paper vs electronic charts

[Wolverine]

I'm sailing from Vancouver to Dutch Harbour starting May 1st. I have the charts Garmin sell for my Garmin chart plotter. I have Noble tech on a PC. I have an older Garmin with only "world charts". I have Navionics on an iPad , and I have a hand-held GPS. Do I need paper charts. If so how much should I expect to spend? What do most people do?

[Mainebristol]

Far wiser people will likely respond, but I like paper. Paper charts make it easy to plot bearings, and I enjoy laying courses using rulers. Perhaps more importantly, paper charts have a clear legend with datum information, and they cannot be scaled so as to provide misleading information about the location and size of rocks and channels. Paper is usually the best representation of the source information provided by the survey, and probable error is easily determined from whoever printed the chart.

I know. I sound anal. But a mishandled GPS can put you on land, or on a rock.

[Kenomac]

Yes, buy a paper chart, it'll give you the BIG PICTURE. We also have Nobel tech on a PC and although it's great for fly overs and fine detail, it has let us down while navigating... something to do with the PC graphics card and GPS puck. The iPad has been flawless with the INavx app, and we have the Garmin which only has the world charts and we only use it for AIS monitor.

We don't go anywhere without the paper charts, my wife loves them and it's our preferred way of keeping track of our position.

The bottom line... don't count on your Nobel Tech, ours has been a big disappointment.

Hey, we used to own a similar boat to yours, a Hunter 450 passage.

Ken

[Amnesia II]

Paper charts are an excellent standby but they are expensive, which is why some people, like myself prefer to purchase 2/3 size photocopies from Bellinghams. They do individual coies or folios....about $6 per copy from memory.

[markpierce]

I use paper and electronic charts at the same time. Out of view in this picture is a paper chart. Radar shows lots of anchored vessels (Richardson Bay Special Anchorage) to starboard.

[feelsgood]

Originally Posted by Wolverine

I'm sailing from Vancouver to Dutch Harbour starting May 1st. I have the charts Garmin sell for my Garmin chart plotter. I have Noble tech on a PC. I have an older Garmin with only "world charts". I have Navionics on an iPad , and I have a hand-held GPS. Do I need paper charts. If so how much should I expect to spend? What do most people do?

h
I developed this method for my wife and I as we sail just the two of us and find it the quickest way to plot a possition on a paper chart. hope you enjoy it. Cheers Pete

Simple Navigation - YouTube

[Dockhead]

This is probably the 500th thread on the same subject and with the same title. A look through the archives will give you a wealth of strongly held opinions on the subject. I doubt of any of us can say anything new on the subject.

Not saying anything new, but -- I agree with Kenomac -- paper is invaluable for the big picture of a passage or an area -- you can see your whole transit of a given area (the area covered by the particular chart) and see all the detail with zooming in and out, so that any hazards are immediately evident.

To do the same thing with an electronic chart, you have to zoom in, segment by segment by segment, as many hazards do not appear on the lower zoom settings. I am ashamed to admit that I have been myself caught by surprise by hazards which were not visible when I planned my passage with electronic charts and skipped the paper part.

Different people do it different ways, but I use both, actually all three: 1. Navionics Platinum on my main nav system (two B&G Zeus MFD's); 2. Navionics something with INavX on an IPlod as backup/auxiliary nav; and 3. Paper, primarily for passage planning, but also for any kind of reference where you need to see the big picture.

[Dale Hedtke]

We carry chart books (reduced charts in spiral bound form) for everywhere we go. The Canadian waters are not covered however. Rats. You can find out of date chartbooks on eBay for a fraction of the price of new. Sure, they aren't completely up to date, but even "new" ones are 100% up to date.
We like to think of them as our ultimate backup to get us into port if ALL the electronics fail or we don't believe them. We worry about a lightning strike or some kind of national emergency that would render our GPSs out of commission.
Other writers have given other valid reasons to carry paper. IMHO prudence requires them aboard.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mainebristol

Far wiser people will likely respond, but I like paper. Paper charts make it easy to plot bearings, and I enjoy laying courses using rulers. Perhaps more importantly, paper charts have a clear legend with datum information, and they cannot be scaled so as to provide misleading information about the location and size of rocks and channels. Paper is usually the best representation of the source information provided by the survey, and probable error is easily determined from whoever printed the chart.

I know. I sound anal. But a mishandled GPS can put you on land, or on a rock.

+1

Said better than I was able to

[noelex 77]

The world charts are not much use, so that leaves you with 3 independent sources of charts each with its own battery supply.

This is not enough in my view especially given the consumer rather marine rated electronics in the PC and iPad which are vulnerable to water damage.

An option to full paper charts is to print some from your electronic source for the worst case situation, combined with pilot books cruising guides etc this would probably be just adequate, but I am not familiar with the sailing area.

Paper charts are a joy to use, but are expensive if suitably detailed charts for large areas are required especially if you will be sailing to different area in the future.

Make sure you are comfortable navigating without GPS using the electronic charts. This takes a little practice.

[MarkJ]

Only have paper charts. Chuck ALL electronics overboard!

Capt Cook was fine without electronics so you should be too.

Nothing has changed since then so you should not update your thinking either.

Hang on, i gotta go... Someone is calling me on the Semaphore....


Mark

[Tia Bu]

I used Open CPN to print out views of the electronic raster charts all along the route of my cruise. I carefully positioned all the views to include a enough of the lat/long grid so I could use that 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper as an emergency chart if needed. Then I put the printouts in a three-ring binder in the order I would need them along my trip.

This was a handy backup, and it was cheap.

When you lose 12 volt power (it happens!), having backup paper charts and a battery-powered, handheld GPS can save your bacon.

[ScuzzMonkey]

IMHO it shouldn't be paper "versus" electronic, it should be paper "plus" electronic.

We have both. We use both. I wouldn't want to be without either... but I could, which is part of the point.

[donradcliffe]

Fifteen years ago I would have agreed with the need for paper, but paper is on the way out. I was going through the nav station in Chicago and preparing for the trip down the rivers when I discovered a Lake Huron chartbook which I had bought and never used in the 2 months I was in the Georgian Bay/North Channel--I never saw the need to consult the paper, even in that area of rock-strewn channels.

While paper can give you a bigger picture, you can overcome that problem by creating a route. Then follow the route and zoom in to make sure the route has taken into account all the details. I particularly like OpenCPN's ability to drag established waypoints around and insert and delete waypoints in an existing route--much better than Navionics.

[s/v Beth]

I have a chart plotter, sounder,GPS, ais and radar. I have backup paper charts. And last year while navigating through tricky reefs in Desolation sound I used just my cell phone (navonics app)and eyes as I went around the boat looking at the reefs before going thru. Some sailboats didn't have any thing but a hull and common sense. Just depends on what you are comfortable with.