Plotter: at wheel or chart table?

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biscuit

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Or both?
Its decision time, with new boat with wheel steering coming up. I am used to tiller steering and plotters etc below at the chart table. A multiscreen plotter at the wheel is the fashionable solution, but one I am not used to. At the wheel sounds good for Scottish rock hopping, but standing "outdoors" passage planning not so good. So maybe 2 plotters, or a PC below. Opinions welcome, please.
 
The admiral and I discuss(!) this often. I stay below conning the boat and she helms. I have all the nav goodies below. She is desperate for a plotter at the helm position so she "knows what is going on". As if I don't keep her informed. The short form is that we will put a plotter at the helm position as soon as I find one with all the functionality of SeaClear software, such as AIS rate of turn, CPA, TCPA and so on.
 
What would you do if you have to sail single handed? If one of you were disabled, for example. Would you rely on the autopilot and con from below, or want to keep watch and navigate from the cockpit?

I have all capabilities needed for SH sailing in the cockpit and a laptop for passage planning below.
 
I have never really understood the need for a display at the wheel for several reasons but mainly because it can only be seen by the helm and then only if someone is actually steering rather than under the autopilot. I would always want the main plotter and radar displays at the chart table, that allows route planning and so on in comfort and dry with access also to pilots and paper charts. However I do also like to have a plotter out in the cockpit but just not at the wheel, so ours went on the coachroof where it was visible to all.

The same goes for the instruments. We had the main ones over the companionway hatch with only the pilot control head and a multi repeater at the wheel itself.

Our radar was below at the chart table and next to the plotter, both standalone, and we also had an autopilot control head and multi repeater there also. That meant in thick fog it was possible to sit in comfort at the chart table and monitor the radar properly as well as make any course changes using the pilot control there. The important thing with radar is how the picture evolves, not what a snapshot shows and this is better done IMO by someone concentrating solely on it and not bothered by distractions of steering or visual lookout or wind changes etc.

So if money was available my choice would be main set up below and repeaters as required up top but on the coachroof not at the wheel and wind/speed/depth instruments etc over the hatch.
 
For Pilotage - at the helm is best
For Passaging - where is most comfortable to view it (not always from behind the wheel if you're on autopilot)
For Planning - anywhere you're sat...

FWIW - We have a RL70 at the wheel, a Standard Horizon CP180i at the companionway and a Yeoman at the chart table. The Yeoman is just to play with really - the 2 chartplotters get most use.
 
No one has yet said it depends on the boat, it's use, and conditions. When on pilotage, or indeed racing it's very useful to see your course made good. Not always entirely obvious by Mk1 eyeball. On my boat however, being a cat with a wheelhouse at the front of the cockpit I have the chartplotter right in front of me when I am sitting at the wheel which is also excellent for when underway, especially as I have an AIS interface. The only time I would do everything below is on a monohull if ocean cruising. Then it's far preferable to standing out in the wet especially with an aft wheel. But then people who go to sea in half a boat are nuts anyway.....
 
I had the same dilemma, in the end I placed the screen over the companionway. That way I could see it from the helm and still use/program it when stood under the hood in 'orrible weather. I positioned it there as a 'prototype' four years ago and it stayed there ever since!

Chox
 
I have both and I never use the one at the nav station. Down below I use paper charts for any real navigation that I do when underway and a laptop for most of the planning.

The plotter tells me where I am to the nearest inch (which is something I could have done with 30 years ago when I hit Sark in the fog) which is just great for pushing the limits of a TSS or East Coast sand bank. Pilotage is great because you know exactly where to look for a mark and can make sense of a new harbour entrance without fussing with pictures. The spacial awareness of the helm is improved dramatically. My AIS and radar are plumbed in so that the helm has instant access to all sorts of useful info. Furthermore, it is easy for the helm to keep an eye on the GPS data and make sure it is not starting to talk b0110cks.

Now, if I didn't have any paper charts I don't know that I would be quite so happy to keep peering at the plotter that was infront of the helm. Then again, I often sail with the plotter switched off so that I can enjoy life and not get mesmerised by all the electronics.
 
At the helm!! As I see it, with the new regs you (UK) have to post your passage plan? So the need to plan during a passage, (with bolt holes already plotted?) Is limited and with more limited crews ie H&W, eyes should be on deck. Modern Chartplotters with AIS and radar overlays the info is already at the helm with all passage info for the passage downloaded or plotted in reducing the need to have half the effective eyes 'off the job'.
I have no chart-table onboard, But most of my sailing is pilotage among islands. But I plan and set-up my passages before hand, sometimes at home. I use chartpaper to do this. I then plot waypoints onto both GPS and Chartplotter in view of the helm. I have a small board with a clear plastic cover if I have to check to paper chart, notes and up date the log for which I use prepared A4 sheets.
 
The high-tech sailor - where will it end!


MyWay.jpg
 
Plotter position

scanstrutpodMedium-1.jpg


At the helm! This is ours (albeit on a similar boat), and it has the advantage of being visible at either wheel, or for the crew. It has AIS overlay on the radar or plotter screen.

We have a computer below, which will be set up as a standalone chart plotter (when I get a gps dongle and charts).

Cheers,

Michael.
 
After many years with tiller steered boats, when the boat is sailing upwind we helm from the coaming where we can more easily control the traveller and steer. (Our cockpit is ergonomically designed for this and the wheel is 5'dia.) Since you are more likely to need frequent nav. info. when beating we get it from the laptop on the chart table. Similarly when motoring we are rarely behind the wheel. So a binnacle mounted display would not make sense for us, but I would be tempted to put it there if sailing single handed more often. At present when sailing single handed I have to switch the Autopilot on to check the charts, I suspect I could slide down to read a display on the wheel hoop more easily than going below.
Unlikely to change though, old habits die hard.
 
emandvee44 said:
scanstrutpodMedium-1.jpg


At the helm! This is ours (albeit on a similar boat), and it has the advantage of being visible at either wheel, or for the crew. It has AIS overlay on the radar or plotter screen.

We have a computer below, which will be set up as a standalone chart plotter (when I get a gps dongle and charts).

Cheers,

Michael.
Click to expand...

THat mounting (is it a ball joint?) looks brilliant. Was it specific to that plotter, if not, where did you get it?

EDIT: I just realised that the mount is part of the Scanstrut Deck Pod, and found the price, OUCH!
 
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On the previous boat - and after a rather choppy N Sea passage when I kept going below to navigate following a change of destination - SWMBO demanded a 2nd station at the wheel - I duly obliged and it became the most used of the two!
On the new tiller steered boat the plotter/radar is at the compainonway - again at SWMBOs insistance - as everyhting is set for solo sailing (despite mainly sailing with crew/family).
 
We had and E80 at the wheel and a Raymarine remote pad by the chart table and used the television in the saloon as a screen. Worked well but in reality we used the one in the cockpit 99% of the time including planning sessions, mind you it was in the Caribbean, in European (ie cold) waters I suspect the remote would have come into its own.
 
It’s not so much a question of how many plotters, but how many stations.

We wired our E120 up so we can have it up in the cockpit when sailing around - positioned so it can be seen from anywhere in the cockpit – with a second station down below at the chart table. It’s just a matter of undoing a few plugs, taking it down below and plugging it in again.

As it’s turned out, it’s in the cockpit 100% of the time when out on the water. Couldn’t imagine having it down below on passage.

The only time it goes below is so it doesn’t go walkabout when we’re leaving the boat and even then most of the time we don’t bother to plug it all in.

Since we’ve mainly been in the tropics for the last few years, even passage planning is done topsides. However, the few times we’ve done work down below, we’ve tended to use the laptop and upload using RayTech. Have been tempted to run the plotter topsides and laptop down below while on passage, but a glance at the ammeter soon put the kybosh on that.

johnabbott893 said:
The plotter tells me where I am to the nearest inch (which is something I could have done with 30 years ago when I hit Sark in the fog)
Click to expand...

Beware! SWMBO was down below sharpening up the machete

View attachment 4067

(Although I can't talk - many many years ago, I collected the old lightship that was moored by HMS Ganges)
 
What I don't like about the idea of having a plotter in front of the wheel is what it can do to your night vision. For me, when at the helm being able to see is far more important than knowing where I am to the exact foot, even more so at night, when you're looking out for black shapes against a black sea and sky. I know you can dim the screens, but it's still going to have an effect.

The other issue I can see with plotters at the wheel is causing people to take the rhumb line between two points instead of using a course to steer that takes into account tides and other conditions. So again, I'd rather steer to a compass than to a computer screen that is constantly twitching left, right and centre, which will cause inexperienced helmsmen to overcorrect.

Then you get people who think they know best, because of what they see in front of their eyes and start deciding which direction they're going to steer instead of steering the course given.

So I'd keep it at the chart table. If the person at the helm complains that they want to know more about what's going on, either tell them to shut up and steer the course given, or relieve them for five minutes so they can dip below and make their own assessments.
 
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