using a plotter when racing

[jason -and the arguenauts]

Quote:
On my old Sigma we used to stick a section of duck tape on each side of the cockpit bulkhead and one of the sheetmen would write the heading and COG achieved on each tack.

Now why didnt I think of that?

 

[forethought]

Go for a handheld low-featured GPS, as these have much quicker searching through waypoint lists rather than faff with cursors hitting the buoys in turn. Most effective is a chart table mounted GPS with a repeater for the helm.

Of course thats 1990's tech so we have to put up with pretty colour user interfaces where scrolling through a list of waypoints requires repeated presses of three or more buttons rather than holding down a scroll key.

We do use a Garmin GPSMAP450S postage stamp screen chartplotter but only as an aid to remembering where the first mark is, if its not one of the usual marks.

I prefer the GPS48 for quickly putting in complete courses.

 

[BrendanS]

Thanks for the replies - most interesting. Dont see any way of plotting in potential courses. Just selecting 4 out of the 38 marks at random gives more than a million potential courses. OK you couldnt combine any 4 in any order but it's clear there is a huge practical potential list.

Do any of you use the track and bearing off the GPS to decide tacking points? Or the VMG to the waypoint?

If you have most of them in as waypoints, it's easy enough to select which ones you want on the fly, and just add the odd one or two not already selected. Just make sure you name them sensibly, so you can select them easily.