Traditional or digital navigation - which is safer?

[slug]

Originally Posted by Paul L

I was reading along and agreeing all the way till you pooh poohed keeping a log. We cruise in areas that are unfamiliar to us and some have excessive lightning. Having a log entry that has lat long fix available after a strike just makes sense to me. We are not compulsive, but at least an entry on watch change. A log is also a legal document uf the need arises.
Saving a position on an SD card does nothing for a lightning strike backup.

Yah..paper log with all voyage notations, observations , fuel burn by dipstick, maintenance .....and notes for the next watchkeeper

I normally stick all pertinent receipts..fuel, dockage, taxi , plus harbor master buisness cards onto the back of log pages

[Pizzazz]

Fully agree on maintaining a ship’s log in a log book, updated once per watch or once per day but plotting the position on a paper chart is too much for me. Also, a lighting is unlikely to damage the SD card even if the chartplotter is toast. You can then put the SD card in a phone. Ideally, however, I prefer to keep the log off board, via InReach on a website where friends and rescue services can access it if need be.

SV Pizzazz

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

Fully agree on maintaining a ship’s log in a log book, updated once per watch or once per day but plotting the position on a paper chart is too much for me. Also, a lighting is unlikely to damage the SD card even if the chartplotter is toast. You can then put the SD card in a phone. Ideally, however, I prefer to keep the log off board, via InReach on a website where friends and rescue services can access it if need be.

SV Pizzazz

Have you dealt with boats that have been hit by lightning? It is not possible to predict what electronics will be damaged before hand. Electronics not attached to the boats electrical often fail, ships compasses get remagnetized, things run for awhile and fail in a week. A laptop fails while sitting next to one that survives. The inserted SD card is not more likely to survive a strike and things you might move it to maynot either.

[slug]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

Fully agree on maintaining a ship’s log in a log book, updated once per watch or once per day but plotting the position on a paper chart is too much for me. Also, a lighting is unlikely to damage the SD card even if the chartplotter is toast. You can then put the SD card in a phone. Ideally, however, I prefer to keep the log off board, via InReach on a website where friends and rescue services can access it if need be.

SV Pizzazz

The log book equals voyage notes.

It I meet you in the pub , and you are thinking of a trip that I have done , I can nip down to the boat , grab the summer 2007 log book, Find the Haapasaari ...St Petersburg leg ....Then pass on everything I know about the White Nights festival... visa info , shipping agent , yacht club berthing , schedule River Neva....

I can’t do that with Electronic notes

[ramblinrod]

Originally Posted by slug

The log book equals voyage notes.

It I meet you in the pub , and you are thinking of a trip that I have done , I can nip down to the boat , grab the summer 2007 log book, Find the Haapasaari ...St Petersburg leg ....Then pass on everything I know about the White Nights festival... visa info , shipping agent , yacht club berthing , schedule River Neva....

I can’t do that with Electronic notes

Correct, but long before you stumbled back I could have all the most recent info from multiple more reliable sources off the interwebs from my phone, got her number, and left for the evening. ;-)

[conachair]

Originally Posted by slug

The log book equals voyage notes.

It I meet you in the pub , and you are thinking of a trip that I have done , I can nip down to the boat , grab the summer 2007 log book, Find the Haapasaari ...St Petersburg leg ....Then pass on everything I know about the White Nights festival... visa info , shipping agent , yacht club berthing , schedule River Neva....

I can’t do that with Electronic notes

Yes you can, but easier, just export the opencpn logbook konni to dropbox now and again and you don't have to leave the pub, it's all there. It works, really well! But you can't lie anymore about the windspeed as it will be in there for real

[Pizzazz]

We are getting off topic but the whole idea of electronic notes is that you can share them from your phone on the spot either in the bar or from miles away. It is the first time I have heard that a paper record is easier to share than an electronic record. You guys must be living in another reality.

[thinwater]

The most common tool for my daily boating, as some have called it, is observation. No paper. No GPS. Isn't this true for everyone?


Landmarks, channel markers, color of the water, shape of the chop. A running DR plot in my brain. And of course, most boats are running a depth sounder, but I don't often us that, unless in unfamiliar close-in waters.



Unless I am sailing more than 20 miles from the marina or in poor visibility, he only reason I turn on the GPS is because I'm curious about SOG. This has been the case for 35 years... in part because GPS didn't exist. Don't get me wrong--I'm not a throwback that denies technology. I just we boating is a visceral experience, and using the senses and developing a sense of situational awareness seems part of it.

[AiniA]

This discussion is close to useless since people believe what they believe and no amount of discussion is going to change minds. I am an old fart type (>70) and used a sextant for my first offshore passage. As was pointed out, a sextant is not much use when you are crossing the Gulf Stream and you get heavy cloud for days. When we started our circumnavigation we had paper charts (more than 120 for the Pacific alone) and only looked at one - for Pitcairn and it did not really tell me anything useful. From Brisbane onward we only relied on our electronic kit - chart plotter, iPad with charts, and Open CPN on a laptop that we never looked at either.

In discussions with other folks in the middle to latter part of sailing around the world no one used a sextant and only a few boats had one onboard. Almost all of these folks were Europeans for what this is worth. But, as I said everyone has their own opinions so just need to decide for yourself.

[RaymondR]

Us older folks are comfortable with paper records since we were born and raised with them and I still keep a paper log of where I am every day when I cruise but there is a lot to be said with electronic records which can be stored in multiple places. The only down side is that from a forensic viewpoint they are not as reliable evidence as a record kept in a bound log book with numbered pages. There is probably an app out there to solve that problem somewhere.

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by AiniA

This discussion is close to useless since people believe what they believe and no amount of discussion is going to change minds....

I don't think that is entirely true. Many of us like and use both.



When you power up your chart plotter there is a little disclaimer that says something to the effect of "never rely on one source of navigation information."

• I had a chart book where one page was shifted by 10 minutes. They recalled them, but I bet quite a few are still out there.
• Once, after a huricane, most of the outer channel markers from Chincoteague inlet had been moved from one side to the other. The channel had also moved. If you you believe "right on red returning" or GPS you would have been in the breakers.
• Had my GPS die once in the early days. I was glad to have recorded positions so that I could transition to DR.
• I've been confused by lit markers with shore lights behind them more than once. GPS is a nice tie breaker. Fog too.

I use whatever means I need, which means charts, DR, GPS, and observation. That said, I'm a big believer in keeping your eyes out of the cockpit. Watch the weather. Check you blind spots. Don't hit stuff. I know a guy who ran into a channel marker while on autopilot; the pilot took him right to the waypoint!

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by thinwater

I don't think that is entirely true. Many of us like and use both.

Choosing both is just another choice that people make - go with paper, go with electrons, go with both

[Pizzazz]

Originally Posted by AiniA

Choosing both is just another choice that people make - go with paper, go with electrons, go with both

Going with both in my book is worse. You have double the amount of work, when the charts differ you start wondering which one is correct instead of keeping your head out or relying on radar for example, if you use paper charts occasionally you forget some of the finer points about using them correctly - in general, navigation is not such a big thing to have multiple redundancy (electronic charts, paper charts, radar, watch) - I guess one could never be too cautious but it could also be a waste of time.

I would rather suggest one source of charts and then another independent source, google earth, cruising guides, this forum. Electronic and paper charts are too correlated with each other to be worth the extra effort to do both.

SV Please

[ramblinrod]

Originally Posted by Pizzazz

Going with both in my book is worse. You have double the amount of work, when the charts differ you start wondering which one is correct instead of keeping your head out or relying on radar for example, if you use paper charts occasionally you forget some of the finer points about using them correctly - in general, navigation is not such a big thing to have multiple redundancy (electronic charts, paper charts, radar, watch) - I guess one could never be too cautious but it could also be a waste of time.

I would rather suggest one source of charts and then another independent source, google earth, cruising guides, this forum. Electronic and paper charts are too correlated with each other to be worth the extra effort to do both.

SV Please

I understand your point, but there are times when using both paper and electronics makes sense.

When we are in familiar waters, we use electronic charts exclusively. When we are on a passage in unfamiliar waters, we have paper charts out in the nav table for the big picture, and to plot our coordinates every hour, just as a double check, and for the very unlikely event we lose all electronics.

It doesn’t take a lot of time to plot GPS given coordinates on a chart once per hour, and helps the next watch person understand course and progress, at a glance.

[Bycrick]

The better adapted something is for its intended purpose, the less useful it is under different circumstances. So a collection of tools will almost certainly provide more complete coverage when circumstances can change quickly and radically.

Surely one can use an adjustable wrench in place of a hammer. Both have a chance of accomplishing the desired function. But they’re not equivalent or interchangeable.

"If you need a tool and don’t buy it, you pay for it without getting it." — attributed to Henry Ford.