P.C. Based Chart plotters

Another possible avenue. Having long term sailing in mind, we considered the cost of number the of electric charts required was high and with malfunctions in mind we wanted paper charts available anyway. So we have gone down the Yeoman Plotter route, very happy with it as a good compromise.
 
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Unreliable - not so. In fact after using almost every day and owning many different PC's over the last 25 years onshore (including many in client's premises) and on board, I have only had two instances where the computer has stopped working and a simple reboot did not fix. In both of those instances the machine showed clear symptoms of impending hardware failure well before the actual end. In all that time I have never had a PC that has had a hard drive failure (uncluding using notebooks on boats, planes, and things and carting them around the world in a bag).

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Don't quite agree. In 2000/2001 a household name computer reseller sold over 2000 desktop PCs to the company where I then worked. Half-way through the roll-out it was discovered that something like 30% had potentially faulty hard disk drives, as identified by the HDD manufacturer. At least 2 machines (that I know of) had terminal hard disk failures.

As you say, you have to have a back-up - electronic or otherwise.

Agree with all your other points.
 
Yes I totally agree, things don't always turn out faultless when they come off the production line and problem batches exist.

Off hand I know of several models of 406 EPIRBs, several modern marine SSB's (including a very recent popular model), various marine gearboxes and engines, instrumentation, inflatable lifejacket triggers, etc which have at some time in their production run had batches come off the production line with serious insidious faults (some of which I know have never been recalled for correction). I have also come across EPIRBs sent into service accidently unprogrammed.

But we do not refuse to rely on EPIRBs, marine radios, etc and do not write them all off as being unacceptably unreliable just because there have been failures of some.

I am not claiming that computers are amazingly reliable but with backup (and we backup many important things on our boats as a matter of course and do not think poorly of them because of that) they can certainly be relied upon.

Regards

John
 
if you become a c-map club member and then purchase directly from C-map, the cd of the same area as an existing ctg, it should be cheaper.
 
By maintenance I mean de-fragging, registry checking, temp file removal and keeping the everything as "clean" as possible. I run weatherfax as well as chartplotting and have never heard of somehting that would cause a problem, i.e. a virus, being sent as part of a weather fax or SYNOP message. I would suggest a "capuccino" type PC is likely to be more reliable than most laptops as everything except the HDD and memory is an integral part of the motherboard. The main unreliability is the connections to the outside world but that is trivial to fix should the need arise.
 
Having read this thread,i now know what a chart plotter is,Id never have thought they would be used on a boat and replace a paper chart!

Looking at the price around £175 for north sea charts and £175 for french coast med etc plus £600 for the veiwer and needing power i see them as a thing for the rich

Are paper charts to be discontinued? hope not, as i cant see flash cards or cd roms being given away by crusers leaving the area, not at those prices.

I also cant see how details can be read from a small screen while looking for the blackwater in a force 4 with rain? a gps ought to be a better choise with way points--thats what i use, with a paper chart to hand. Have i missed somthing ?
 
LATENCY is watchword here, until an electronic chart plotting system, be it a pc or a dedicated plotter can provide latency then its very unwise to use it in situations where you rely on their output. The Yeoman plotter is the only “electronic” plotting system that has this.

As to the reliability of “electronics” I have seen many component failures on chart plotters and PC’s. Quite how do you think you would cope with a display chip failure? Or power supply transistor failure whist at sea? Finding the fault is not easy, fixing it is harder still. And that’s only two components of the many thousands involved.

If any one wants a demonstration of how inaccurate C Charts are look at my previous posts on this subject.

Cheers

David
 
<<They do have wonderfully large screens though>> agree 100% you're lucky to get a plotter with >6" diagonal screen.

<<Also PC's are cheap compared with a dedicated chart plotter>>. Really can't agree with that -
By the time you've bought a laptop and then the software you're lucky to see change out of £1K - compared with 1/3 rd that for an entry-level dedicated chartplotter.

I've got the whole of Central and eastern Med, down to 1/8 port plans on 2 MMC chips (12x21mm) for £280 - the Admiralty folios for the same weigh 18kg and cost £1200.

A built in PC is a reasonable bet, it's really safely locating the laptop away from bashes and drips that is the problem.
 
Are those for use with a p.c? Who sells them?Sounds good for planning and port,bay printouts!
Would they be useable with a "GPS MOUSE"? I found one in the compass mag and ive seen them online, For £50 more or less.I havent a clue beyond that.
 
Are paper charts to be discontinued?

I suspect yes, but if not the cost of them will become very high due to the low demand. It will not be tommorrow but the day is probably not too far away into the future.

If I recall correctly it was part of the original concept for maintaining availability of official paper charts that they would be printed in small batches from electronic files supplied regularly corrected from the originating hydrographic office, at various other countrys' hydrographic office locations as the means of distribution but I have not heard any more of that and have no idea if it remains so.

Some countries already only provide their official hydrographic office nautical publications (sailing directions, almanacs, pilot charts, etc) in electronic form, the paper versions are no longer produced (USA and NZ are countries I am aware of off hand, perhaps research would turn up others).

Also some countries now make their official electronic charts available at the cost of distribution only so here in NZ, where that is so, we pay the equivalent of around GBP20 for the whole set of NZ official charts, including the international ones in their catalogue (that includes a number of the Pacific Islands and all of the small scale charts for the whole of the Pacific Basin from Southern Ocean to Arctic, Asia to Americas).

NZ (and I understand USA) has the same policy with their paper charts but because of the cost of distribution is much higher, (printing, correcting, warehousing) there is not such a great saving so the whole portfolio of the NZ paper charts costs around the equivalent of GBP1,000 (compared to GBP20 for the electronic set!) even though that just covers the cost of printing through to distribution (ie the cost of survey, publishing, etc is not charged).

I think as another has inferred, it becomes very easy to cover the cost of the electronics when going to electronic charts through the comparative cheapness of the electronic charts themselves (assuming one cruises more than around the local bay and so needs more than just one or two charts), even when the electronic charts are not priced simply at the cost of distribution.

John
 
Guess all the above are right to assume the average reliability (is there such a thing) of a dedicated chartplotter is higher than a PC - but factually three years ago we had a good quality chartplotter on a newly purchased yacht - and found it went west on the delivery trip from Holland to the UK.
Thank goodness I said - for our paper back up charts.
Then last year en-route from UK to Portugal with an old laptop running Sea-Pro Software (installed as it was MUCH better than the dedicated chartplotter) a tin of Stella jumped up and landed inverted on the keyboard.
Lots of fizzle and the laptop appeared to die.
I won't say what I said to myself then.
But after battery removel - a rinse under warm water - and left for 24 hours to dy in a warm cupboard - battery back in and bingo - it fired up and away it went for the remainder of the 3 month cruise.
So sure - understand averaged reliability and why - but my personal experience does not support that argument. Even had it not worked again - a cheapo laptop in Spain / en-route would have been a better value option than a new equally equipped chartplotter.
 
Oh - and if anyone is considering a computer don't forget you can now buy a flat absolutely waterproof keyboard in many trendy colours for less than £30 to plug into even a lap top.

And if you do not want a second keyboard you'll find on the web firms who make up the same kind of plastic cover you see on pub tills - both will keep drips away.
 
Interesting, had never thought of that. Not that we have a wetness problem but the cling wrap would probably be useful for use of PDA's, etc in the cockpit too.

John
 
maxsea!
i would never go to sea without my laptop and harddrive of vector charts. i sail a catamaran and theres no problem with condensation, vibration or cold. biggest problem is power to drive laptop when sailing tho several solar panel and an air marine will surfice.
maxsea is cpu and ram hungary. you need at least 1gig processor and 512mb ram. problem is, maxsea takes too long to update its software and then charges 25%, after 1st year to upgrade to new format. (setsail.com used to offer a better service)
i have maxsea blue water yacht with some raster charts and 400+S57 charts. the S57 vector charts are better.
would i use a stand alone chart plotter, no way!
my preference is c-map v93 and there great!
 
MaxSea runs fine on 800Mhz and 256Mb RAM and probably even on lesser PC's if you don't clutter them up with Windows XP in the first place. I have not noticed it being "cpu and ram hungry" at all with Win 98SE. Weather fax decoding software is much more processor intensive and yet that can just be done with a 400MHz processor.
 
Glad to hear you at last recognising that you are not blessed with the superior qualities of a catamaran John. Recognition at last!!!!!!
I agree with you though (reluctantly) some monohulls are less squalid than others and this is probably the answer. Keep it dry and don't keep chucking it on the deck and a laptop on a boat should be easily as reliable as it is on shore. It's probably significant that Da Melon still used computers with hard drive even for the extreme conditions faced. She also had a spare..... You can actually buy 2 or three laptops with 17" screens for the price of a chartplotter with an 8 inch one... Take a spare if you have nothing else.... Can't get out of the habit of paper charts though. Probably old age........
 
I've never been "de-fragged"...... Spent most of my younger life trying to get "fragged" with only average success. Ugly ones mostly..... Does getting "de-fragged" hurt?
 
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