The Merit of Paper Chart Back-Ups

[MidLandOne]

Great explanation.

Can add that there must be an independant system to provide backup to the ECDIS which can be either paper or a second, independant ECDIS (although some flags still require paper as the backup). Anyone interested in the requirements of various countries on this might like to look at Section 2 of the document available for download at PRIMAR .

I think what many people who are used to small pleasure chart plotters don't realise is that for ECDIS and most (maybe all?) ECS's one can manually navigate far more easily than one can on a paper chart should there be loss of the GPS. On my own boat I have used an ECS on a notebook with official charts for many years now and should I ever wish to navigate manually without GPS as one might on a paper chart, I would prefer to do that on an electronic chart.

They typically provide all the normal navigation tools such as dividers, etc supplemented by a wide variety of other tools to ease the job, laying off bearings, getting bearings, getting distance off, distance to run to any point on the chart, highlighting dangers, etc, etc are all very easy, often just one mouse click away. Is rather like the comparison between draughting with an electronic CAD system rather than manually on paper and with similar addition of ease and rapidity.

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Therapy

Plus, that night had 5-10 knot winds and flat water and the same anchor in the same anchorage (but 120 yards away) held in 15-20 and 2ft (looked like more ) chop all night. Same scope too.

Dunno

Maybe that was Thursday. That's the day they change the satellite orbits -

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

Maybe that was Thursday. That's the day they change the satellite orbits -

Dang.

I didn't know that.

[svHyLyte]

We have just pulled in after a day-sail to Egmont Key for a afternoon beach picnick and swimming. Prior to departing our mooring on the Manatee River we initialized our newly restored Garmin GPSMap 2006C at the Nav Station and our heretofore bullet-proof Garmin GPSMAP 162 at the helm station. The 2006C gave us a location but spent most of the afternoon telling us it was "searching for WASS". The 162 initialized normally but then quickly went to a blank screen and did not respond to the keyboard. We could only resolve this by disconnecting the unit from the power supply. On our 3rd try with the 162 we were able to get it to go into "Simulator Mode" before it started picking up GPS signals. At that point we disabled WASS and then discontinued the simulation mode after which it found its satellites and established a position, albeit absent the pin-point accuracy we normally have with WASS. Hopefully GARMIN will have up-grade software available for this unit although given its advanced age (Golly-gee Batman, 6 years!) there is no certainty of that.

Fortunately, we have plenty of local charts--updated with the most recent Notices to Mariners--and can easily find our way through the shallows at the River's mouth--coming and going, day or night. If we were, however, dependent on the 162, and did not know the trick of disabling WASS to get a fix, we'd have been in a fix, No?

FWIW...

s/v HyLyte

[rebel heart]

Paper charts are my primary. As a guy who makes his living in the world of software, I would never trust the navigation of my vessel to myself or my colleagues.

[Chief Engineer]

Who's hands have never touched a wrench, or tried to take off an oil filter
that had to be lowered and then snaked out of some hole....sometimes having to stick one finger down the center of the filter because you can't grab it any other way w/o spilling it!!!!!

Originally Posted by rebel heart

Paper charts are my primary. As a guy who makes his living in the world of software, I would never trust the navigation of my vessel to myself or my colleagues.

[MarkJ]

With the difficulty of speaking to those living in the past I shall be gentle and encouraging to those who still put 19... when writing the date.

The sooner you lot stop buying the rip-off priced paper charts the sooner the British Admiralty et al can sink beneath the waves...
Just buy another portable GPS with mini chart plotter, and pay $20 for Google Earth Plus. This lets you have real time positioning on Google Earth. Quite the most accurate of all the systems! No chart errors as the satellite knows where it is!

Electronic charts are coming down in price - and will drop faster once paper charts are outlawed – I got a Max Wide of the whole of Australia for $329. That’s the price of paper charts for SydneyHarbour and the 20 miles north and south.


I leave you with this question: If Captain Cook was alive right now would he be doing his surveys with pen, paper and sexystant, or, with a GPS and computer?


Mark

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

I leave you with this question: If Captain Cook was alive right now would he be doing his surveys with pen, paper and sexystant, or, with a GPS and computer?


Mark

He'd use a GPS I'd bet with a big freakin' Red personal waypoint at Kealakekua Bay that says, "Avoid at all costs. The natives are restless."

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Ex-Calif

He'd use a GPS I'd bet with a big freakin' Red personal waypoint at Kealakekua Bay that says, "Avoid at all costs. The natives are restless."

ROTFLMAO!

Very funny

[MidLandOne]

Personally I think real sailors navigate with a piece of lodestone suspended on a silk thread, a bundle of sticks with strings tied on them to resemble the constellations, the feel of the swells and the wind, and seeing the migratory patterns of the birds - who needs one of those new fangled paper charts ?

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

......The sooner you lot stop buying the rip-off priced paper charts the sooner the British Admiralty et al can sink beneath the waves...

I have complete paper charts of the world in one volume which the goverment supplied me for free back sometime in the late fifties/early sixties. Of course the political colours of the continents have changed a bit but their positions haven't. I have now replaced this old school atlas with a more modern Times World Atlas but as it cost a bomb, I don't like plotting lines on it. So now I tend just to run down the latitude using the GPS as it saves drawing all over the nice colour plates in the TWA.

Originally Posted by MarkJ

I leave you with this question: If Captain Cook was alive right now would he be doing his surveys with pen, paper and sexystant, or, with a GPS and computer?.....

Cookle Earth perhaps....

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Wotname

... Cookle Earth perhaps....

Did you mean: Google Earth ? Google Earth

See also: http://www.ckls.org/~crippel/computerlab/tutorials/keyboard/page1.html



Holy @#%^ - I'm dumb !
It took me more than a few moments to see the pun ...

[Wotname]

OMG, it is not often that you can put one over on Mr GordMay

[donradcliffe]

I am little curious about the original post--just because the GPS/antenna fails, does that mean you can't use your electronic charts just like paper charts??

I keep an offshore log with periodic lat/lon entries to start celestial with if the GPS goes out, but I strongly recomend that you depend on electronic chartplotting as your primary navigation method. The big advantage over paper charts is the computer doesn't make fatal mistakes plotting your position and future course. It does it much faster and more accurately than you can. The time you spend plotting your positions on paper charts is time you aren't watching for other problems.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't continue to use all the data available to confirm the accuracy of your charts and plotter--visual bearings on buoys and landmarks, depth sounder readings, and radar. If any of the inputs does not agree with the rest, its time to stop or slow down until you figure out why.

[svHyLyte]

Don--

You have a valid point if one's chart plotter continues to work absent antenna input and is versatile enough to allow the input of position data and notes; or, if one is using a computer with plotting software and charts.

In the case of our Garmin units, the 2006C and 162 do not readily lend themselves to such application although one could use such an approach if one is running MapSource on a separate computer as position up-dates can be entered as way-points with time and course data added as notes. However, one remains dependent upon the continued function of a sensitive piece of electronic gear in a decidedly harsh environment.

My observations were more directed to the matter of a complete GPS/Chart-plotter failure such as the recent case of our 162 which, with WASS enabled, now goes to a blank screen. (Hopefully a software up-date will correct that.) Had I not seen the article regarding this failure in Latitude 38 (reported in my earlier post), I would not have known to disable WASS to restore its function. Moreover, had the issue arisen while we were anchored in the Tortugas, without knowing of the fix we would have been making our way back to Tampa without the benefit of any chart/plotter and/or charts had we not had them aboard.

As a matter of practice, we maintain a deck-log which we up-date hourly—or whenever we make a course change-as to position, course, speed, wind conditions and pressure. As a matter of habit, we also maintain a paper plot, and can quickly revert to dead reckoning if our electronics fail. While some may have difficulty transferring GPS positions to a chart, it isn’t particularly difficult but does take practice. We also have a plotting board with a pantograph (below)



at our nav station which makes plotting positions relatively easy and a paper chart lends itself to projecting course lines and lay-lines for tacking angles that anything short of a dedicated ECDIS does not. (We plot lay-lines at ±5° off-sets from the rhomb-line to figure our time/distance to tacks.)

Frankly, what others choose to do is there own choice. Different ships-different long splices. I merely offered our own experience and what we (re)learned from it. To me the cost of charts or chart-kits seems a very minor expense in comparison to the value of our boat and the risks posed by inadequate preparation/equipment.

FWIW…

s/v HyLyte