Going PAPERLESS afloat?

[SecondBase]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

This means I just spend around $300 the other day to get a couple of chartkits and guidebooks for areas I plan to go to after hurricane season

I just tried to buy Skipper Bob's in kindle format. No joy !!

Hey Skipper Bob (company) we need you ! This is an easy, immediate path to more revenue and people who understand GDPR want to buy your guide over other options. Please please please put it on kindle format.

I will buy the first kindle copy on the launch date.

Separately in reading the replies here I realized I am holding a lot of paper, for obscure potential maintenance faults, but the reality is I'm much better off posting any challenges here for multiple opinions. I'm going to box all the paper up, seal the box, and see what happens.

[David M]

Remember the idea of the paperless office from 25 years ago?

It never happened.

Like it or not, your chart table is your office.

[SecondBase]

Originally Posted by David M

Remember the idea of the paperless office from 25 years ago?

It never happened.

Like it or not, your chart table is your office.

True. I'd add a question- out of your last 100 photos how many exist only in digital format?

[LoudMusic]

I don't think it's a matter of "going paperless" as much as it's a preference to avoid using paper unnecessarily. It's easier to be organized digitally than with physical documents. It's also easier to retrieve documents as needed - especially when you've built up a large collection of them. And with modern technology, smart phones and tablets, you can have all your documentation with you at all times.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by David M

Remember the idea of the paperless office from 25 years ago?

It never happened.

Like it or not, your chart table is your office.

and that computers would be the end of middle managers

[Stu Jackson]

Originally Posted by LoudMusic

..............
................And with modern technology, smart phones and tablets, you can have all your documentation with you at all times.

Yeah, but...is everyone ALWAYS connected to the internet? I mean ALWAYS? Rrams of discussions here about connectivity. I completed a coastal cruise last year of a mere six weeks. I am not a phone addict. In many places there was no phone service. My laptop has a lot of material. Calder is not digitized, is he?

I think the premise is to attempt to reduce paper because of weight and deterioration. Availability of necessary technical data is the limiter from the other end.

The result may well be generational-based, as well as availability of necessary material. The more electron-head you are, the further along the learning curve you potentially will be.

Good ideas in this thread for input options.

I, too, like flipping through paper and reading books. I've looked at Kindles and didn't like them, maybe the newer ones are better. But I have all the small and big manuals on my laptop, and multiple backups, and scan in the small ones.

[SecondBase]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Yeah, but...is everyone ALWAYS connected to the internet? I mean ALWAYS? Calder is not digitized, is he? .

Hi Stu

Kindle search on Nigel Calder turns up 10 titles. Wasn't sure if you meant his times were not available in kindle or that he uses paper format in his own mechanical work...

[conachair]

Originally Posted by David M

Remember the idea of the paperless office from 25 years ago?

It never happened.

Like it or not, your chart table is your office.

Thinking about it, full time cruising the chart table is one place that *has* gone paperless. And isn't even used nearly so much as it was a few years ago. My set up is a raspberry pi with a monitor at the chart table but mostly gets accessed over wifi either from a laptop or waterproof tablet in the cockpit under way all running opencpn. Planning is either sitting comfortably usually with cruising guide & almanac but quite often can happen at happy hour on a tablet if I'm on my own, free wifi to check the multitude of online resources available now, make sure google earth images are available , check tide times,weather, navionics web app to double check up to date charts, noonsite, loads of them. Then a click transfers the route/all waypoints etc onto the Pi and laptop with yet another look through the paper almanac & cruising guide.
No value judgement in this, it's just the way things have evolved and there's still enough paper to get somewhere safe if some really strange odds did happen and numerous devices all die at once.
As for manuals etc, same mostly, they are still on the shelf but unless I'm oily fingered getting into the inner workings of something then it's quicker to look in the laptop.

Absolutely *everything* goes into evernote so it's all accessible on any machine anywhere with a web connection, or stored on my personal laptop/tablet (costs to have tablet offline access) So next time down the shops when I remember to buy new filters or whatever a few moments will call up all the details. So long as they went in in the first place

So yes, mostly paperless and it works really well

Saying that, the other day at the laundry bookswap I found a book highly recommended from a friend I've been looking for for ages, not on kindle. Quite exciting, been so long since turning pages. Seems a bit clunky at first but you get used to it

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

What was the printer you settled on?

Cannon Pixma ts 6020, but what drove the decision mostly was it would print from an iPhone and iPad, was an all in one, and mostly was on sale and in stock.
Really didn’t do any exhaustive search, went mostly with cheap assuming in a couple of years it’s going to be replaced anyway.

[svrodeorm]

Never heard of Chapmans before, and curious as i am looked it up.

Hardly something indispensable.

Thought Bowditch was/is the bible for gringo cruisers, have a copy onboard and it does the job perfectly well.

For the topic: completely paperless isn't quite feasible nor prudent. Ebooks for entertainment is good at keeping excessive weight off the boat though.

Not that that many cruisers seems to care about weight....

[Catapault]

I really like still having paper charts, guidebooks, manuals etc which I can have open at the helm. But I also carry all of it electronically as well, which is for sure a superset of the paper stuff.

Devices biggest flaw for anything safety, is they tend to run out of power or need plugging in at just the wrong moment. (or get dunked). A computer is only as smart as its power cord..

Note: I'm in the IT industry for 30 years, and would be definitly classified as a 'geek', but for navigation I still prefer to compare what I see on the chart plotter, and what I see with the Mk 1 eyeball, to a piece of PAPER.

Crusing the Med, I have Navionics on plotter and ipad, but also a set of Imray Tetra Charts. All got used over last 4 months.


Is is Possible to go paperless ? I think yes. Is it wise ? different question.

Regards

Mark.

[LoudMusic]

Originally Posted by Stu Jackson

Yeah, but...is everyone ALWAYS connected to the internet? I mean ALWAYS? Rrams of discussions here about connectivity. I completed a coastal cruise last year of a mere six weeks. I am not a phone addict. In many places there was no phone service. My laptop has a lot of material. Calder is not digitized, is he?

I think the premise is to attempt to reduce paper because of weight and deterioration. Availability of necessary technical data is the limiter from the other end.

The result may well be generational-based, as well as availability of necessary material. The more electron-head you are, the further along the learning curve you potentially will be.

Good ideas in this thread for input options.

I, too, like flipping through paper and reading books. I've looked at Kindles and didn't like them, maybe the newer ones are better. But I have all the small and big manuals on my laptop, and multiple backups, and scan in the small ones.

The mobile device doesn't have to be connected to the internet to have access to your docs - they can be stored locally.

[belizesailor]

Paper & Printing are the Devils work. 😆

I try to avoid both whenever possible. I dont own a printer ashore or afloat. On those rare occassions when I am forced to print something, I go to an Internet Cafe or copy shop and have them print.

[maxingout]

I am just starting the process of going paperless on all my accounts, and so far so good, but it has been lots of work. Not something that I have been able to do in just a few days.

I will never go paperless on my charts. I might have a chart plotter, but I will have paper charts for every place I go.

I don't particularly like reading books on tablets and phones. I would much rather have a paper book in my hand.

When we were in Singapore during monsoon season, five yachts were struck by lightning in the space of a week. The lightning vaporized lots of electronics on board each yacht, although the destruction happens in an erratic fashion.

We unplug everything electronic in thunderstorms.

A major electrical system failure could seriously make things difficult on a paperless yacht.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by SecondBase

Amazon has a waterproof kindle just out. Are we finally at the point where pretty much every piece of paper onboard can be eliminated? Books, charts, maintenance manuals, on and on. I'm thinking of taking a big plastic bin onboard and loading every piece of paper into it and sealing that container.

Should I pretty much (informally) ban paper onboard?

Has anyone done this? Any tips for going in this direction?

""Amazon on Wednesday announced a significant update to its Kindle Oasis e-reader. The new model, which ships on Oct. 31, includes a larger 7-inch screen, a water-resistant design, and support for Audible, the Amazon-owned audio book service. The $249.99 second-generation Oasis is also less expensive than its predecessor, which was priced at $289.99 when it launched last year.

1. Are all of your pieces of paper just black and white?

2. resistant <> proof!

While it is rated IPX8, that is only a test against static immersion.
I've learnt through bitter experience that unless a device is also IPX6 rated, it's not suitable for use in a cockpit.