Would you trust 'automatic' chart plotting?

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Deleted User YDKXO

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I was messing around with the latest Navionics software on an Ipad last night and it now has an 'automatic' route facility. You put in the draft of your boat and hey presto, it automatically calculates the shortest route between 2 points presumably avoiding any water with a depth less than your draft. I guess some other charting software has this facility too.

The question is how sophisticated and foolproof is it? Is it capable of, say, avoiding an isolated rock in deep water and will it automatically calculate a route into a harbour using the recognised fairway or just blindly follow a depth contour?

And is this the future? As somebody who started out scrawling lines on paper charts with a Breton plotter and a set of dividers, I find the idea of just plugging your destination into a chart plotter as if it was the satnav in your car a bit sad and another part of the dumbing down process of boating. Driverless technology for cars is coming soon. How long will it be before we just plug a destination into our boat and the boat does the rest? I'm not sure I want to be part of that future
 
The answer is NO!
Like you a dividers and charts man
That's half the fun so why not?
Yes, I suppose sooner than later kit like this will work 100%
The R N still keep charts even with the kit they have
Even swmbos Volvo parks itself but I sh&t myself when I try it
If there are cars parked a bit cockeyed it don't like it though
I suppose it is the future , how boring!
 
I think that's marvellous. Used with a bit of common sense and providing it ties in to radar / AIS / pot bouy / debri / mad hatter and raggie avoidance systems what could possibly go wrong? Bacon sarnie anyone? :p
I'm not old school. I do study the charts but use my plotters underway and never leave the helm unless moored up or at anchor.

I wish my boat was like your wife's Volvo Kwakers. If it could moor itself in a parallel parking manouvre on the pontoons a lot of stress and embarrassment would be avoided. Now that really would be a boon. :encouragement:
 
I tried it earlier for a classic east coast route - Bradwell to Burnham. It took me 46nm for a trip that any real eastcoaster would do in 18nm. Sandbank hopping averse unless perhaps if you autoroute it at HW. Personally I don't see the point - route and passage planning is an enjoyable part of any trip.
 
Our Garmin stuf with added vision card does it but when I asked it to plot a route up the ICW to St Augustine, it said it could not create one, I think because although air draught is entered for bridge clearances as well as boat draught for staying afloat it got flummoxed by the 2 or 3 lifting bridges where a height clearance is noted on the chart with the bridge in closed position,and Mr Garmin didn't think of asking for an opening. AS I understand it it doesn't necessarily follow channel markers either, just uses depth contours and data or a fixed distance off the beach or a headland.

I thought it would be a useful quick way of setting multiple waypoints into a route ( using the marked channels) that I could then manually check and save for use, but I think the reality is it is another bit of wunderkinder mobile phone app type mentality carried a too far. I will try it offshore when I get a suitable chance but it seems you have to be at or near the start waypoint for it to work, not possible to pre plan using it from in harbour.
 
I think it is excellent-in fact much of the time I now find I don't even need to go to the boat and just watch it motor along via video ;)
 
I use I pad for longer passages to calculate distance and ck Met ,but only if wifi is available .
Otherwise plotter for me helm ,and paper out under chart screen for crew .
Nothing is integrated I,am a bit techno phobe .
There are rocks about so approaching unfamiliar coast we give both plotter + paper - a really good scan + read Rod Hiekels guide book .
But as said by others Nav is kinda one facet that stimulates the brain .
Also with tech -it may all pack up or give dodgy readings -
 
Garmin does it and I use it for most routes. Just tell it where you want to go and it plots it. Of course you should then check it but it has always been fine so far with the odd bit where I am happier to be one side of the line rather than the other. It is just a guide but it seems to be pretty smart. I often do it just so I can get an eta.
 
I have this software for the business on land, drivers that don't keep a check on it end up all over the place spending fortunes on fuel the could have avoided. As far as boats are concerned, if you spend some time planning your own route, then if something changes you know what to do cos its in your head as well as in the computer chip.
 
gjgm said:
I think it is excellent-in fact much of the time I now find I don't even need to go to the boat and just watch it motor along via video ;)
Click to expand...

Can you get an anti seasick app for the afflicted too? and a cordon bleu galley slave app could be useful as well, not to mention a nookie under autopilot one:encouragement:
 
Robin said:
not to mention a nookie under autopilot one:encouragement:
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Hey ! Smart can u send me an e bay link to one please
Hactually today whilst 'learnin' some peeps some stuff Nautical I mentioned this Thread on said venerable Forum
Cos, three of the Peeps trying to find our new naught ti cal teachy place ended up in the Waitrose car park 1 an an alf miles away!
Cos' they just stuck the postcode in their 'car plotters' and drove to us like sheeps/ lemmings (Bahh Bahh ' & 'Lemming sound') 'oo err, I, m in Waitrose Kwack'' they phoned. 'OK' says I 'get some milk while your there and some jammy dodgers and those bourbon biccies wiv a bit a chocolate an that'. So they did
So I gave em directions, eventually the naughty cull learners turned up
That's the thing with MOBOERS, you do get a better quality of 'ships biccie!, when all is lost!
We are almost 'programmed' now to go places with the aid of lectronics
Snot a bad thing, well tiss a good thing really
Really though we should do the 'Atlas' thing first and 'picture' our Passage
Well
IMHO
So this thread helped our 'Students' think about leccy tronic ways of navigating and the 'Trad' ways and how the two should live side by side
Innit
 
Been in use on commercial vessels for years, a friend of mine markets a system that is used by super tankers, Ro-Ro ferries across the channel, the Italian Navy, the Jamaican Navy and numerous millionaire's yachts. He once showed me the system in action with plotting a route from the Black sea to the Baltic, it did it in less than 20sec, and even gave a choice of the Kiel canal or going around Denmark, as an ex Royal Navy navigator he assured me it would take a navigator a couple of hours to plot the route with all the waypoints and course changes. it takes into account draught, wind and tide state. And can plot a guard zone around the vessel for hazardous cargo's, it also has automatic updates via satellite link as most commercial ships continually have chart updates chasing them via post for the paper charts onboard.
Of course commercial ships are required to have paper charts as back up and someone has to maintain look out and know the ships position at all times.
 
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Deleted User said:
I was messing around with the latest Navionics software on an Ipad last night and it now has an 'automatic' route facility. You put in the draft of your boat and hey presto, it automatically calculates the shortest route between 2 points presumably avoiding any water with a depth less than your draft. I guess some other charting software has this facility too.

The question is how sophisticated and foolproof is it? Is it capable of, say, avoiding an isolated rock in deep water and will it automatically calculate a route into a harbour using the recognised fairway or just blindly follow a depth contour?...
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I've just got it to plot a course from St Helier to Cowes and it came up with a usable course not much different from one I would've plotted - used swash ways and inshore channels where sensible and missed the rocks. It didn't just follow contours. I would've gone a little bit deeper in a couple of places but a perfectly usable course that would still require sensible watch keeping - just like any human plotted course. It wouldn't be sensible to follow either blindly. I think it's another useful tool for passage planning.
 
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