Passage planner?

[gunnarsilins]

Good Morning!
I´m not sure if this was one of my 'wet yachting dreams' or if I really, about a year ago, saw an ad or a article in a magazine about a CD-ROM passage planner including small scale charts for about £ 100?
Please inform me if I should go back to bed, or where I can find out more about this CD!

 

[alex_rogers]

I think it might have been Visual Passage Planner from www.digwave.com.

It's designed for ocean passages and has the full pilot chart weather data included. You can even optimise routes depending on maximising boat speed or minimising gales etc.

Although aimed at ocean passages, the worldwide chart is pretty high scale and is excellent for planning coastal cruises as it calculates distances and expected boat speeds. Unlike other packages there are no extra charts to buy and it's quite good fun sitting at home planning you circumnavigation.

 

[Roberto]

Depending on where you sail and what kind of informations you need for your planning, you may find useful

http://www.marineplanner.com/flightplan/fpchoice.cfm

there are quite a bit of charts inside, or anyway simply the shoreline is drawn

 

[gunnarsilins]

Robert & Alex

Thank you both!

 

[rhinorhino]

Maybe it was, Neptune Route Plotting / Passage Planning?
WWW.Neptunenav.demon.co.uk
Well under £100.
Basic but does what it says on the box (well case really)

 

[gunnarsilins]

Thanks to you as well (n/m)

*

 

[steve_cronin]

Is this someting you think I should get?

The idea of having anything on a laptop not intended for the harsh salt laden environment aboard concerns me a bit.

Will it make me safer? What happens when the battery goes futt?

I do it with a paper chart and a nice little leather bound log book. Is this out of date now? Do you think it's still sufficient.

Please give me your views. £100 isn't a lot to spend but if it means less flares or something like that is it a wise purchase?

Steve Cronin

 

[gunnarsilins]

The primary use....

...for the passage planner is for planning our 16 month cruise y. 2004-5.
So the primary use will be at home, getting an idea of distances between ports and areas of interest, what winds and currents to expect in a certain area and and so on.
Just to get a better idea of where to go - and when.

But your concerns about laptops on board is an interesting one.
I soon have to decide how to sort out the chart problem for the intended trip.
I can see three alternatives:

A) Buying new paper charts for the whole trip in advance.
Pros: One thing less to bother about during the voyage
Cons: Expensive. The whole voyage must be planned in advance, diversions will be expensive - new charts have to be found and some charts already bought will be un-used.

B) Bying all, or as much as possible of the charts secondhand.
Pros. Cheap
Cons: Old charts - updates? Trip has to be planned in advance again.

C) Go for a laptop system, probably Tsunamis.
Pros: Can buy charts using internet/credit card along the journey. Not much detail planning in advance needed.
Cons: Expensive. Laptop vulnerable, but having a minimum of small scale paper charts covering the areas in concern, and prior to leaving harbour regulary printing out areas and harbours of refugee in large scale on plain paper as a back-up in case of system break-down should make the it all much safer.

Any views on this!?

 

[steve_cronin]

On board..

..it only takes one good thump whilst the heads are writing to the HDD and you have a system crash with very possibly, sector destruction. Then there's securing the beastie since laptops are quite heavy and unless some custom made housing is available they will be the proverbial "Loose Cannon". Then there's power - most laptops WILL charge via an inverter but there's another loose gizmo to get in the way and also go wrong in a hostile environment. Next salt & damp degradation - well do I need to detail that one?

I'd use a plotter. Most now have worldmaps for general planning purposes and the "wide range" cartridges hold many large scale charts with zoom facility for passage planning. If youy look at cartography manufacturers' sites like www.cmap.com you will be able to sort out your electronic portfolio in the most economic way. You can also get these cartridges wiped and re-written for a different area at places all arouind the world. Cmap also make a reader to connect to your home PC so that usage is also covered.

Must admit, I thought that you were posting to suggest an over elaborate way of "conforming" with all this rumoured "passage plans to be made compulsory for any trip" nonsense.

Where are you planning to go?

Steve Cronin

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: The primary use....

I have carried a laptop on board on summer cruises, mainly for weatherfax. This done with the boat berthed or anchored and requires far too many cables and connectors. I could not consider doing this on passage. For navigation purposes you may get away with using just the laptop briefly without connection to a charging system but I would think a permanent display would really be needed. Presumably you would want your GPS, at least, connected to it.

All this causes two main problems: Firstly the laptop needs to be securely mounted where it won't fall off the chart table under any conceivable conditions. Secondly it needs to take many connections without cables trailing everywhere. To me, it all points to a permanently installed computer. In which case, why not just buy a Garmin 2010 plotter instead? Cost is similar and I think that would be my choice for a two-year cruise. You can run the plotter at home, so planning can all be done there.

 

[kdf]

Re: On board..

I have to disagree here. Laptops should be treated just like any other piece of electronics on board - they will fail and you should expect them to fail. That includes dedicated plotters. I have a laptop, a plotter, a fixed gps, a handheld gps etc and use them all. I use the Laptop (generic, toshiba, off the shelf) with Tsunamis Navigator almost 99% of the time and its worked fine for the last two years. It can, and has failed for various reasons. WHen it does I revert to the plotter although I don't have a full compliment of charts for this. The plotter can, and has failed me, just when I needed it. Then I revert back to the GPS and paper.

I also always keep a paper plot on the paper charts but the laptop is my primary tool and the're great. Don't bother getting a rugged one - as long as you keep it dry and secure it to the chart table it should work for many years without trouble.

-Kevin

 

[gunnarsilins]

A few things...

...are sorted out already, the laptop is fixed to a solid 'tray' which slides out from above the chart table. No possible 'loose cannon', and it´s running on a permanent voltage converter from the ships supply. The multi-pin connector for the power outlet also runs NMEA from the GPS, so there is only one cable to connect the laptop. So I went pretty far to have a good, permanent installation of the thing.
But the hostile enviroment as such is of course an issue, even if, as my case, the chart table is far from the hatch.

My primary arguments against a dedicated plotter are:

*They are quite expensive if having a screen which is on level with the one of a laptop, in terms of size and colour.
*Still, even if dedicated for the job, a plotter might break down. Are there any plotters with facilities for connecting a printer?
*We already have the laptop (used for other purposes), and even a spare on board. They both will anyway go with the voyage. And they are both paid for...

But, I´ll take the plotter alternative into consideration once more. It´s still a year and a half before we leave, so there will probablay be one more generation of plotters on the market before that.

We will leave Stockholm 1´st of May 2004 straight to Kiel canal and over to England. We will circumnavigate England-Scotland, the Irish sea and over to Normandy or Brittany.
Then we will coast hop all the way along France, Spain and Portugal.
When arriving to Cabo San Vicente, it will be autumn, and we still have to decide what to do next.
Wintering in the Canaries is one option, but we are a bit afraid of there is not that much to see so spending several months can be justified.
The other option is to winter in the Med. and slowly cruise it´s western parts, taking the bad weather into consideration. Both my wife and I are pretty interested in culture, so spending longer time in different ports waiting for a weather window is not a big problem.
We do normally cruise all year around in Sweden, as long there is no ice, so we are used to cold and bad weather. The boat has a 9 kW diesel heater with water radiators all over the boat, we have been living on board down to -15 C, so the winter cold and humidity in Med is not an issue.
Finally we plan to pass through the French and German back to the Baltic sea, back to work 1´st of September 2005.

Any good suggestions for the winter? We do not want to leave the boat domn there until spring and go back home for the winter.

 

[gunnarsilins]

Vyv! Please see...

...my reply to Steve Cronin, and please give your comments!

 

[steve_cronin]

Re: A few things...

Well each to his own. I havn't used either a Pc or a plotter in extremes like you get in Scandinavian waters.

As to a place to winter, my neighbours who have gone on now to cruise south america, wintered in Nazare in Portugal. They found it convenient for rail & air communication and rather cheaper than other marinas in the area.

Steve Cronin

 

[vyv_cox]

Re: Vyv! Please see...

You seem to have taken care of most of my main concerns. It seems that the attachment and connection of the laptop should be seaworthy. I still have some doubts over the relative reliabilities of a laptop and a good plotter. I have yet to own a computer of any type that has not broken down at least once per year, whereas my two plotters to date have never failed. I suspect but cannot prove that US military money has gone into the latest generations of Garmin plotters and presumably this helps their reliability. I guess that if you were really concerned over screen size you could go to one of the 10 inch units, but they seem to be anything but cheap. If you were thinking of buying radar it could be worth looking at the combined radar/plotters, although the PBO report didn't seem to think much of them.

As regards your plans, we shall be setting off at roughly the same time as you, on a similar track. Keep in touch and we could do some of it together. As regards winter berthing, the Mediterranean side of Spain enjoys a nice winter climate and there seem to be plenty of options. Have you looked at http://www.1yachtua.com/ ? Should give you a few ideas!

Vyv