Plotter at Nav station or garage?

Mount Plotter

  • Hatch garage

    Votes: 36 72.0%

  • Nav station

    Votes: 14 28.0%
  • Total voters
    50
Not sure I'm fully with the consensus here:

  1. Hatch garages make most sense IMHO on vessels equipped with permanent glass spray screens such as Maxis, HR's, Naijad's, etc. The standard canvas/plastic folding affairs open the possibility of equipment being stood upon when zipping up the mainsail, etc.
  2. I am always a little nervous about placing a piece of primary nav equipment such as the chart plotter on the binnacle. It is only viewable in the manner prv describes and there is always the risk of someone getting thrown up against it. Installing a dual plotter system can fully resolve this problem, but it's a pricey solution for electronic equipment which rapidly dates.
 
prv said:
I disagree slightly - it should be in front of the person who is navigating the vessel (or possibly commanding, without meaning to sound too formal and militaristic about it). The helmsman might be a complete beginner, they might be someone who's good at driving a boat to windward but has no interest in navigating, or they might in fact be a headless robot underneath the aft cabin bunk. All three of those spend more time steering Ariam than I do, but if I'm in charge I want to be able to keep an eye on the plotter without having to go to the aft end of the cockpit and peer over the top of the binnacle at an upside-down screen. Hence its carefully-chosen location at the front of the cockpit in the pic above.

Pete
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Agreed on the limitations of having the sole plotter at the wheel, however I would most likely trip over or stand on any plotter mounted near the main hatch when stowing the mainsail.
 
dom said:
Hatch garages make most sense IMHO on vessels equipped with permanent glass spray screens such as Maxis, HR's, Naijad's, etc. The standard canvas/plastic folding affairs open the possibility of equipment being stood upon when zipping up the mainsail, etc.
Click to expand...

Fair point. I'd definitely worry about a large plotter just stood on its out-of-the-box trunnion mount, with exposed wires at the back. A GRP pod like the ones I made would protect it from getting kicked from most directions, but the protrusion above an otherwise flat deck might look a bit silly.

Pete
 
It may not work for bigger stuff on bigger boats, but Jissel's instruments are mounted in a box that mounts on brackets on the front of the hatch. They're easy to see and the box just lifts off to stow below when we leave the boat.

There's a theoretical risk of the box coming adrift in extremis, but it has to be lifted a good couple of inches to get free, and if that happens on a Snapdragon 24, I figure it'll be the least of my worries.
 
Clearly depends on the way you tend to sail, the boat, preferences etc.
In unfamiliar waters I tend to do the passage planning, including setting waypoints etc, the evening before - hence the master plotter for us is at the chart table.
We also have a bigger slave one at the end of the cockpit table which is perfect - visible to helm and navigator, but rarely used to control things.

As such I might be tempted to put the plotter below and use a tablet at the helm via wifi - in a suitable case. Can get much bigger screen pound for pound
 
I've gone for a small Standard Horizon plotter, CP180i.

I've wired it in parallel from one position to another, so that I can fit it to a bracket both under the hood or to the side of the nav' desk.

Having it's own built-in aerial, I then need to plug in just the one cable at whichever position I choose.

When planning the next leg of a cruise I can then comfortably sit at the nav' desk checking plotter (at various zooms :) ) with the chart(s).

Whilst cruising in unknown waters the plotter is always under the hood position, although the huge majority of the time my hood stays down.

S.
 
I find myself disagreeing with the majority here, but my plotter is below at the nav station. Some reasons:

1. It's not for the person steering, for the reasons prv gives and in fact I'd go further and say that it's poor practice and possibly dangerous for the helmsman to be on 'virtual reality'. I want him to be using his senses to see buoys, wave patterns or water colour to detect close-by dangers and not looking at the plotter (for he read she and vice versa: on our boat she has the better eyesight).

2. The independence of senses over instruments is especially important when sailing in poorly charted areas where charts, paper or electronic, can have some hundreds of metres or even a mile or two of error, or be years out of date. The helmsman's senses, uncontaminated by how it's 'supposed' to be, have a very significant extra safety function.

3/ Same applies for AIS, I want the helmsman to look for ships lights (or lack of lights) and the navigator can decide if and how they correspond to his instruments. Icebergs are quite interesting as well and probably not on the chart-plotter!

4. The above means that it should not be at the wheel, but it could still be on the garage rather than below. I chose below because I mostly navigate there, and it makes integrating with radar and AIS rather easier for cabling and power management etc. Very occasionally we want a repeater under the spray-hood, which is where the iPhone or iPad comes in.

5. We do run the plotter mid-ocean, particularly at night and so short-handed for its AIS and/or RADAR proximity alarms. This allows one to get on with other things from time to time, such as maintenance or navigation planning or making bread. These mostly take place below and, if single-handed, cat-napping also tends to be close to the nav-station.

I reject the idea that speed is so much of the essence that below is too far away; boats move at walking pace and we navigate on scales of hundreds of meters or more often several miles. So maybe I get slightly more exercise going up and down the companion-way than is strictly needed but on the other hand I can use the pilot books and charts and those sketches given me in bars etc. and keep them all below in one place and out of wind and rain.
 
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jdc said:
2. The independence of senses over instruments is especially important when sailing in poorly charted areas where charts, paper or electronic, can have some hundreds of metres or even a mile or two of error, or be years out of date. The helmsman's senses, uncontaminated by how it's 'supposed' to be, have a very significant extra safety function.

.
Click to expand...

I understand where you'r coming from.....
.
In 2012 according to our plotter screen we found ourselves going through the harbour wall at Padstow instead of through the gate some 25 metres away.


However, bordered by 800feet cliffs passing through Loch Scavaig and into the pool of Loch Coruisk we 'touched'. Even checking charts we should have been in clear water.

So, not sure how......
"The helmsman's senses, uncontaminated by how it's 'supposed' to be, have a very significant extra safety function".


S.
 
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ONE of these on the coachroof under the sprayhood?

http://www.starmarinedepot.com/navpod.html

We have one that is tiltable and rotates, mounted on the coachroof. rather than the wheel, but we have wind instrument and pilot control heads in smaller pods on the pedestal guard, either can repeat navigation data if asked but we can clearly see the 10 inch MFD ( radar/plotter/AIS etc from anywhere in the cockpit. We also have a laptop running opencpn at the nav table below decks, but the screen is useless in sunlight outside.
 
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Essentially its the name of the cover that your sliding main hatch goes into.
Often there is an additional glass fibre box either built in or sits on top which accepts wind, speed depth instruments and the like, this is also referred to as the garage.
 
This is a newer arrangement then, when did hatches start being constructed with a cover.this must extend in width to allow for wiring to pass through into the cabin, outside the hatch runners,can you buy a cover?
 
Binman said:
This is a newer arrangement then, when did hatches start being constructed with a cover
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70s, maybe?

Without one, if you have water rushing across the coachroof, it can get under the front edge of the sliding hatch, especially if it's not fully closed, and cascade into the cabin. Our previous boat, sans garage, used to do that occasionally.

More modern designs often recess the sliding hatch into the coachroof structure instead of adding a garage on top.

Pete
 
IMO the plotter needs to be near where you spend most of your time when sailing, to see it clearly and press the buttons.
As I possibly spend nearly as much time below as I do in the cockpit, I have mine on a swinging arm so I can have it facing in or out (steering is 99% on autopilot).
 
Invariably it is just myself and my wife sailing. Most of the time one person will be sailing while the other is relaxing either on deck or below, not involved in the navigation of the boat.
Personally think a plotter somewhere around the wheel that can be rotated 360 degrees is the ideal
 
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