More Thoughts About Paper

[colemj]

Even watching a 3hr movie will only drain 25Ahr max out of a very power hungry laptop. Watch two of them and you are down 50Ahr at most. These are extreme numbers and 1/4-1/2 of that amperage is more normal. My 15" Macbook Pro with separate high-end graphic card and driving an external 1TB HD can go through 2 movies on a single charge of its internal battery. A boat with a house battery system that can't handle that drain has serious electrical challenges.

Mark

[Capt Phil]

I think the chart that Jackdale shared with us back at the beginning of the thread was used by me when I was towing logs around the PNW decades ago! This is a fascinating thread and I can probably guess the age of the various posters by their comments and my feeble ability to understand what they are talking about.
Try as I might to gain competence in the cutting edge stuff and transfer it to my delivery business, I was hopelessly thick in making this transition but was smart enough to hire a young woman who was anxious to get in sea time on deliveries and was thoroughly conversant with the nav systems on the newer boats. It worked out wonderfully well, she taught me and I taught her. At least I can use most of the basic configurations that I ran into with the help of the manuals I found aboard.
I have found that the younger crew members were all fairly intuitive with the nav gear aboard and only too happy to share their knowledge with an 'old goat'.
I always took a roll of my old paper charts with me and they were entertained endlessly watching me chart courses, VMG's and log entries. Shooting noon sights and plotting positions were archaic but interesting for them, most had never seen a set of reduction tables! Phil

[Jammer Six]

That's what I suspected.

As it happens, I run a brand new 15" Powerbook, and you don't finish the first movie on one charge. You certainly don't run a nav program (or anything else) for hour after hour. Plug it in, and you need to have a flashlight past eleven. It does help sort out who's who, though.

When I took the bareboat course, the instructor lectured us about "battery management", and then turned the lights out. I thought he was just following the rules until I took a boat out overnight myself. Running a house bank dead is very instructive.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Capt Phil

This is a fascinating thread and I can probably guess the age of the various posters by their comments l

Probably true in most cases, then the surprising exceptions. Probably guess background in some cases.

Have also seen several couples over time where one gravitated strongly to paper and older methods of navigation and the other was the computer planner and chartplotter person. The former liked someone at watch in the best possible position and a strong searchlight and the latter liked radar, sonar, and night vision. Together made the perfect team.

[darylat8750]

Originally Posted by colemj

Even watching a 3hr movie will only drain 25Ahr max out of a very power hungry laptop. Watch two of them and you are down 50Ahr at most. These are extreme numbers and 1/4-1/2 of that amperage is more normal. My 15" Macbook Pro with separate high-end graphic card and driving an external 1TB HD can go through 2 movies on a single charge of its internal battery. A boat with a house battery system that can't handle that drain has serious electrical challenges.

Mark

Is he watching the movie on the lap top? Maybe it is a 60" home movie system.....

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Jammer Six

On one of our fleet boats, we ran across the Straits to the San Juan Islands, about 9 hours under power, and managed to drain the house battery that night by eleven without using a laptop. A laptop would have drained it by around eight.

Everyone likes to talk about how robust their boat's battery is, but a bare boat charterer isn't as emotionally attached, and I've watched the lights fade and go out. Maybe that isn't a "big deal", but it's not as much fun as a boat where it doesn't happen.

There's only one boat in our fleet that I'd run a laptop in, the one with the five group 34 batteries in the house bank.

Thread drift, but if I were you I would consider beefing up the battery bank and/or charging system on those boats.

It is really nice not to worry or think about power at sea, and such problems would really irritate me. My batteries are good for about 24 hours under sail with inverter running 24/7 and using electric kettle, microwave, and charging multiple devices all the time, not to mention autopilot and all the nav equipment and nav lights running all the time. An hour or two of motorsailing and good for another 24 hours. Running a laptop or three is just not even noticed.

[Dockhead]

Last night I finally did what I have been planning for a couple of years and got Open CPN running -- partially inspired by this discussion. I am running it on a Sony laptop driving a 23" HP display at 1920 x 1080.

I have a set of the Jeppesen vector charts vintage 2012.

Wow, OpenCPN is a completely awe-inspiring program. Wow, such power, and such total control over every possible aspect, so much intelligence invested into it. This is my kind of program -- the total opposite of INavX and of Apple products in general. I am in awe of the folks who created this -- all just for fun and not commerce, to boot. I expected, from what I had heard, that it would be good, but I really had no idea that it would be this good.

I was curious about whether a program like this on a big monitor might be better for getting a "big picture" in complicated waters like these. The immediate answer is that the program and the monitor are not yet enough -- the Jeppesen charts are less detailed than the Navionics charts in my plotter. Although you can adjust (yes!!!) the level of detail showed at different zoom levels in OpenCPN, the "big picture" with these charts is even worse than on the plotter, and the big monitor doesn't help.

So back to the drawing board -- need to get some raster charts, I guess, is the only possible answer.

But man, am I loving OpenCPN. This is just an entirely different universe, an incomparably different level of power, from INavX and other nav programs I've used. I think it's going to become a key tool for me. Big kudos to the creators.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

.

Wow, OpenCPN is a completely awe-inspiring program. Wow, such power, and such total control over every possible aspect, so much intelligence invested into it. This is my kind of program -- the total opposite of INavX and of Apple products in general. I am in awe of the folks who created this -- all just for fun and not commerce, to boot. I expected, from what I had heard, that it would be good, but I really had no idea that it would be this good.

Big kudos to the creators.

Where the hell have you been?
Thats why so many of us have a real reason to say what we do... OpenCpn really is a very good program, and as soon as you get some decent charts you will love it more

One of the great things is low cost redundancy. You can parallel it on a $299 laptop, thats cheaper than the mount of a 'proper' chart plotter. Big screen stuff is just excellent.

[Jammer Six]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I am in awe of the folks who created this -- all just for fun and not commerce, to boot....Big kudos to the creators.

The open source movement and public libraries (the old, hard-copy version, not libraries of code) are the only reasons I still believe in humanity.

You can deal with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets with OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org.

[carstenb]

Way back further up in this thread, Dockhead noted that sailing the archepelagos here inthe Baltic can be compared to navigating a labyrinth (sp?)

This is true. Having done this numerous times, I also use paper charts for planning. There are a multiude of channels (some unmarked) that can be taken, but spotting these and seeing where they terminate is beyond me on a plotter. Too much zooming etc.

But I also love my plotter and would not sail without one.

Having said all the above - sailing in the archepelago is an exhilirating experience.

carsten

[NavyOS]

Originally Posted by jackdale

I collect old charts.

My oldest is 1604 - West Africa. I would not use it to sail

My 1859 chart of the Gulf and San Juan Islands is really quite good.



It hangs in my den of antiquity.

Wow, I could make you a happy man.

Anyway my opinion on the paper vs electronic debate.. you have your ECDIS reboot itself while navigating a 600 foot vessel through the belts towards the Baltic. I'll tell you this.. I have never been happier to look down and see that paper chart still sitting there in front of me.

I'm 24 years old, grew up on boats, and will ALWAYS prefer paper over electronics.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by NavyOS

Wow, I could make you a happy man.

Anyway my opinion on the paper vs electronic debate.. you have your ECDIS reboot itself while navigating a 600 foot vessel through the belts towards the Baltic. I'll tell you this.. I have never been happier to look down and see that paper chart still sitting there in front of me.

I'm 24 years old, grew up on boats, and will ALWAYS prefer paper over electronics.

When my paper chart blew over board., I have never been happier to look up and see the electronic chart.


( edge cases )
Dave


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

When my paper chart blew over board., I have never been happier to look up and see the electronic chart.


( edge cases )
Dave


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Why did you have a paper chart on deck?

[Jammer Six]

I've had paper on deck before. Saves running up and down the companionway.

You mean you don't have paper on deck? Why ever not?

[jackdale]

Originally Posted by Jammer Six

I've had paper on deck before. Saves running up and down the companionway.

You mean you don't have paper on deck? Why ever not?

On rare occasions I may have a chart book in a plastic cover on the companionway hatch under the dodger.

I plan my routes / passages in advance and note any aids to navigation and hazards.