HEY ALL YOU SCIENCE GEEKS!..

[taxwizz]

Hi Maka;
Good points.

[conachair]

Total guess but suspect a graph of "I'm fine with vector electronic charts cos I know how they work with plenty redundancy and maybe little bit paper as a backup" to "must have lots paper and vector is bad cos it hides things!" against age might be quite a straight line

[RaymondR]

Yep, great things paper charts. But when your on the helm trying to get somewhere through narrow places and the wind is blowing like mad and the rain coming horizontal and getting a salt water douche every few minutes you just can't beat having the chart plotter at the helm with the GPS showing you exactly where you are at all times.

[dfelsent]

Until the rain or lightning blows up the electronics. Been there. Done that. Don’t get me wrong the electronics are fantastic. Truly a game changer. But just as paper charts have their drawbacks so do electronics. Btw I’m a diehard techie. But I also believe that tech fails and I need to be ok with that.

[Adiona]

I speak as the Admiral of a “mature” boating couple who have had several boats, sailing, trawler and power and now cruise mostly coastal. Before we had chartplotters we used maps. All the time, clear weather, fog, rain, wind, currents. Now we used both chartplotters and maps. On passage one of us uses the plotter, radar and AIS and the other follows and marks a paper chart, earring and location. And we regularly check that our positions agree, or as they say in the OR take a time out to figure out why. Maybe it’s me, that I enjoy the chartwork, but it’s an interesting thing to study as we move about and learn the waters and if the plotter ever takes a fit - which it has- we have the comfort and safety to know exactly where we are. It’s like a constant quiz on nautical symbols and navigation. And I pencil in on the map, changes, bridge times, marinas, all new things since our latest map edition. Not for everyone but we have found it useful.

[Divedoug68]

I'm not certain where the 50Km shift appeared but according to Scientific America, the "Chandler Wobble" is roughly 6m annually. I use charts and a plotter during my travels. You should always plot your course and have updated charts when you cruise.

[sailorman14]

Personally I wouldn’t leave my marina without the proper PAPER charts of the area I’m going to be sailing in.

[secrabtree]

Ann, you may not be a "science geek", but your husband is. And I agree with you that paper charts have many dvantages over an electronic chart plotter, not the least of which is being able to get the "big picture" of your surroundings and planning. Just knowing how to read a chart and navigate using it does make you more facile in utilizing an electronic chart.

[JimsCAL]

I have been sailing for almost 50 years. Started with just charts and compass and DR piloting. Added an RDF (anyone remember those) a few years later. When LORAN became affordable, I was in heaven! You could actually determine your position to within a couple of boatlengths in the fog! You did have to enter long strings of TDs for each waypoint, and output was just numbers (no chart picture)but WOW, was it magic. GPS has changed everything of course, but I still rely on paper charts for the big picture. If given the choice between a small 5 to 7 inch chartplotter, and paper charts with a GPS that just used waypoints (no charts), I would chose the later. Yeah, I'm old school.