Why even bother with a plotter when you can get this!

[sv_pelagia]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Somewhere south of clunky on an overcast moonless night ( ie as black as the inside of a cow ) when the light in the compass has gone the full Lucas and you have a big quartering swell.

And if you are using an autopilot, it likely is steering by compass.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Somewhere south of clunky on an overcast moonless night ( ie as black as the inside of a cow ) when the light in the compass has gone the full Lucas and you have a big quartering swell.

That is what the fag is for; have a drag every time you need to check the heading!

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Ping was wondering how does one hand steer out of sight of land without referring to the compass. I wonder the same; perhaps using the heading function of the plotter? I have found that to be clunky compared to using the old fashioned magnetic compass.

Perhaps there are other ways?

Many different ways. You can steer to a wind angle instead of a heading.

I once hand steered for 14 hours using a handheld Garmin 12XL. Just set a waypoint somewhere to your destination and follow the highway display. Very easy to do and designed for hand steering.

Another way is by lights. I can see the glow from big cities from many miles away, same for dusk and dawn. Or follow the moon or a star like Venus as they travel west through the sky.

Of course you can also get a compass. My first choice is one of the heading sensors on nmea. Second choice the compass app on my iPhone. Third choice my fancy Plastimo Iris 100 compass that I still didn’t attach the mount for after 20 years. It would have gone bad from exposure if I had mounted it by now

[Anders]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I'm thinking that some people never have to hand steer out of sight of land. Try that without a compass.

Either by checking the course on the chartplotter or set a waypoint and go to it. Waypoint is easier.

[dennismenace111]

My Samsung tablet, with built in GPS and OPEN CPN, Navionics, Aquamap, or any other of the myriad of navigation apps available on the Play Store works great.

Buy a descent mount, and waterproof case and youre in business for a lot less than a Chartplotter. You can even connect to your AIS receiver.

[Tupaia]

Originally Posted by dennismenace111

My Samsung tablet, with built in GPS and OPEN CPN, Navionics, Aquamap, or any other of the myriad of navigation apps available on the Play Store works great.

Buy a descent mount, and waterproof case and youre in business for a lot less than a Chartplotter. You can even connect to your AIS receiver.

But your boat can't be controlled with such a set up.



A plotter or a PC can be wired to control the AP. Lay in a course upload the WP's to the GPS and GOTO on the AP. You can do this with either dedicated plotter or a PC running nav software but not with a stand alone tablet or phone.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Many different ways. You can steer to a wind angle instead of a heading.

I once hand steered for 14 hours using a handheld Garmin 12XL. Just set a waypoint somewhere to your destination and follow the highway display. Very easy to do and designed for hand steering.

Another way is by lights. I can see the glow from big cities from many miles away, same for dusk and dawn. Or follow the moon or a star like Venus as they travel west through the sky.

Of course you can also get a compass. My first choice is one of the heading sensors on nmea. Second choice the compass app on my iPhone. Third choice my fancy Plastimo Iris 100 compass that I still didn’t attach the mount for after 20 years. It would have gone bad from exposure if I had mounted it by now

Agreed. And if the sea state, etc. is fairly consistent and you've got some experience hand steering on the boat in question, you will often be able to do well enough steering blind that a check every 1 - 2 minutes on the plotter for cross-track error will be enough for you to adjust and stay on course.

I remember doing that one extremely dark night in light quartering following seas a year or 2 ago. It was dark enough you couldn't see the water around the boat except where the stern light illuminated the wake. But for the 3 hour run we were making to take advantage of the weather calming down early, we saw only 1 other boat and it was a great ride.

At some point after I'd been hand steering for a while with just occasional checks on the plotter, I handed the helm off to the admiral and went to the head. By the time I was starting to walk back to the helm, I was thinking "this doesn't feel right, we're off course" as the boat's motion had changed noticeably. Got back to the helm (after being gone for about 90 seconds) and saw we were 90* off course and now taking the waves on the beam.

Turns out I didn't think to flip the compass light on and give the admiral a compass course to steer, so she fell into the somatogyral illusion trap and thought the boat was continuously turning to starboard (due to the slight yaw from the following sea combined with a complete lack of visual reference, as there were no visible lights on the shore). So she kept turning to port. And being unaware of the illusions your body can give with a lack of visual reference (which I later explained), she hadn't cross-checked the chartplotter and just trusted what she was feeling. She also hadn't taken a few waves without steering input to determine what effect they were actually having on the boat's course, so she was steering too much, trying to correct every bit of perceived yaw (rather than only correcting the yaw that isn't cancelled out as the wave passes).

Once I got us back on course, I flipped the compass light on and had the admiral try again. With the compass reference, she steered just fine until I took the helm back. It's much the same problem pilots have to be trained out of for instrument flight. When you don't have good visual reference, trust the instruments over what your body is feeling. Your body is probably lying to you.

[ThereAndBack]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Ping was wondering how does one hand steer out of sight of land without referring to the compass. I wonder the same; perhaps using the heading function of the plotter? I have found that to be clunky compared to using the old fashioned magnetic compass.

Perhaps there are other ways?

I was too, we didn't have a functional autopilot for 3 years. Hand steer only.

Have you worked with modern instruments? They update continuously, much better than older instruments. I guess I'm just accustomed to steering to the HUD Magnetic heading reading. Other than that, pick a star, pick a point in the distance that stands out if there is anything out there, or steer to the wind. Like I said, haven't touched the compass in years, went 3 years with a dead or dying autopilot.

Since then I've replaced the autopilot and intend to almost never steer again. And so far it has been going well. The new AP steers to the wind and will actually steer taking into account waves. It steers better than us. The only time I turn it off is when coming into a slip.

[JC Reefer]

Originally Posted by Locquatious

As someone once mentioned before, cell phones, iPads, and computers are as waterproof as tissue paper. If you are out in foul weather and reduced visibility, do you really want to be holding a cell phone in your hand to give you navigation assistance?

I flipped in a kayak in the Everglades and spent 30 minutes looking for my little gear bag as it contained a nice knife I didn’t want to lose. The cell phone was also in the same bag but I figured it was toast.

Turns out that iPhone 7 and beyond are fairly waterproof. I just recently upgraded it.

And if that’s not enough, one of the Naked Cases not only adds to being waterproof but also help to protect a device.

[bergius]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

A plotter or a PC can be wired to control the AP. Lay in a course upload the WP's to the GPS and GOTO on the AP. You can do this with either dedicated plotter or a PC running nav software but not with a stand alone tablet or phone.

Orca running on a phone or a tablet can control autopilots just fine. Needs their “Core” device on the N2K bus, though.

Bunch of autopilots can also be controlled from your phone if you have Signal K on board.

Both of these obviously need some hardware to connect the phone/tablet to the autopilot. But autopilot remotes are not free, either.

The “chartplotter” we’ve navigated with for several years was 60€ on eBay. With the difference between that and a real chartplotter you can buy a lot of other things.

[donradcliffe]

Originally Posted by Chotu

Timekeeping??

Raymarine axiom
2 cell phones
Handheld gps
2 laptops
Fitbit

No less than 7 ways to tell time. I think I’m good. Lol


Problems with eyeballs and ears? Time to hit the other device: the Epirb. Medivac



Edit: I did forget my electronic compass… the Raymarine Ev-1. It’s also a pitch/yaw/roll measuring device.

So:

Raymarine ev-1 compass (plus roll, pitch and yaw)
Eyeballs/ears for channel markers
Raymarine Axiom
INavX
MacENC
Handheld garmin GPS/rudimentary chart plotter
Satellite imagery
Rudimentary NSEW from the sun/moon

* that’s three independent chart plotters on different hardware. Each with its own GPS. Same setup as required on spacecraft. No one can say this doesn’t work. Lol

Think of being out on your boat with no electrical power and outside of cell range. I have delivered more than one boat like this when the sky is dark and overcast and there are no visual clues.

I find that the old fashioned steering compasses are superior to the digital displays. Its like you are the autopilot, and the compass not only gives you how far you are off course, it also gives you the direction the boat is swinging and how fast. Its the difference between a dumb autopilot and one with a modern rate compass.

If you are planning on using your phone app, make sure you test it first. You want one where the reading is well damped and not affected by acceleration or tilting.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

Crowd sourcing chart updates. It's nothing to track routes and tie depth info to those tracks. Once back at dock with wifi available, the system could upload the data to a central system for processing and updates.

There are several commercial systems, including Navionics, that do this.


Interestingly, they exclude a few countries that consider it a crime to collect and publish depth information without authorization from the government.

[Jammer]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

But come on people, do you really want to say that when using the high tide picture that doesn’t show the shallows at all, but navigating there at low tide, that you would drive your boat up the rocks? You would not look around you? You would not use your depth sounder?

I regularly sail into places that have no chart at all. You would call that going in blind?

In rocky areas your depth sounder can go from 25' to 2' faster than you can turn the wheel.

[rslifkin]

Originally Posted by Jammer

In rocky areas your depth sounder can go from 25' to 2' faster than you can turn the wheel.

And occasionally in shallow water, you'll find the one thing sticking up and the depth sounder won't see it. I whacked a bit of presumably sunken tree debris with a prop last year in a shallow harbor. Carefully creeping through the shallow area and heard the whack. Boat draft is about 3.5 feet at worst, depth sounder never showed less than 5 (and yes, it's calibrated and confirmed to give accurate depth from surface). So whatever I hit was sticking up more than 1.5 feet and was very isolated. Poked around with a boat hook from the dinghy afterward in the area I hit (water not clear enough to see the bottom) and never actually found what I hit.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Tupaia

But your boat can't be controlled with such a set up.

A plotter or a PC can be wired to control the AP. Lay in a course upload the WP's to the GPS and GOTO on the AP. You can do this with either dedicated plotter or a PC running nav software but not with a stand alone tablet or phone.

There are several apps that allow wireless control of autopilot. I use iSailor to do this.

Originally Posted by bergius

Orca running on a phone or a tablet can control autopilots just fine. Needs their “Core” device on the N2K bus, though.

Bunch of autopilots can also be controlled from your phone if you have Signal K on board.

Both of these obviously need some hardware to connect the phone/tablet to the autopilot. But autopilot remotes are not free, either.

The “chartplotter” we’ve navigated with for several years was 60€ on eBay. With the difference between that and a real chartplotter you can buy a lot of other things.

All you need is a gateway between nmea and wifi that allows bi-directional traffic. I use the Yacht Devices Ethernet gateway that connects to our wifi access point and the iSailor app on iPad.

Originally Posted by Jammer

In rocky areas your depth sounder can go from 25' to 2' faster than you can turn the wheel.

I don’t try turning the wheel. I go forward dead slow and reverse when I hit shallows. Never touched anything. When it is difficult, anchor and take the dinghy for scouting the area.