North Up or Heading Up?

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Wotname

In real life you see prominent landmark say over you left shoulder.
You want to tell someone else about it.
1. Do you say it is on your left?
2. Do you say it is at your (say) 8 o'clock?
3. Do you say it is (insert a compass bearing)?

If you do 1 or 2, the other person has to know what way you are facing before the information is helpful. Such additional information is unnecessary if you do 3.

I don't get this "Heading Up" clinging except in a few specialised situations.

If you are keeping lookout and don't see something until it is over your left shoulder then you are not keeping much of a lookout.
Unless it is an overtaking ship in which case report it as 'two points abaft the port beam ' or ' Three points on the port quarter'.

If it is frd of the beam then report it as ' Fine to port' 'Three points on the port bow ' 'two points frd of the port beam ' etc.

That, Wottie, is the correct way to do it.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I would have expected it to be - pre fluxgate - 'North up' or Heading Up' with 'Course Up' available after it had the fluxgate fitted.

Heading would only have appeared after the fluxgate as he stated. Any Plotter/GPS can give COG or Course Up display, but to get heading you would need a fluxgate or sat compass connected to it.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

Heading would only have appeared after the fluxgate as he stated. Any Plotter/GPS can give COG or Course Up display, but to get heading you would need a fluxgate or sat compass connected to it.

My bad, I was thinking of radar.

[mvweebles]

Do sailors not interface their autopilot into their chart plotters? If they did, there would be a third option to North-up/Heading-up. NAV, which fixes to a waypoint, has the benefits of heads-up/wysiwyg but without the chart swing because it fixes to a earthy fixed point, not boat direction.

Just curious why, after over 100 posts, no one has really mentioned NAV alternative.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by mvweebles

Do sailors not interface their autopilot into their chart plotters? If they did, there would be a third option to North-up/Heading-up. NAV, which fixes to a waypoint, has the benefits of heads-up/wysiwyg but without the chart swing because it fixes to a earthy fixed point, not boat direction.

Just curious why, after over 100 posts, no one has really mentioned NAV alternative.

It's been mentioned several times, but not using that word
AFAIK, NAV is what SIMRAD call what many others brands call "Course Up"

FWIW, the Raymarine plotter I was just re-configuring this morning has:

• North Up
• Heading Up
• Course Up

and the meaning of "Course Up" is clear in the manual:
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/13...s.html?page=98
"Course Up (C-UP)
In Course Up mode, the chart picture is stabilized and shown with your current course upwards. As your boat's heading changes, the ship symbol moves accordingly. If you select a new course, the picture will reset to display the new course upwards.
The reference used for Course-Up depends upon the information available at a given time. The system always prioritizes this information in the following order.:
1. Bearing from origin to destination, i.e. intended course.
2. Locked heading from an Autopilot.
3. Bearing to waypoint.
4. Instantaneous heading."

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

Heading would only have appeared after the fluxgate as he stated. Any Plotter/GPS can give COG or Course Up display, but to get heading you would need a fluxgate or sat compass connected to it.

MFDs can compute a form of head up from the COG derived from their GPS feec they don’t need heading per se

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

If you are keeping lookout and don't see something until it is over your left shoulder then you are not keeping much of a lookout.

Unless it is an overtaking ship in which case report it as 'two points abaft the port beam ' or ' Three points on the port quarter'.



If it is frd of the beam then report it as ' Fine to port' 'Three points on the port bow ' 'two points frd of the port beam ' etc.



That, Wottie, is the correct way to do it.

Boxing the compass , might have been the traditional way to do it. But it’s not the only way

The correct way is the way where the information exchange is understood by all

The clock face mechanism is by far more popular , equally correct and widely understood. Ship at 3 o’clock will be generally interpreted correctly by all concerned

“Abaft and Abeam” have largely disappeared from modern vocabulary so the use of deprecated traditional terms needs to considered carefully before being used.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Hmm... While I certainly don't want to impinge on the way you wish to walk, drive or sail in your life, I know where north is almost all of the time...

You are truly a master Navigator. This is the goal I aspire to, but I must admit that, on shore in an unfamiliar building or driving around an unfamiliar city, I often lose my sense of direction. I'll find myself trying to re-orient myself using my memory of the street lay-out, or looking at shadows, or (best of all) relating my location to some nearby body of water.

It's not just for water or air navigation though. On a construction site, cardinal directions are used. You are working on the West wall or the North tower.

I've heard stories of a culture where there is no word for "right" or "left." Giving directions, instead of telling someone to "turn left" you'd tell them to "turn North."

Use whichever chartplotter setting works best for you. But if you really want to comprehend where you are and where you're going, you need to orient yourself to the cardinal points, and internalize them.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

Exactly!!!

The next question is:

Do you use heading, COG or both for your course line or lines?

Hope its not hijacking the thread, to me it is related.

I have yet to add an autopilot, so my plotter doesn't have a heading input currently. It only knows CoG. So the course line is CoG, which is more useful than a heading indicator line anyway. I can see where the bow is pointed, but in a cross-current or other situation, when looking at the chart I care more about "where am I going?" than "where am I pointing?"


The CoG line on the plotter is helpful at times in close quarters for calibrating my brain on where to look over the bow if there's a crosswind or current, as it gives me an indication of what reference object we're actually moving towards (regardless of which way the bow is pointing).

[thinwater]

Originally Posted by Island Time O25

I don't get this "North up" clinging. In real life you dont't twist your neck to be "North up", you simply look ahead. Why should it be any different while using a chart plotter?

Read the thread.

• Which way is up when you stop?
• Do you want the chart to spin every time you make a minor course adjustment to follow the wind? Makes it hard to gauge if you are going to lay a mark.

It's not clinging. I use one method in my car and the other on the boat, because they are different things, and I like both. If I were running the ICW, I might prefer heading up, because that is driving on a road.



And have you noticed that when you are driving, not on a road (parking lot), heading up gets kinda stupid, with the chart spinning, not knowing which way you are going and so forth.



There is no perfect.


I do agree that you need to pick one method on a vessel. If I stuck to channels much of the time, I'd probably like heading up. If channels are a small part of it, north up seems easier to stay oriented.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

I have yet to add an autopilot, so my plotter doesn't have a heading input currently. It only knows CoG. So the course line is CoG, which is more useful than a heading indicator line anyway. I can see where the bow is pointed, but in a cross-current or other situation, when looking at the chart I care more about "where am I going?" than "where am I pointing?"


The CoG line on the plotter is helpful at times in close quarters for calibrating my brain on where to look over the bow if there's a crosswind or current, as it gives me an indication of what reference object we're actually moving towards (regardless of which way the bow is pointing).

Even though any answer is correct. I agree that COG up ( which is not necessarily “ course up “ ) is typically the best to maintain spacial awareness .

A chart plotter is not a chart. They are used in fundamentally different ways these days , a chart plotter has more in comparison with a Google maps or a car sat nav , then an admirably chart. COG up is actually typically better the heading up on a small boat.

That is it’s often on the helm being viewed in real time. In my view maximum spacial awareness is maintained by heading or COG up rather then North up.

Route planing , route plotting etc are completely different activities largely carried out on paper charts and done in plenty of time North up is perfectly reasonable for that activity.

[StuM]

FWIW,
OpenCPN display options:

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

Boxing the compass , might have been the traditional way to do it. But it’s not the only way

The correct way is the way where the information exchange is understood by all

The clock face mechanism is by far more popular , equally correct and widely understood. Ship at 3 o’clock will be generally interpreted correctly by all concerned

“Abaft and Abeam” have largely disappeared from modern vocabulary so the use of deprecated traditional terms needs to considered carefully before being used.

The last person I heard use the 'clock face mechanism' was Hop Harrigan.

Do your crew also use 'left' and 'right'?

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by StuM

FWIW,
OpenCPN display options:

My Anritsu radar has 'push broom mode' which is 'interesting'.

[RaymondR]

I tend to use COG on passage but always change to north up entering/in/and leaving anchorages.