Are paper charts as a backup still necessary?

[Windcall]

Yes GPS can fail, had on go in the car. Not to mention lightning, Captain Mary makes sure we log our position, speed, wind direction... every hour! To keep expensive charts from getting cluttered, we use little Post it book marks.


A Sailor never shaves his beard, and seldom bathes as well. If he has a giri in every port. They must have no sense of smell.

[seadago]

Found an interesting arcticle on Boating magazine on the topic. Link below.

https://www.boatingmag.com/surviving...ting-0#page-28

Some excepts below:

"One in 1,000 Boats Are Hit by Lightning Per Year
BoatU.S. gathered insurance claim data from a 10-year period and found that the odds of being struck are about one in 1,000 in any given year (see below for a breakdown by boat type). Location, however, matters a great deal. Florida accounted for 33 percent of all claims, and the Chesapeake Bay area accounted for 29 percent.

Boat Type - Chances per 1,000
Multihull Sail - 9.1
Auxiliary Sail - 4.5
Cruiser - 0.86
Sail Only - 0.73
Trawlers - 0.18
Bass Boat - 0.18
Runabout - 0.12
Houseboat - 0.11
Pontoon - 0.03
PWC - 0.003

Boating Magazine"

.... which is far, far greater overall than I ever expected!

Also:

"A Microwave Oven is a Faraday Cage
Anything inside a Faraday cage is safe from lightning. Automobiles, airplanes and microwave ovens are examples of Faraday cages. Stow backup handhelds, laptops and other electronics inside the microwave to protect them during an electrical storm. Just wrapping them in tinfoil can also do the trick.

Boating Magazine"

Does anyone have experience/expertise to validate the statement above. Seems somewhat far fetched to me....

Thanks!

[Kenomac]

For some people, no amount of redundancy is ever enough. Paper is no longer a must have IMO, we did just fine this past summer with an Ipad, radar and chartplotter up in Maine and Nova Scotia. No Paper of the area. Many levels of gps position redundancy onboard, but we only had two electronic charts.

The only time I was nervous was when we had a 90 mile stretch to cover going each way with only one iPad, due to the chartplotter Platinum+ chart not covering the area, which was an oversight. The ipad remained in a ziplock baggy during those days.

[David Gunn]

Originally Posted by odonnellryan

You probably have more sailing experience than I do, but one thing I've heard is lightning. I don't know what the risk is there, I feel it is so small that it might not matter much.

If you want the backup, maybe you can figure out a way to only keep harder to find charts, or books that have large areas mapped out, then you can at least navigate somewhat in an emergency so maybe you can't get where you want to go... but you can get somewhere, at least. Then pick up local charts as you cruise? Might also make nice souvenirs.

We have met several boat hit by lighting especially in the Singapore/Malacca straits area. We met a sailor hit by lightning in a catamaran, who lost all his instrumentation including electronic charts and depth sounders.
He had to be guided into Singapore by another yacht.
He was an aeronautical engineer and subsequently did some research.
He found multihulls are much more likely to be struck by lightning
as they have a bigger footprint on the ocean, particularly if anchored.
He recommended carrying a spare depth sounder along with electronic charts and GPS in a faraday box.
When a storm approaches we try to anchor in a bay close to large hills and have so far avoided being struck.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by David Gunn

We have met several boat hit by lighting especially in the Singapore/Malacca straits area. We met a sailor hit by lightning in a catamaran, who lost all his instrumentation including electronic charts and depth sounders.
He had to be guided into Singapore by another yacht.
He was an aeronautical engineer and subsequently did some research.
He found multihulls are much more likely to be struck by lightning
as they have a bigger footprint on the ocean, particularly if anchored.
He recommended carrying a spare depth sounder along with electronic charts and GPS in a faraday box.
When a storm approaches we try to anchor in a bay close to large hills and have so far avoided being struck.

The lesson to me, is always anchor as close to a large catamaran as possible...

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by billknny

The lesson to me, is always anchor as close to a large catamaran as possible...

Oi!... Think of the sideflash... I'd stay away from all vessels that Poseidon singles out for extra punishment (even if they deserve it by having an excess of hulls). Who knows how accurate his aim is?

Jim

[dhr]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Needless worry. It won’t disable an ipad or iphone that’s not plugged in, and batteries can be isolated and used to charge via a 12v car-type converter. Then you also have solar.

I hope that it works out for you. A good friend had his house hit by lighting and EVERTHING was toast, including a laptop that was not plugged in. In a faraday cage things might be ok, but other than that, you might be lucky and then you might not be.

That said old non updated paper charts can be pretty dangerous too. BUT if you had no electronics and could DR along you would know they were not to be trusted in close to reef or shore.

[dhr]

Also:

"A Microwave Oven is a Faraday Cage
Anything inside a Faraday cage is safe from lightning. Automobiles, airplanes and microwave ovens are examples of Faraday cages. Stow backup handhelds, laptops and other electronics inside the microwave to protect them during an electrical storm. Just wrapping them in tinfoil can also do the trick.

Boating Magazine"

Does anyone have experience/expertise to validate the statement above. Seems somewhat far fetched to me....

Thanks!

BS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

[seadago]

Originally Posted by dhr

BS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Hi DHR
Thanks. Yep, eventually, I made my way to Wiki too, but the question remains. I undertand a microwave is a Faraday box. What does not follow by default is that it will protect electronics against a lightening strike, which is far more that just a microwave emission of the wavelength and intensity ovens are designed to emit and protect against. A microwave oven has a magnetron as an emitter, and a large capacitor holding charge. It seems to me to be a prime candidate to arc a strike coming down the mast. Anything with a coil of copper wire or a solid magnet in it would be! I'm not an expert but would imagine a micro oven would be the first thing to be toast. If the electromagnetic radiation does not fry electronic gadgets placed inside it, the heat will. Ultimately, no "protection". It would be interesting to validate this assertion with an actual case. If the strike frequency is 1 in 1000 -as per BoatU.S. poll- someone must have tried it already!
However, we are going off-topic, which is paper charts...

[windrider9999]

Originally Posted by StevieMac

I am setting off on a big cruise with the family in the next few years and space will be tight. I've been holding on to a box full of paper charts - many of the Caribbean, Columbia and Venezuela which I will be using in the first years, but many others of the South Pacific, Australia and the Med- which I wont be getting to unless things go really well.

Any salty, sage advice out there on idea of going completely electronic with several layers of back-ups?

The first captain, and coolest head I ever sailed with, had this to say as I was complaining about how much room they take up, “ Better to have them and not need them, than to need them and not have them! He also said, “when it comes to sailing,shortcuts lead to short lives!”

Those two things have served me well over the years. The decision is yours.

[lituya1617]

Necessary? As always, that depends.
If you are involved in an accident foreign countries will require your navigation logs on paper and this includes your charts plotting your positions around the time of the accident. They may allow electronic data, but right now many countries still want to see proof that you have paper charts with your position/time plots on them.
If you trust electronics, which I do not, you do not need paper charts; however, prudent sailors will carry a few wide-coverage charts and a sextant with the books just in case. It is the same reason you have a lifeboat. Coastal navigation books are great and I always carry them, especially the official US ones. Local knowledge is found in the Coastal Navigators.
On the other hand, I just love the integrated chartplotter/autopilots for the grunt work at sea. I love them so much that I followed one right into a rock off the southwest coast of Cuba and almost died when the boat sank. They are only as good as the data in them. If the rock is not charted, and many are not, no chart or electronics will help. They are certainly not a substitute for good practice. The wreck was my fault because I should have laid down a track much farther from shore on that unlighted, abrupt coast where the charts show dozens of wrecks. The depths go from 800 feet to 5 feet in a distance of only a few yards, so your depth sounder is of no help. All you can do is stay far enough away to not hit something. Even old charts are of help if you give yourself plenty of sea room.

[msubeaver]

Very close to 70 yrs old, and sailing for 40 yrs, and posting my first reply. I only sail the Great Lakes, so I am always relatively close to some port in any direction the wind might blow a disabled craft. That being said , my electronics consist of a plotter with back-up plotter, I GO NOWHERE without paper charts and a warm fuzzy feeling.

[billknny]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Needless worry. It won’t disable an ipad or iphone that’s not plugged in, and batteries can be isolated and used to charge via a 12v car-type converter. Then you also have solar.

NOT TRUE. The above comment displays a simplistic view and a basic misunderstanding of how lightening damages electronics. Electricity does not have to "travel down the wire" to destroy your iPad and iPhone.

Lightening is a very large current flow (as much as 10^4 to 10^5 amps) that rises and falls--and raises and falls AGAIN--in milliseconds. That huge current flux generates a large, powerful and very rapidly changing magnetic field around itself. A rapidly changing magnetic field induces voltage and current in conductors around it.

Under such conditions the various traces on that iPad's circuit boards can easily generate enough voltage to punch holes in the various tiny semiconductors required for operation. It does not have to be plugged in for this to happen.

Not plugging in is most definitely not protection against lightening strike damage to sensitive electronics. It is well documented that this effect can damage things on boats that were merely NEAR a lightening strike. Nothing magic about boats here either.

[MartinR]

Just keep one old phone together with a power bank as backup stored in a metal box. Cheap insurance against a lightning strike.

And I will write this one more time: Commercial vessels do not carry paper charts anymore. The powers in charge have deemed electronic charts safe enough. For the future this will mean that paper charts will probably not be available, if we are lucky, maybe as print on demand.

[conachair]

Originally Posted by MartinR

And I will write this one more time: Commercial vessels do not carry paper charts anymore. The powers in charge have deemed electronic charts safe enough.

Not quite, one ECDIS nav system on it's own is not enough. Paper charts are acceptable as a backup, or a completely separate ECDIS system with separate power supply.

If you want to follow what the IMO deems acceptable for the big boats then you'll need a load of money and a load of space and a load of batteries.

Or a load of paper charts as a backup.