| Laptop for Navigation
I'll add my 2C here. After buying a C&C Landfall 43 earlier this year I did a lot of investigating on this issue. I've sailed thousands of miles on friend's boats with laptops doing the chartplotting with much success and few problems. The previous owner also used a laptop with cmaps, but didn't include them in the sale.
After comparing prices of multifunction displays to my budget I decided to stick with the laptop. I bought MapTech's Offshore Navigator software which came with all US maps. I used the previous owner's setup of a 17" flat screen monitor under the dodger in the cockpit plugged into the laptop at the nav station. The laptop uses a 12v car charger for power, the flat screen uses 120v AC from the inverter. A wireless remote handheld mouse allows me to change screens as needed from the wheel. The laptop drives the autopilot if I want. I take the laptop home with me to plan my next cruise.
I'm delighted with the setup. My radar is too old to overlay on the screen but the software is capable of various overlays.
My costs:
Used laptop on e-bay: $420 (Dell Latitude D600, Pentium M, XP)
MapTech O.N. software: $300
Flatscreen monitor: $170
My backup is one of 3 GPS's and paper charts. If (when) the laptop fails during a voyage, I'll manually enter waypoints on the autopilot &/or GPS and track my progress on the paper charts.
The laptop and flatscreen are disposables as far as I'm concerned, and will have to be replaced some day. But what electronics doesn't??
Steve
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