Are You A Video Game Navigator?

[Snore]

I am really surprised by some of the posts. When operating someone else's boat A/K/A operating under license- assuming good visibility- I run everything but radar during the day.

If something bad happens one would look real foolish saying they turned off the plotter that had AIS data. Or covered the engine gauges because they were annoying.

[NevisDog]

Originally Posted by Snore

...If something bad happens one would look real foolish saying they turned off the plotter that had AIS data. Or covered the engine gauges because they were annoying.

If something bad happens? Like frying the ship's batteries? Like lightning strike? Like solar panels failing? Like drowning the plotter in a knock-down? Bad things happen ... to electronics - best we all learn how to get by without those crutches before leaving the dock.

[Snore]

Oh I can run without them and have paper charts for key ports with me.

But they are ON.

[NevisDog]

Originally Posted by Snore

Oh I can run without them ...

You can, but then you're not a video game navigator, I guess?

[four winds]

I might be a VGN, not sure.

But, thanks to NOAA, I always have the latest charts. PolarView/laptop. MxMariner/phone. Little Garmin at the helm.

The "big picture" is fine on a 36" flatscreen for passage planning on the laptop. The Garmin while underway for glancing at speed, depth and XTE, ETA. Autopilot drives offshore, mostly hand steering inshore.

Got a nav station storage full of charts, tools, hand bearing compass. Know how to use them, but only time that was needed was my first year when I had only one electronic solution and it went tits up. No electronic failures since in six years. Coastal vagabond, so no sextant.

I get the night vision thing, but don't turn stuff off. I put a cap over the Garmin and my compass because even that light is too much. And I watch the stars or the swell if it's cloudy.

If I'm a VGN, I'm OK with that.

[Three Sisters]

Originally Posted by wyb2

Probably down at the nav station plotting his course on a paper chart. Too bad he wasn't using a helm-mounted gps/chart-plotter, could have dealt with navigation tasks without sacrificing a prudent watch.

A few of these and there is no requirement to ever prematurely leave the head.




Wouldn't ya know. They're having a sale !!


https://shop.popularmechanics.com/sa...0x1a000003SYlh


"Mini view" ... that's no lie.

[CaptDAJ]

Originally Posted by NevisDog

I don't understand that last post. Can someone explain the context - I must have missed somethin'.

That was a response to 4 or five posts on the first page, my mistake for it posting on the last page

[Aswayze]

Here's a blast from the past to remind all of us that the Mr Magoos of the world have, through out the ages, always been opposed to new tech that the cannot figure out how to work:

https://books.google.com/books?id=31...epage&q&f=true

Alas, I can't in the time I have available right now find the original article this is a response to but it certainly seems a lot like the same discussion we are having now being held in 1977...

For what it's worth, I run a paper plot and use every tool at my disposal, my B&G chart plotter is fast and way more accurate than I am but I visualize things better on a paper chart. Both in concert is keeps me covered.