Manual navigation on a plotter

[chrisrixon]

My boat comes with a Navman tracker 900.
It looks like you can't use it for manual plotting e.g. a cocked hat fix on three objects, running fix etc.
Is this typical of these plotters, ie they won't let you draw lines on the chart or am I missing something?

 

[tcm]

Think you are indeed missing something. You don't need a cocked hat - the nav page gives an exact lat and long for transfer to a paper chart. You don't draw lines on the electronic chart - this would be as irrelevant as "checking" that an elctronic calculator can add numbers up.

However, on the map page, move the cursor about and the lat/long of the cursor (somewhere on side of map)will be shown (the one that flails around when you move the cursor) as well as the distance and bearing of whatever the cursor is positioned over. I have always found gps plotters one of the few things that you can't blokeishly guess how it works - there's no other option than to read the manual....

 

[chrisrixon]

Well the GPS arial might have broke or you might want to plot a course allowing for tide. It seems farical if you need to have all the electronic charts duplicated in paper so you can do say tidal calculations.

 

[tcm]

I assume you aren't pulling my leg? You need paper charts, and tidal stream info/atlases to plot a course. You can then use the gps/chart plotter to mark on the paper where you are now, and to check if all is going according to plan. This way you aren't totally reliant on either paper or electronics.

 

[chrisrixon]

I was going to get paper charts, but not to the same level as detail as the electronic ones, other wise the plotter is just doubling costs, space and effort. Anyway it looks like the plotter can't be used for manual navigation ...

 

[Guest]

Absolutely. If you have paper charts (and I believe you should) then the plotter charts just double the cost.

Some PC based navigation software (and I think some plotters) do now have built in tidal stream atlases so that you can plan routes, calculate course to steer etc. However, they don't (and presumably won't) allow plotting of manual fixes since they are designed as an extension of the GPS.

Richard

 

[DoctorD]

Plus electronic charts can break down. I have both. If I had to have only one it would have to be paper.

I suppose we will soon have electronic chart tables that we can manually plot on/interface to (a la Nuclear Submarines etc.) with a light pen or other input device, rather like a large graphics tablet/graphics display. You can sort of do this already using a mouse and software (I use SeaPro) on a PC i.e. manually enter data, tracks, positions etc.

I would not recommend drawing on the screen of a Furuno or Raymarine or flat panel PC with a chinagraph!

Graham

 

[Joe_Cole]

You could use a Yeoman Plotter.

Paper charts with easy plotting of GPS positions etc.