'Track Up' or 'North Up'

[bstreep]

OK, last Saturday night at a yacht club party, this debate came up. WOW. How ugly can things get! Actually, it was pretty funny. So, with a warning that apparently this is one of those topics that is black and white, with no gray, let's be nice...

So, is your chartplotter set up with "Track Up" or "North Up". If you know why, feel free to explain it.

[bstreep]

So, my own response: North Up. I'd never considered Track Up, and frankly, I was the ONLY one that offered to try the other side. I grew up with paper charts, and North Up just always made sense.

[TaoJones]

I agree - North Up.

TaoJones

[Portobello]

North up when I'm heading south? My head doesn't work that way - I even have to turn charts upside down! The difficulties we face living down under!

[Rhosyn Mor]

Paper chrts, north up, computer charts north up, chart plotter at the helm, track up

[Fishspearit]

Track up on the chartplotter.
North up works when looking at a stationary chart, or when looking at charts on my laptop, but for a moving graphic when I'm standing at the helm, definetly track up.

Yes, this is a black and white thing for me. I like for my surroundings to match what I see on the screen, and as I turn the boat, the screen still matches the surroundings. No twisting the image in my mind.

And yes Tao, Atari came out when I was about 10 years old.

[anotherT34C]

North up. Track up makes my chartplotter work more (rotating the world around the boat rather than the opposite), and it goes blank for the second it updates. Annoying.

[imagine2frolic]

I am North up, so I can read the damned chart......lolololol...otherwise it's upside down.....i2f

[bstreep]

Don't forget to VOTE on the poll, folks! There are 4 folks who SAY North UP, but only 3 voted...

[Fishspearit]

Originally Posted by anotherT34C

North up. Track up makes my chartplotter work more (rotating the world around the boat rather than the opposite), and it goes blank for the second it updates. Annoying.

Sounds like a chartplotter problem. My Garmin is seamless.

[Randy]

Depends on what the plotter is being used for and where. If it's at the helm and being used as an orientation aid then track up. If it's actual navigation North up to correspon with the charts.

[rtbates]

I use track up so it matches a chart. I have found that when some folks steer it's much easier for them to steer a straight course if I change the screeen to 'track up'.

[Bash]

I want track up for the same reason I want a forward-facing nav station: what's in front of me is what's in front of me.

Makes it much easier, especially for novice crew, when you've got the radar overlaid on the chartplotter to keep everything track up. With track up, targets to port are to port, and targets to starboard are to starboard. How can it get any simpler?

[john540]

I prefer "North up" while planning, and "track up" while actually traveling, whether by airplane or by boat. even with paper charts, I turn them "track up" while traveling.

[Talbot]

Depends where you learned to read maps/charts originally. If you were originally a land map reader, you will almost certainly have been taught to turn the map in the same direction you are looking.

I was taught to operate from a chart table with my back to the pointy end. Large charts do not lend themselves to being turned in the correct direction, and folding them smaller makes the parrallel ruler work wrong. Thus from the start you are taught to look at a chart north up. When you then spend 20 years looking at a radar that is also north up . . . . . .