have memorised the lat and long of all your local hazards.
A plotter will give meaning to the information and visual referance.
I don't have ither by my helm but if I did it would be a plotter.
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Because I was talking about using the mk 1 eyeball as visual reference and sailing in home (known) waters in decent conditions. What do you think people did before GPS? in any case, there is more to GPS than just reading off lat long. A marine GPS should allow you to put proximity waypoints on local hazards that will sound an alarm if your Nav lets you down and you make a closer approach than you'd like. You know about those, don't you?
 
I find my plotter very useful in narrow channels even in home waters. It displays position error as well so I get some idea of the accuracy of the GPS signals. Not the whole story I know, HDOP and stuff to consider but the plotter is helpful for me.
 
bitbaltic said:
Because I was talking about using the mk 1 eyeball as visual reference and sailing in home (known) waters in decent conditions. What do you think people did before GPS? in any case, there is more to GPS than just reading off lat long. A marine GPS should allow you to put proximity waypoints on local hazards that will sound an alarm if your Nav lets you down and you make a closer approach than you'd like. You know about those, don't you?
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I get the MK 1 eyeball.
Apparently I don't know about the rest.
 
Uricanejack said:
I get the MK 1 eyeball.
Apparently I don't know about the rest.
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Fair enough no harm meant.

A proximity waypoint is placed over a hazard (you enter the lat long) with a radius alert of your choosing (cables to Nm, up to you, depending on how far away you want to be). If you sail into that radius the GPS sounds an alarm and tells you which waypoint/hazard you are approaching. This goes at least for my twin old garmin 128s (early noghties sets). I assume it is a feature of most chart plotters. Should be a feature of any marine GPS.

I have the few isolated hazards in as proximity waypoints for our home waters.

Cheers
 
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