Yeoman plotter

[yachtorion]

You can always find out where you are. It's not necessary to plot a trail of Xs on a bit of paper these days.

I can see and understand the viewpoint... but we may have to agree to differ on this one I'm not some luddite... I'm an computer professional "DevOps Consultant" who spends his life roaming around dealing with complex, clever and failsafe networked computer systems. The experience that has taught me is use redundancy. Never rely on a single data path if you want proper reliability... and anybody who has used Wi-Fi much has probably experienced the problems of depending on low power radio signals.

As a result, I'll always be keeping an alternative method, be that D.R, depth, bearings, radar or any combination of the above, to go with my GPS nav The Yeoman is a great tool to help with that.

Any anyway... where is the fun or challenge of navigating by push button?

 

[pvb]

As a result, I'll always be keeping an alternative method, be that D.R, depth, bearings, radar or any combination of the above, to go with my GPS nav The Yeoman is a great tool to help with that.

I've obviously misunderstood. I thought the Yeoman needed GPS to mark a position.

 

[yachtorion]

I've obviously misunderstood. I thought the Yeoman needed GPS to mark a position.

No you're right it does. But once you've done that, it's on a piece of paper and provides a track that can be used to inform D.R.... and alternatively, if you know where you are on a chart it gives you an instant way to make that into an accurate lat/lon for VHF purposes...

It's just an easier, faster, more foolproof and automated Breton.

 

[prv]

But they're useful if the engine doesn't work!

Is that the only time you use them, then?

Can you still get charts that have the symbols on them?

Imray and Admiralty are still printing the Yeoman points on their A2-sized chart folios. But in any case, pre-printed points aren't necessary, you can draw in your own as I have done on several of my larger charts. The Danish charts I used back in 2001 didn't have Yeoman points on them either. You can register any chart, map, or drawing on a Yeoman as long as it's to scale and the projection is vaguely Mercator-ish. In fact I think the Pro version may even be able to do Gnomonic for ocean crossings.

I never understood why they didn't update the unit to include an integrated GPS,

They did in the end for the Sport model, but personally I think it's best paired with a Garmin 128 as I have had on both my boats. They seemed to be envisaging the Sport being used portably in an open boat, which I freely admit is a nonsense compared to a video plotter.

it was such a faff trying to get one to work,

?

It's standard NMEA, should just work with more or less any GPS.

One thing I coudn't fathom was why you were being less reliant on technology - why trust a moving puck with flashing lights and not a plotter?

First of all, I don't really use it for reliability or backup, I use it because I like working with a nice big chart that I can draw on, use dividers and a protractor on, etc. So the question is sort of moot anyway.

However, if a Yeoman were to stop working, you're left with the same chart you were already working with. Hopefully with a recent position marked through the hole in the mouse, but even if not you will know roughly where you were last looking at. Any routes, lines, etc drawn on it are still there. You've lost part of your navigation (real-time position updates) but not all of it.

If a plotter stops working, you're left looking at a blank screen.

As I say, it's not a huge factor as in both cases I would probably pull out my iPhone and fire up Navionics. But you did ask.

Pete

 

[prv]

No you're right it does [need GPS for position]

Strictly speaking, it doesn't. It has a Dead Reckoning mode where you tell it a course and speed and it will keep an updated position estimate. If you connect up the appropriate NMEA data it will even use that, giving much greater accuracy than your estimated average figures. Whenever you have a fix, from whatever source, you can point the mouse at that spot and click it in to update the position.

Bit of a curiosity nowadays, I've never used it and I don't have the course and speed data wired up even though it's available, but it's an interesting capability.

alternatively, if you know where you are on a chart it gives you an instant way to make that into an accurate lat/lon for VHF purposes...

It also makes simple cross-checks easy - point at a landmark on the chart to instantly read off its bearing (I have mine in range-and-bearing mode all the time) then compare to the bearing from compass binos. Each time I do that and the figures match up, I feel like I'm putting a small trickle of points into the black box

Pete

 

[JumbleDuck]

The Yeoman Sport plotter I bought on eBay has just turned up. Bit manky but serviceable and can probably be cleaned up.

After a quick play with it... well what a fantastic piece of kit. Such a shame they've gone out of production why didn't more people buy and use them?

I tried a Yeoman Sport, but it was no good to me as it wouldn't take a folded-in-half admiralty chart.

 

[Gwylan]

The hardest part will be routing a cable from one to the other. If you already have a GPS input to the Yeoman then you probably only want to connect the output to the plotter, to send waypoints from the chart to the helm. This would only need a single twisted pair (2-core cable). However, if the run is awkward then it may be best to run two pairs (4-core cable) for future proofing.

Then just connect up according to the instructions, it's pretty simple. The plotter will probably use a single common NMEA ground whereas if I remember rightly the Yeoman has one for each channel, but they can be connected together at the plotter end without any problem.

Pete

Thank you.

We used Wagobox [es] they are fantastic and mean that you can add, change, adjust connections really easily. Especially when working with the very thin wires that the GPS, plotter etc use.

We have all the cables routed through a series of junction boxes in the locker behind the nav station. Will not be hard to do that at all. And change connections if we find we have to 'experiment' a bit.