"Dennis Pogson" wrote:

I think it is time someone sat down and defined just what is it that we, the
non-commercial, leisure-oriented sailors want out of electronic navigation
systems.

You mean the people who won't pay.

I cannot help feeling that some of the old monochrome engraved
charts, with their "views from seaward" and other myriads of useful
navigation features, would contain some of the answers.

I have a number of that type of chart - they look nice on the wall. Nowadays,
that type of chart only happens in cruising guides. How many boaters buy a
guide for their own area?

I met a guy the
other day who was busy pouring over an electronic chart of the local area on
his laptop, despite having sailed in these waters continuously for over 30
years! Is the laptop taking over from the brain these days?

OK, I also have electronic charts "of the world" on my home computer, but on the
water a Chartkit, augmented by an old Garmin 175 chart plotter (does that count
as an antique yet?) does just fine. I think its rather silly to have
computerize navigation on smaller boats, though if the bridge or nav center is
big enough to accommodate, why not? Of course, not having the paper readily
available is foolish.


Many of the raster charts being marketed today are only fit for the garbage
can, whilst others are superb reproductions of the cartographer's art.

Do we want the technology to be driven by mathematicians, or artists?


A lot or the cartographers' art was made up on the spot. Here's my favorite:
http://home.tiscali.nl/~helmink/mmarctic.html