RYA chartplotter

[whiteoaks7]

There I was, happily fighting my way through the RYA's appaulingly difficult website with the intention of finding a copy of next year's chartplotter software, only to find in the smallprint that 2005's update is not going to be delivered until mid march!! Since 2004's terminates on 31st December this leaves rather a gap in system availability - thank God the RYA don't control the GPS system! Is this real? Or are they a joke?

 

[ShipsWoofy]

I know, January to March is the time that all the depths change and the rocks shift about to catch out the unwary using the RYA chart plotter.

 

[steverow]

I think there must be some area of grace here. Mine is happily telling me that I lose access to the charts on DEC 31st, but I only bought the damn thing in March last year..so have only had nine months.
I will be a bit peeved if they dont have the new charts available before it expires, but there again I only use it as a backup to C-map on PC in case that fails.
I am thinking now very hard about whether I want to replace it in it's current form, bearing in mind that the two chart areas I need will cost me £80 per year every year

I may well change and buy the ARCS skipper charts and use them on Seaclear, which say over a four year period will be half the price..and the software is free.
Seaclear gives many advantages which the rather basic RYA program doesnt have such as autopilot interface etc.

Steve.

 

[fireball]

Have you tried setting back the date of the computer your running it on - might throw out any tidal information, but at least you can see the chart!!

 

[Birdseye]

I think I remember that when the plotter was first introduced,\ the RYA said that it would finish on the 31 Dec but there would be an unspecified period of grace. We shall see.

In a market where most people balk at replacing charts when new editions come out, I cant see the plotter with its yearly replacement cycle succeeding. Even on the back of the shorebased classes.

 

[rhumlady]

At £40 a set per year it compares well to paper charts at £17.50 OR SO. My beef is that they are not available for the west coast of Scotland.

 

[Boathook]

For the area I can and do sail I would have to buy 3 sets of CD. I find it bad enough replacing a 10 year old chart though the almanac is new each year before anyone complains ! Old charts with 100 yard accuracy is more than adequate for my style of navigation.

 

[scuby]

You could, as an earlier post suggests, use SeaClear and then use the long dark evenings to scan your paper charts and hey presto, chart plotting for free, and it's legal.

 

[Birdseye]

I am curious about Seaclear and scanning. Can you really get it to work effectively ie without edges where you have scanned. And what do you do about different scales? Or different datums. In other words doesnt it require you to have something more than the mottley collection of out of date charts that most of us have?

Personally, I'm looking forward to the time when its possible to download bootleg copies of charts just like you can do records (pm me if you know where). Given that its the government I would be scr***ng, I think I would probably download even areas I wasnt going to sail in! Chance to get one back, so to speak.

 

[aBod]

Does anybody know what areas are covered, I looked on the rya website but I couldn't see my local area, the Irish sea. I thought it was covered.
Cheers,
Alasdair

 

[Guest]

Seaclear has options to change datums, the charts are calibrated by user to ensure correctness of position etc.

Seaclear also accepts BSB / KAP files and other industry standard charts - except later Maptech CAP files - which they instigated to get around others having licence to use BSB / KAP.

They say that P2P networks do have charts if anyone feels the urge to download .... I'm told that Shareaza is one of the best .....

The ARC's RYA package is in my opinion beating its head against the wall when there are so many packages out there that do a better job and don't have 'shelf-life' ...... some like Seaclear being free as well !!!

Better to check out :

Maptech
Seaclear
Ozi-Explorer
Win GPS
Capn' Voyager

just as examples .... without having to spend humungous amounts on expensive software like some of the so-called Pro packages ......