Dead Charts

[bg9208]

I like where you're coming from Octopus. Your belt and braces and a spare pair of trousers approach is my way as well, we have a woodburner AND oil fired CH for the heating, bottled gas for the cooking and mains electric for water heating and that's just at home. When the RAF was teaching me to fly, the map reading, yes a mapboard strapped to a leg was used, and it was Check, Check and then check again. Even at home I run 3 PCs, 2 of which I built myself. At sea I would certainly have 3 laptops, all the same model running windows XP, just in case and linux, A good chartplotter and a handheld GPS which would all go into the microwave in storm conditions, as well as pilotage books of main areas of cruising. I would already have printouts from Google earth of projected waypoint en route. Any paper charts would be kept "just in case" but difficult to envisage a situation where they would be needed, I will still indulge in a bit of DR andforced error heading just see if I still had my hand in

[Octopus]

Originally Posted by jaga

Also, many countries still require paper charts, so if you had an accident couldn't this be an issue, and a potential reason for your insurance to deny coverage?

That bolt of lighning just aint going to take out everything on our boat.

Originally Posted by jaga

Also, many countries still require paper charts, so if you had an accident couldn't this be an issue, and a potential reason for your insurance to deny coverage?

Some countries require paper charts, but I never heard of one that enforces it. Out of sixteen countries we visited over the last year, Bermuda was the only one that asked what local charts we had aboard and were quite content when told we only had electronic ones.

But yes, I suppose if we landed on the rocks owing to multiple failure of our multiple backups of our electronic chart systems and we happened to be in one of the few countries that specifically require paper charts then our insurance company might, if they came to know about our lack of paper charts (and how would they?), weasel out of liability. But that aint going to happen either.

Chris

[jaga]

Chris,

I've never heard of any enforcing either, unless you have an accident. Then that can be used against you. I've heard of that happening. I'm actually more concerned on the insurance side in that situation.

Scot

[Octopus]

Originally Posted by bg9208

I like where you're coming from Octopus. Your belt and braces and a spare pair of trousers approach is my way as well...

Yes, belts, braces and a spare pair of trousers, but paper charts just aren't part of the parcel any more. Yes we have some, but only because I was fool enough to buy them before I had thought things through and learnt by experience that they are not required.

The only paper back up we use is the log book. At every hour we record our position, our heading and distance to the next way point. In the event of failure, this buys us enough time to boot our back-up devices. We had a few failures during our sabbatical sailing year (a few PC crashes caused by the Shipplotter AIS software, failure of two of the ultra-cheap USB GPS receivers and we once got moisture in one of the Raymarine connectors that put the Seatalk network out of action for fifteen minutes), each time we had a back-up device up and running within five minutes.

Chris

[jaga]

Originally Posted by bg9208

... all go into the microwave in storm conditions

Well, that's a clear difference in sailing philosophies. When I bought my boat the microwave was the very first thing to the dumpster...

[sandy daugherty]

Jaga: Your wooden Ingrid tells me I may be preaching to someone else's choir, but you missed an important piece of information. The Microwave is a Farraday Cage. Lightning goes around it. Electronics inside are unaffected. This is Gospel; 120 year old hard science. Grocery Store Alkaline batteries have a 5 year shelf life. A book-sized solar charger can charge 2 AA batteries in 5 hours of sunlight at Lat 30. A hand held chartplotter (Garmap 76) can give you a WAAS-acurate position on a (sort-of) map in 6 minutes or less from a cold start. I can give me a position within 5 miles with a sunshot tomorrow at noon. If I can see the sun.
Yes, I do have charts. I have a sextant and sight reduction tables. With these I am a hazard to navigation. With a Farraday cage full of cheap electronics, I know where I am. That is until the earth is invaded by little Green Men who eat a dozen or more GPS satellites overnight!

Oh, by the way, I've never used my microwave for anything else than a place to put my ditch bag. I had a lightning strike on a previous cat, and those were the ONLY elctronics that survived!

[Therapy]

I have paper charts. Old and new.
The only real reason is I just can't get a good view (in my head) by zooming in and out on a screen. It does not work well (in my head) to stay zoomed and scroll around either.
My mind wants that large chart to "see" the relative distances without thinking.
Is this a learned thing that just takes practice?
Am I too old and set to learn to keep the part that left the screen a moment ago in my mind?
Please help.

[jaga]

One of the nice things about cruising is you can have all sorts of choirs! I'm fully aware of the Faraday cage aspect of a microwave, and I'll admit for that it's useful, but for me dumping it was as much symbolic as anything, and it took up space in the galley I really wanted for other purposes. Otherwise I have two hard wired Garmin 76's with lots of backup AA batteries, a GPS chart plotter with excellent c-map coverage, and I do enjoy them. There's probably a few other GPSs onboard somewhere. In a bad thunderstorm I'll throw them in the oven (non microwave) and pray. But I also have a large selection of paper charts, which I actually prefer using most of the time underway. Oh, and also have a sextant, which I can use and enjoy.

My original post was as much a question - if you do have a major accident, particularly if you're at fault, where the local authorities do investigate (and thus have a report available to the insurance companies), are you risking coverage if you don't have the 'required' charts onboard? I don't know.

Scot

[jaga]

Originally Posted by Therapy

I have paper charts. Old and new.
The only real reason is I just can't get a good view (in my head) by zooming in and out on a screen. It does not work well (in my head) to stay zoomed and scroll around either.

This is one of the reason I still like paper in the cockpit while underway. One answer is a bigger screen plotter, but those are expensive, and, well, big.
I got a small Garmin with their charts for kayaking, but found viewing the charts on that small screen hopeless. Never could get used to it. I'm generally a 'big picture' kind of guy and really like the broad overview to orient my brain, and I have a hard time doing that on all but the biggest plotters. Thus I don't think it's a 'learned' thing, at least not for me. I'll always have a paper chart, if for nothing else than the overview perspective.

Scot

[Therapy]

Originally Posted by jaga

Thus I don't think it's a 'learned' thing, at least not for me. I'll always have a paper chart, if for nothing else than the overview perspective.

Scot

This makes me think you are "old" too.

There are some things my sons can do, seemingly intuitively, that I have difficulty with.

[oldsalt_1942]

Originally Posted by Arch Stanton

Must be hard to relax when there are NINE laptops on board, waiting for Murphy to catch up with them! :-)

Murphy was an optimist

[jaga]

Originally Posted by Therapy

This makes me think you are "old" too.

Ohhhhhhhh a low blow... but true.

Operating it I agree, young kids seem to take it intuitively, but viewing a large chart shrunk down to the Garmin's 2" screen, I don't think so. My son even struggles with that and he's a wiz as operating and trouble shooting the stuff.

[sandy daugherty]

I completely agree with the comments about 2" screens. I am constantly zooming in and out to maintain perspective. Its a piece of second line equipment. But an intermediate size, around 5" is very reasonable and easy to orient, especially when you understand that the boat is always in the middle. I think that Garmin's 400 series is the smallest practical primary GPS on a small boat, but a very good choice.

I'm a retired NTSB investigator. Our concern would never be whether someone had the required charts on board. That would be a legalist and completely anal irrelevance. (Notice I did not even mention the FAA.) My question would be whether the navigator had what he knew how to use to navigate. In fact, an insurance company that denied coverage on that point would be hard pressed to defend that position if it had nothing to do the cause of the claim. In spite of recent humorous TV commercials to the contrary, common sense continues to hold sway, even in the Insurance world.

Paper charts are good to have, if only when you and several other people are talking about a trip. But the day of electronic navigation has arrived. Celestial is no longer taught at the Naval Academy except for a few offshore racers who need to answer some questions on their E quals. They don't even have to have held a sextant!

Lets face it; some good old things do die of old age, like making charcoal, fulling wool, and rowing a currough!

WHOAA! I just took a peek at Jaga on your web site. What a beautiful vessel! Thank you for your stewardship!

[jaga]

Originally Posted by sandy daugherty

WHOAA! I just took a peek at Jaga on your web site. What a beautiful vessel! Thank you for your stewardship!

Thanks for the comment. I really need to update the website. You can probably see why a sextant needs to be on board, even if it's not used. It just seems to fit. The electronics are there, but they're unobtrusive. Wish I could hide the radome! Suppose I could wrap it in a baggywrinkle...

I spent most of my working life in a high tech environment so I'm very familiar and comfortable with it, but I also know when I'm willing to trust my life in it. That's a very personal decision. Regardless, I also enjoy using the sextant and paper charts, trying to appreciate what the early explorers were able to accomplish. In the PNW/Canada/Alaska, with all the fluky winds, narrow channels, and powerful currents, I'm absolutely in awe of what Vancouver, Gray, and the other early explorers and traders were able to accomplish without charts, with out engines, and with even the modern sextant.

On the insurance I'd hope that's what would happen, and probably so in the US. It's the rest of the world, particularly the third world, that I'd be concerned about.

Scot

PS - she sails beautifully!

[mam]

hi from mam

charts for
aegean sea???
God bless you