Programs for Ship's Computer

[conachair]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

, CM93 and VisitMyHarbour raster charts for Atlantic Europe

Remember there are up to date vector charts available now as well at a reasonable price..

oeSENC - o-charts

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

All of these ideas sound good in theory, but in reality it's easy to wind up in situations where as the skipper you have to make snap decisions. That'll never change, especially when you're; in congested waters, areas you don't know well, areas where not everyone or everything has AIS & radar or good radar reflection, there's poor to zero visibility, or some combination of all of these. Even to include all of these stated navigational handicaps at the same time. And in point of fact, this is the norm.

And that said, you yourself may be on a boat which doesn't have AIS & radar, or even a chart plotter. Much as is the case with a decent percentage of our readers here, so it pays to know how to operate without this stuff. And it's why I'm endlessly touting folks learning the basics of nav & good situationa judgement, prior to becoming utterly dependent on electronics. Plus, even with it, it may not be interfaced well, may not be functioning properly, or simply may be giving the skipper too much information to handle, thus muddling up his grasp of the big picture, & his decision making skills.

Even with all of said electronic nav aids, few recreational boats have enough folks with the correct skills to simultaneously handle; pilotage, traffic tracking & avoidance, along with handling the boat; under power, sail, or both.

This is particularly true with regards to fully dealing with everything within range of AIS & radar, meaning over the horizon type targets. Not even professional ships can do this. As the picture changes too quickly, & as stated, not all of the vessels & hazards that you have to keep an eye on, show up on radar & AIS, or behave by proper rules of the road. And quite often they even randomly, & arbitrarily change course (assuming you can track them). Which, from 10nm, or even 2nm away, you can't always anticipate or make allowances for such. Especially if/when some of the targets/other vessels are restricted in their ability to manuever, constrained by draft, powered only by sail, not displaying proper lighting (if any) etc.

So that statement to the effect that you should never be in a situation where where rapid action needs to be taken is fallacious. All sorts of things can & routinely do happen which goof up one's pilotage & traffic handling plans. There are 1,001+ reasons as to why & how this can transpire, regardless of what one's navigational tools or skill level are.

Well, it's not fallacious at all, but it might be overstating it a bit. Probably I should have said -- if you do your work properly, you will very rarely get into a situation which requires snap actions. Of course I agree that you need to be able to deal with a sudden unexpected situations, but the point of doing the work ahead of time and from a safe distance, is to prevent sudden unexpected situations, to the maximum extent possible.

Electronics are no substitute for seamanship and basic skills -- of course. But radar and AIS are powerful tools -- in the hands of a good seaman -- and immensely expand your horizon of awareness and your ability to detect and resolve collision course situations from safe distances, rather than waiting until they are obvious to the naked eye, which is far too late to deal with safely.

Same thing with passage planning -- figuring out the whole route in advance, and planning it, then managing execution of the plan, versus "I'll just dodge the rocks when I see 'em".

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by conachair

Remember there are up to date vector charts available now as well at a reasonable price..

oeSENC - o-charts

It's great that there is more and more to choose from.

These guys are apparently trying to compete with VisitMyHarbour, which is great!

I wish someone or other would publish some Baltic Sea charts at a reasonable price. At the moment we have either NV Charts or that Swedish publisher (forgot the name), and both extremely expensive. The whole Baltic from NV Charts would probably cost a couple thousand euros.

I am extremely happy with the raster charts (which I greatly prefer for passage planning on OpenCPN, to vector charts) from VisitMyHarbour, which furthermore is a local company to me with its tiny office in the Cowes High Street just steps from my boat's winter home. It's liking having a filing cabinet full of up-to-date paper charts -- fabulous!

But their coverage stops at the Dutch-German border in the German Bight

From there I use CM93, being extremely careful not to assume that there have not been changes -- double checking, triple checking every route using my up-to-date Navionics and NV Charts cartography chips in my main navigation system.

I also have an incomplete collection of old paper charts of the Baltic, which I actually use a lot in conceptual planning.

[UNCIVILIZED]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Well, it's not fallacious at all, but it might be overstating it a bit. Probably I should have said -- if you do your work properly, you will very rarely get into a situation which requires snap actions. Of course I agree that you need to be able to deal with a sudden unexpected situations, but the point of doing the work ahead of time and from a safe distance, is to prevent sudden unexpected situations, to the maximum extent possible.

Electronics are no substitute for seamanship and basic skills -- of course. But radar and AIS are powerful tools -- in the hands of a good seaman -- and immensely expand your horizon of awareness and your ability to detect and resolve collision course situations from safe distances, rather than waiting until they are obvious to the naked eye, which is far too late to deal with safely.

Same thing with passage planning -- figuring out the whole route in advance, and planning it, then managing execution of the plan, versus "I'll just dodge the rocks when I see 'em".

"Overstating" is a grand understatement.

Go sailing on San Diego bay on a Saturday afternoon, where you can have 100 boats in 1sq nm & tell me how well this works. Or any large deep water port where there's also a fleet of family owned small fishing boats numbering in the hundreds. The only way to resolve a high percentage of the situations which arise, is visually, at the last minute. And in no way can you even begin to do such things from over the horizon. Even in a non-crowded port.

What happens when the watchkeeper on X spills hot coffee down his pants, & unknowingly, accidentally bumps the autopilot & turns it off. Only to realize as much when he returns to the helm 5min. later, after preventing his family jewels from getting poached. To find the boat "driving herself", & she's way off course.
Or the 20' fiberglass fishing boat which was anchored, but decides to head off towards a more productive spot at 20kts... With a 12yr old driving. And no, no VHF, no AIS, nor radar reflector. Just some fishing rods & a BIG cooler full of beer.

Then there's the dredging crew who, at end of shift on a Friday, forgot to notify the appropriate folks that they put out a set of buoys at X, with a cable between them, right next to the channel entry way. That kind of info doesn't show up on charts, AIS, or even radar usually. Yet I've seen it happen many a time.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by UNCIVILIZED

"Overstating" is a grand understatement.

Go sailing on San Diego bay on a Saturday afternoon, where you can have 100 boats in 1sq nm & tell me how well this works. Or any large deep water port where there's also a fleet of family owned small fishing boats numbering in the hundreds. The only way to resolve a high percentage of the situations which arise, is visually, at the last minute. And in no way can you even begin to do such things from over the horizon. Even in a non-crowded port.

What happens when the watchkeeper on X spills hot coffee down his pants, & unknowingly, accidentally bumps the autopilot & turns it off. Only to realize as much when he returns to the helm 5min. later, after preventing his family jewels from getting poached. To find the boat "driving herself", & she's way off course.
Or the 20' fiberglass fishing boat which was anchored, but decides to head off towards a more productive spot at 20kts... With a 12yr old driving. And no, no VHF, no AIS, nor radar reflector. Just some fishing rods & a BIG cooler full of beer.

Then there's the dredging crew who, at end of shift on a Friday, forgot to notify the appropriate folks that they put out a set of buoys at X, with a cable between them, right next to the channel entry way. That kind of info doesn't show up on charts, AIS, or even radar usually. Yet I've seen it happen many a time.

You are setting up a false dichotomy between very different jobs involved in running an oceangoing cruising boat.

Of course and obviously -- if you're sailing inside a harbor with 100 boats coming from all directions, you are going to be on deck responding to them as they come.

Of course and obviously -- shirt happens, and a competent skipper must be capable of making quick and correct decisions on how to deal with them.

This does not in any way contradict the idea that both collision avoidance and navigation should be done systematically and as far in advance as possible, and not by the seat of the pants.

That part of the job which is done like that, is done well at the nav table and using all tools available to the competent navigator. And to the extent possible, should be done in a way which prevents having to do last minute stuff on deck.

But the other part has to be done on deck.

They are different, and are not in any way substitutes for one another.

But for the average long distance sailor -- not 2%, probably, of sailing as measured in miles is done in places like inside San Diego harbor, where as the shipping lanes may be thousands of miles. So the nav table part of the job is very important.