Budget Nav Setup?

[Kettlewell]

What I find good is having raster charts - if you can find them - to run on openCPN so that I can compare them with iSailor cartography.

I downloaded every NOAA RNC chart for free and that's what I use on OpenCPN. I suppose some day they will get too out of date to use, but I find it is very rare that an old chart becomes unusable. Offshore I really don't need a chartplotter running most of the time. Just plot out daily positions on a big paper chart. It's only when approaching land and harbors you need the chartplotter running.

[Nekton73]

I would add a stand alone VHF with AIS receive and its own GPS which will display your lat/long/spd/heading. I like my Standard Horizon GX2200, with matching remote handset at the helm, but there are lots of other good brands/models too.



I once did a delivery from Corfu to Sardinia with only a GX220, a tablet with navionics, and paper charts. The chartplotter onboard was janky and unreliable so we didn't use it and found we really didn't need or want anything more. Also, as mentioned, once offshore, keeping a log of your position at regular intervals and referencing a chart is really all you need until you get close to anything worrisome.



On my own boat I keep paper charts and an old iphone on board loaded with navionics in case of complete boat system failure, as well as an old battery powered handheld gps a friend gave me. I also now have an Inreach Mini so I'm kinda overloaded with position giving devices if anything fails.

[Franziska]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

Autopilot integration is a thing, and some people find it useful. I completed the integration on my last boat, and it came on this boat, but in a decade and 10,000 miles I have probably not used that integration more than a handful of times. I point the boat and then press autopilot, plus and minus 10 as needed.

However, there is one phenomenal benefit of linking them. For many boats, the autopilot is the only digital compass on the boat. Linking the autopilot to the chart plotter gives you both course and heading -- generally very useful and exceptionally so at very low speeds where course is very inaccurate.

I was not referring to integration.

Ours (ST4000+) is almost standalone, we only have added a wind instrument to it.
It has a course compass which comes with. I believe all tiller pilots have that built in.

On a sailboat I see not much point in a full integration. Never felt the need to connect the AP to our navigation laptop either.
We do it the same way as you.
The nav laptop has a GPS and OpenCPN running on it, so I can naturally see the track we are steering and then adjust manually if we would veer a little of course.

[Franziska]

Might also interest the threadopener:

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...d.php?t=280536


Data display for OpenCPN

[bergius]

If you use a tablet or smartphone to navigate, you can get pretty far with its built-in GPS.

On top of that I’d get a transmitting AIS for safety, and some way to get the AIS targets to show up in the navigation program of your choice. Orca might be a good option, assuming that they have charts for your planned cruising grounds. You could get just their Core, and that would bring GPS, compass, and the targets from your AIS device to your mobile device. They also have fancy chartplotter tablets if you feel like splurging.

After AIS, GPS, and charts are sorted out, I’d consider at least a depth sounder and DSC-VHF. And some self-steering solution (maybe windvane to keep things simple?)

[Kettlewell]

IMHO the must-haves are: GPS, VHF radio, depthsounder, compass. These days it is cheaper and more useful to get electronic charts on some device using a program like OpenCPN or Navionics, but it is not necessary assuming you have the paper charts. Everything else is nice-to-have, but not must-have. I've been everywhere from Labrador to the Caribbean before we had GPS or before that LORAN, and I still carry a sextant onboard, but frankly you don't need one. Carry a couple of GPS units of some sort and you will be fine. Things like AIS and radar are useful, especially when it gets foggy, but 95% of the time a world voyager like you will not be dealing with fog. The one thing not to scrimp on is charts and cruising guides. Often the cruising guide has better chartlets than the government charts for harbors.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Comparison examples to follow.

Comparisons aqui.

I first sailed between Bajo Meulin and Isla Meulin only using Cmap. Gave my self one hell of a fright - put 'bowels' and 'evacuated' together in a sentence and you will get the idea. From thinking you have 30 metres under the keel and suddenly finding less than 2 metres has that effect on me.
Isailor has all of the soundings as shown on the raster -which is a copy of the paper- but including 'unsurveyed' between the bajo and the norh end of the isla and showing less land detail ie height contours..

First shot old cmap, second shot raster, both on openCPN as seen on my Macbook.

For them as wants to compare their kit its south of Puerto Montt.

[sv_pelagia]

Just checked...
indeed CMAP is useless here. Navionics not bad. Even CM93 2012 not bad.

Do o-charts cover this?

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by sv_pelagia

Just checked...
indeed CMAP is useless here. Navionics not bad. Even CM93 2012 not bad.

Do o-charts cover this?

Sorry but I know nothing about o-charts.
Meanwhile a screen shot of i-sailor on my ipad

Note for OP... if buying an ipad make sure you pay the extra for the the 'wifi and cellular' version. Its the one with the built in GPS.

[falko1]

Just finishing up a setup comprising Raspberry PI 4B with PICAN-M HAT. It runs OpenPlotter with OpenCPN and SignalK integrated. I have a 10" pi-top FHD Touch display.

The hardware cost was about 250 EUR. Charts are of course not free.

The system is capable to read all the relevant transducers for a sailboat as long as they communicate via NMEA 0138 or NMEA 2000, plus a host of I2C sensors, plus an USB GPS dongle.

[sailingharry]

Originally Posted by falko1

Just finishing up a setup comprising Raspberry PI 4B with PICAN-M HAT. It runs OpenPlotter with OpenCPN and SignalK integrated. I have a 10" pi-top FHD Touch display.



The hardware cost was about 250 EUR. Charts are of course not free.



The system is capable to read all the relevant transducers for a sailboat as long as they communicate via NMEA 0138 or NMEA 2000, plus a host of I2C sensors, plus an USB GPS dongle.

I'd love to see a picture of how you've mounted that at your helm station! Sounds cool.

[falko1]

Originally Posted by sailingharry

I'd love to see a picture of how you've mounted that at your helm station! Sounds cool.

Actually will be mounted inside at the chart table (work in progress). At the helm I have Axiom+9 and the Raymarine st60 suite of instruments.

[grantmc]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

I downloaded every NOAA RNC chart for free and that's what I use on OpenCPN. I suppose some day they will get too out of date to use, but I find it is very rare that an old chart becomes unusable. Offshore I really don't need a chartplotter running most of the time. Just plot out daily positions on a big paper chart. It's only when approaching land and harbors you need the chartplotter running.

A very good source of chart data for OpenCPN etc:
https://svsoggypaws.com/SatCharts/index.htm

[barcoMeCasa]

Originally Posted by berniecurry

Hi

What do y'all recommend for a good but budget nav setup for a 30 to 34 ft sailboat? I don't want a fully integrated suite of equipment, only GPS and charts from east coast Australia to east coast US?

Hard to "recommend" without knowing your boat but on a 33' cruising full time always anchoring I'm very happy running a raspberry pi3 with openplotter.
https://openplotter.readthedocs.io/en/3.x.x/
Rock solid reliable. No monitor connected at the moment though have a 19" waiting to get wired in, works fine without. Very low power, runs 24/7 with opencpn always running using a little ublox usb GPS. Search youtube for "How to Download FREE Satellite Images in 2020 - Ep 113 Sailing Luckyfish" for a good tutorial about downloading sat images and charts, I really wouldn't want to have to anchor again without sat images again (where the water is clear of course) plus great tool for checking accuracy of charts.
I use a samsung tab a tablet, laptop running windows & android mobile phone. All have opencpn & can see the Pi using realvnc. Little slow & clunky but very useable.
I use the laptop for planning routes, simple to send waypounts,routes & tracks between the different opencpn with "send to peer", takes seconds. Very useful.
No display in the cockpit, I just have the mobile phone in a pocket & glance at that but plan to mount the tablet on a swivle bracket down below next to the companion way, I have halo+ radar as well which is great for finding a space coming into anchorages, sat images are a bit dark so hard to see in the cockpit.
Openplotter has signalk built in which makes it easy to log & graph everything going in, hardest part of setup is the wiring, plotting the data is very useful, barometer costs a few dollars, victron smartshunt can be wired in to track the batteries, wind is very nice to have to spot subtle trends before a human ever will looking just at numbers.
And opencpn running in the anchorage is great to check the hook is still where you put it
Thermometers cost little ^ are easy to set up, again wiring the biggest bit. I have them on engine head, exhaust & alternator, useful & can give a heads up of problems long before the alarm goes off.

Laptop

Data plots



Pi3 with radar on

[Franziska]

Just a thought.

While the Rasberry is surely a good platform and suited, I'm favouring a laptop for it's portability.

Had a number of occasions were this was helpful. I also had a few occasions where people asked me for help on their setup of a fixed computer and it would have been easier if they would just have swung by with their computer.

Older Toughbooks are reasonably cheap, work great for navigation and are very robust, especially when it's a smaller, to some extent "wet" boat.