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Originally Posted by sdcornwell  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 |
I have finally decided on what I want to do. . . (no really this time)
I am buying a new laptop, I need one anyway. . .but it has Vista are there any of these Nav. programs that will run on Vista? If not my friend has a program that will allow me to Run XP inside of Vista. . .sort of the way macs can run XP. . . anyway. . .I havn't narrowed it down to what software I want. . . I have been looking at CAPN and Nobeltec, both of which are about $500. . .Are these any better than the MapTech O.N. software? I have heard that certain "charts" arent as accurate. . . So my set-up will be very simiar to yours. I have found 8-12" 12V LCDs on e bay that will accept a VGA signal. I will mount one of these at the cockpit and also have the ability to toggle to my 32" Hi Def LCD TV below that also has a VGA input. . .so with wireless keyboard and mouse I can plot on the 32" when I have shore power, etc. and to sweeten the deal I found a wireless mouse that runs up to 30' away from the source that you can grip in your hand it is controled by some sort of gyro. . . so you can adjust it's sensitivity when you are at the wheel (looking at the small screen) and you just move it around (sort of like a sword) and you can point and click all you would like. . . it is about $100 at circuit city. . .mabye less on the internet. . . so if I have all of that flexability the only downside to this setup may be that the screen may get damaged from the elements right? ? ?