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Jon, we are full time liveaboard cruisers. We originally cruised back in the late 70s early 80s (i.e. Frieberger sextant (still have), Walker log, RDF, depth sounder, and handheld compass comprised our navigation suite). We cruise the East Coast, Bahamas, Gulf Coast, and Mexico. Currently we have two handhelds (not charplotters) and lots of charts. Still maintain a DR plot etc. and rely heavily on eyeball navigation, compass resections for coastal, GPS fixes, and depth sounder. This past summer we bought a laptop (now using with wi-fi) but we have not loaded any navigation or chart software on it yet. I suppose I would need to get busy and hook up our Xantrex inverter so we could keep the batteries on the laptop up while running any navigation software. So that is the long and short of it. Chartplotters still are not very cheap; Lowerence seems to be the least expensive but then you need to buy the charts. Thoughts? Considering adding a Furuno 32 fixed Gps but that is not a chartplotter.
Roger Rippy
SV Tin Cup
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