Wayne.B wrote:

In Maine, except for the Portland Harbor channels, I use charts just as much
in waters I'm familiar with as in new areas. It's pretty much mandatory in
our complex geography.

If I had a powerboat or a larger sailboat with a pilothouse, dedicated nav
station, and crew to do a lot of the other tasks, I would certainly have a
full electronic set up with electronic charts, chart plotters, etc. Setting
up and using something like that was a primary reason for thinking about
getting a powerboat when we first decided to get back into boating. On the
sailboat however, it's a different dynamic, a different mindset, keeping it
simple is part of the charm.

I actually find that I prefer the chartbooks more in unfamiliar areas.
Maybe it's just being old enough to have run fog clock and compass back in
the days when only a few boats had Loran and they had cathode ray displays
where you had to turn knobs to match pulse rates. Budgets and the physical
realities of small sailboat life dictate a small GPS. I use the chartbook
for overall situational awareness and the GPS for the close in view and
position. It's a nice compromise that doesn't make me feel I'm getting too
far from my roots.

If I were cruising in a boat like yours, I'm sure I would have and greatly
enjoy using pretty much the same set up you have.

You ought to open up those chart books though. It's a lot more enjoyable
anticipating and planning the next day's cruising with those nice paper
graphics in your hand than looking at a LCD display.

--
Roger Long

Oops. Wayne B. didn't write that, I did. That little header slipped up out
of the window when I erased the quote.

--
Roger Long

On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 13:32:51 GMT, "Roger Long"
wrote:

You ought to open up those chart books though. It's a lot more enjoyable
anticipating and planning the next day's cruising with those nice paper
graphics in your hand than looking at a LCD display.

Actually I've gotten very used to doing my "next day" plan on the PC
using raster charts. They look exactly like the paper charts, and the
utility/convenience of electronic course plotting is not to be
believed unless you've tried it. Plotting across chart boundries is a
non-issue and you end up with a complete list of waypoints, courses
and distances which can be saved for backup purposes. Everything gets
copied to a backup PC at the lower helm, and the previous night's work
gets taken up to the flybridge. Underway the PC, a "Toughbook", sits
side by side with the Furuno course plotter and provides different but
redundant information.

Like you say, the problem with sailboats is where to put all the
"stuff". Down below at the nav station is not too handy unless you've
got a full time navigator in the crew, and the space top side is never
enough even with a wheel pedestel.