Wayne.B wrote in
:

What is the attraction of the Yeoman if you have a computer on board
and electronic charts?

I plot using the software, works fine.


Make believe there's a hard drive crash and you lose it all....say 250
miles offshore. We use the Yeoman to plot our paper course and it's just
easier to use a full-size chart page to click waypoints and create routes
for the chart plotters, and computer, especially over long distances
where you have to zoom in, waypoint, zoom out, move, zoom in, waypoint,
etc. The puck makes it almost too easy.

It creates a permanent record of the trip on the velum overlay plotted
every hour. Picking up the pieces after and electronic catastrophy is
just getting the plotting board stuff out of the chart table and
unpacking the hand-held GPS. The handheld's GPS cable to the Yeoman is
tywrapped to the chart table bottom behind the Yeoman boards for such an
occasion. Just plug it in. If the Yeoman doesn't survive, the plot is
still done. The computer is not.

We were about 130 miles SSE of Charleston when one of the "real sailors",
who doesn't appreciate my electronic toys because he is afraid they will
make him look stupid, made a nasty comment about them, once too often. I
reached down through the hatch and pushed off the main electronics master
switch, which controls all DC to all instruments in the boat. It all
went dark. Cap'n Geoffrey looked at me and smirked. "I'm gonna take a
nap.", I told him. "Lemme know when he's really lost.", I said as I
headed to my beloved V-berth for some quality time. Mr "real sailor" and
his compass, sextant (it was cloudy, useless) and dead recon took over.
I kept a secret eye on him from my little GPS in my bunk. We were headed
for the Outer Banks of NC by morning. Cap'n Geoffrey just let him go on
navigating the vast ocean for a day in the dark. It was a good lesson
and noone has razzed me about the toys, since. When the offshore tower
lights didn't show up the next night, I pulled the switch back on and
replotted a course for Charleston Ship Channel to the NW....(c;

You might try it. Simulated a main battery short or flooding and see how
you do.