Real sailors use nothing but digital charts. It is folish even to have paper
charts as backup. What if they get washed overboard for instance, or eaten
by the ships rat. No it is much safer to have a redundant system of digital
charts.

For instance in the Catamaran that I race occasionally, we have a laptop
setup in each hull connected to it's own GPS. The screen is mounted in such
a way that the helmsman can easily see it. That means he always has the
exact location of the vessel visualized right in front of him. If one system
goes down there is always the other to revert to. Much safer than a paper
chart that is almost always on the verge of blowing overboard.

There is no way having one set of paper charts ( which is the stoneage(
stoneage = pre millenium ) setup ) can be safer than having two redundant
systems with digital charts. Someone might of course say that two laptops is
mighty expensive. To that I answer h-ll no. You don't need the latest
megapixeled superHz multimedia gizmo. Digital charts are run absolutely 100%
satisfactory from a laptop several years old. Actually the ones I've used
have almost been given to me. If you have vectorized charts you don't even
need a big harddisk on them.

The whole world can be placed on a CD-Rom. If you need to buy new charts a
phone- or radio- call coupled with your paypal or credit card No will give
you an access code that immediately opens up your new charts that are
already installed on your PC. You can actually have brand new charts without
even going ashore, much less finding a store that will sell those old
stoneage paper charts to you.

If you want to be a real sailor, follow my advice, burn your charts and join
me into this new age that is dawning upon us. While you're at it, through
out that old compass you got that is nothing but a waste of fine spirits.

--
Perre

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