What to do With Chart Storage?

Har Har Har /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Good wind up /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Navigation is a mental ability based on spatial relations aptitude. It's easy for those lucky enough to have a good 3D spatial ability. They could navigate anywhere with just a compass or even the odd glimpse of the sun. It seems natural and simple - lucky folk. Others need sextant's, charts, GPS, woodworm and luck /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

If you arrive you can navigate brilliantly /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

The Trolls guide to fractal contrifibulactic navigation techniques is always on my bookself /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
John
Good to see a like minded sailor....
We too have given up the paper charts, we keep the in a cockpit locker now just under the tender.

We have lined the old chart table with silver foil and connected it to ground, so we can keep spare HH GPS' and batteries in there. This saves trying to remember to put the GPS in the oven should there be a Thunder storm.

We've also found it a very handy stowage size for Fray Bentos pies. We tend to keep the Chicken and Mushroom on the left and the Steak ones on the right.

Hope this is of use...
 
A troll is some one trying to get a reaction. We need a new word for someone that tries to find support from a community for an unsafe policy by labelling the non conformists with "traditional" or likening them to extinct birds.

No yacht I know goes to sea with adequate electronic systems and redundancy to ignore physical charts. GPS is not infallible and can be jammed easily. Without the GPS most electronic systems are nearly useless for charting.

As for lighting! Had quite a bit this year, and you do not need a direct strike to loose electronics, as we found out in Australia.

As for using a PC for charting! These are built from parts never intended for yachts and mostly have fans. Go through one storm and see if it survives I know a lot that did not. Even one that was a so called "marine" computer, which was exceptionally well protected in its own cupboard, and sold to round the world yachties, had parts that failed that were not fit for the purpose.

So if the argument is that you do not go far from home, and so need only a couple of physical charts, that is a valid reason for reusing that space. Just put them with the books in their nice plastic covers. But to make it out as normal behaviour that only extinct species need backups leads to the idiot we met in the Indian Ocean that due to simple computer failure had to persuade another boat to accompany him for 4 days to the main island so he could order more equipment.

What would you do in that situation? You are sailing along and someone pleads with you to divert to an island hundreds of miles south of your destination because they have not got a clue what they are doing. Or you are in the Solent and a boat glues itself within a boat length of your stern, as you head into port, because they have not got a clue where the sand banks are.
 
[ QUOTE ]
A troll is some one trying to get a reaction. We need a new word for someone that tries to find support from a community for an unsafe policy by labelling the non conformists with "traditional" or likening them to extinct birds.

[/ QUOTE ]Hi SolarNeil
I don't think he's serious - just a wind up. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Paper is dead as a primary tool, GPS is now the primary nav tool for many, BUT paper remains the backup, or it should anyway, weither under the matress, on a book shelf, or even under a pack of crisps! Navigation is an art, and I'm happy for folk to use which ever method suits them, be it paper, electrons, sights, 3D intuition, or just an amazing sense of direction!

I've been a GPS evangelist for years, but still carry the paper, but why now am I in the middle of an Ocean nav course (celestial+sextant)? Curioisity and desire to learn a dying art before they stop teaching it anymore. GPS with redundancy is statistically reliable without paper backup - if you don't think so, then I suggest never boarding a commercial flight again - cause they rely soley on electronics to get yer bums back on the ground. Have done for decades! I'm a gadget freak, but strangly I like the paper charts, especially for planning, even though I use the laptop too. There is just something about the 'big picture' feel you get from a large paper chart that you don't get from looking at a 6" or even 12" LCD plotter. Each on to their own!
 
Visited a friend just recently and they had used old charts to wallpaper a study, looked good.

Ships_Cat, maybe you could use the same theme and turn the space in your chart table into a spare room! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Harbour plans ... printed off from PC plotting ??

Log Book ..... ships papers .... passage plans ..... light-lists ...... all sorts of stuff that French Authorities etc. need ...

Basically find all Boat's papers etc. that you can stick in it - 'cause if you let it be used for "domestic" - it will never ever return to you !! Defend your space to the death !!
 
Re: What to do without charts

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I suggest never boarding a commercial flight again - cause they rely soley on electronics to get yer bums back on the ground.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hang on, I don't fly very often, but did I imagine those lines of bright lights showing where to touch down, signs saying Etrangers and Douane, and the little man waving pinpong bats - sorry, too many war movies.

I don't get that welcome when I blunder thro the fog into Cherbourg, or Ostend, or wherever.

But as this troll has become serious, here's a genuine question:

I inherited a Simrad colour chart-plotter with the boat, and am trying to learn to love it. But isn't a paper chart the only format which covers a typical passage AND shows the characteristics of EVERY light on the way? When the screen displays Chichester to Cowes there is hardly a single navigation mark on it. That's no use to me. yes, I can zoom in several times until the buoys appear, then click on the one I'm trying to identify for more info, but coming out of Cowes and turning right, in the dark, only a Solent chart distinguishes between buoys range a couple of miles and the forts which should be visible for 15M.

I haven't used this sort of kit in the 'traditional' situation of me at the chart table calling out to crew what they might be able to see, but I don't see it being much use.

Or does someone know better?
 
Re: What to do without charts

In answer to your question, ARCS charts certainly do, they're raster charts that come from the same electonic source as the paper charts. ARCS can only be used on PCs tho'.

I'm not sure but believe that C-Map charts show all of the lights, nav marks etc. There is a user setting to display as much, or as little, of this info as you need. This might be the same on your plotter.
 
Wind up, or not, we need a name for some one that needs to feel they are not alone and denigrate the others.

The problem is a lot of newbies read these forums and we end up with that idiot in the Indian Ocean. This is not the lounge.

As for commercial use in planes. They have many backup systems. The systems are also built to last. My nephew has just spent 4 years doing aircraft design degree and reliability was key factor.

To compare aircraft electronics with the kit used on a boats is not sensible. The kit used on boats is based on mass produced cost analysed throw away parts (I am responsible for quite a few). They are two ends of the spectrum. (ignoring military and space).

Even in the days before GPS, the polar flights needed to take off with 3 working gyro compasses and a sextant.

GPS might be the primary tool for position but it should not be confused with the charting tool which is either physical or electronic. One is a means of position the other is a method to record and plan routes through known objects/obstacles. Very few mapped obstacles at 32000'. Last time I went sailing I did not have a ground controller or a radar following me either.

(PS. I was at a remote island when the 1999 GPS rollover happened and some boat were left with broken GPS units!)
 
A chart plotter uses 600x800 screens approximately.

A scanner will work at 1200dpi or better

A printer will work at around 1200 to 5000dpi

So why not live your life looking through a 1 inch hole!

I will keep to working on a 36" desk until the technology catches up. Might be quite soon when they get the electronic ink printing processes working but I'm told there are serious issues with reliability and moisture still.
 
Keeping to the same theme as a Troll. We could call them Uruk-hai. They were the new army that were superior to the old Orcs. They did have a way of looking down on the poor Orcs, but in the end they ran straight into a forest that was not on their chart and died out. Seems apt.
 
Fair enough. There is somewhere between these two polar extremes often expressed here:

A) Paper and woodworm only, anything electriconic is from satan, doom and gloom, where's my quill
OR
B) gizmo only man who knows it all, switch on and go, and thinks anybody still using paper is a traditional nit wit.

The silent majority are somewhere in the middle, left or right of center where they are happy. Each on to their own.

BTW, one way are another we are all still using charts! It's just a matter of difference between paper fibres or electrons.

As I said before I do carry paper and on long passages in unfamiliar waters, keep an eye on it for confirmation, make the odd plot by hand, time, dist run, etc. BUT I used the Laptop for passage and pilotage planning, and the GPS for real time navigation with 3 independant backup systems (inc alternate power sources). So only George Bush having a tantrum is likely to cause me to defer over to paper only (ie single engine navigation), but then again he is so thick he probably doesn't know where the off button is. Horses for courses! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Anyway most of the time on the coast it's possible to just look out the window and eyeball navigate, which is where 95% of folk boat 95% of the time.

Btw2, Civilian transport aircraft have not carried or used paper navigation charts for decades, only approach and departure plates, which are now also electronically stored (Jeppeson, etc). There is a difference between getting lost in a slow boat and a 550mph jet. In the boat you can stop and pause for thought, and if you hit something, it will be at low speed - still dangerous, but slightly less so than hitting something solid an 400kt on top of 40tons of cooking oil. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Cheers
 
Put paper charts in it, would be my suggestion.

Before you put your charts ashore, check on your insurance policy. I'm sure mine mentions having paper charts in it somewhere. As I'm pretty positive that all the electronics manufactureres state thier products are an aid to navigation and not a substitute for paper charts. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

What do you do when your electrics pack up, and your navigator dies? Call the lifeboat to guide you in. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

I'd stick to paper and a compass. The GPS is great for steaming between waypoints, but I enjoy checking my position against the GPS on a paper chart. Also by doing this and marking my position on a chart every hour and noting it in the nav' log, I will always know where I am (or was an hour ago).
Sounds good to me. /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif
 
??? Polar Flights ....

"Even in the days before GPS, the polar flights needed to take off with 3 working gyro compasses and a sextant"

My father was involved via CAA with BOAC to complete the first Commercial Airliner Trans-Polar flights .... only made truly possible by the use of INS (Inertial Navigation Systems - which was based on 3 planes of motion Gyros). I may be wrong - as it's many years ago and I was young kid listening to my father about it ... they had to have 2 working INS's with possibly a third on stby.... Sextant ????? Never heard him mention something that has little use in polar regions ! Even a standard chart is no use as it has to be Gnemonic Projection and also any reference has to be in Grid system because of the 90 degree Latitude and infinite small Longitude ......

Of course what do i know !! /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: ??? Polar Flights ....

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Sextant ????? Never heard him mention something that has little use in polar regions !

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I don't want to drift the thread too much, but I don't understand how you think a sextant is of little use in Polar Regions?

And I speak as one who is priveleged to have been in Antarctica and the the Arctic (on land sea and in the air...!)
 
Re: ??? Polar Flights ....

First flights in Britannias and VC10's ..... Sextant ??
 
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I use a yeoman plotter and enjoy work at the chart table.

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So do I. I must admit my chart table is full of 'useful' things and I keep my charts beneath the nearest bunk cushion. I'm a dinosaur - going to sea without paper charts would be unthinkable.
 
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