On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:15:03 -0400, BAR wrote:

The computer route would be ok if you kept it inside the cabin and you
had an SSD instead of spinning media.

========

A lot depends on the boat and the laptop. None of my laptops have
had SSDs, none have been kept inside the cabin (except on sail boats),
and none have ever experienced a hard drive failure, even when dropped
(and that has happened). My current laptop has survived a number of
salt spray incidents but not all of them will.

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:06:24 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:15:03 -0400, BAR wrote:

The computer route would be ok if you kept it inside the cabin and you
had an SSD instead of spinning media.

========

A lot depends on the boat and the laptop. None of my laptops have
had SSDs, none have been kept inside the cabin (except on sail boats),
and none have ever experienced a hard drive failure, even when dropped
(and that has happened). My current laptop has survived a number of
salt spray incidents but not all of them will.


The average computer just isn't made to be kept aboard the size of
boat Tim has. Not only that, but trying to make the computer stay PUT
is probably going to be a real experience.

Even if an owner installed a mount that secured the laptop to the helm and
the computer survived the pounding and spray that is often encountered in
the use of a small open powerboat, there are several other issues that
present problems.

1. Assuming you bought a mount such as a RAM mount to secure the laptop to
the helm, it is likely that you will be forced to mount the laptop to the
top of the dash. In a small powerboat such as Tim's, there is no other
place to mount such a large device. Unfortunately, mounting the laptop to
the top of the dash will not allow enough clearance for the screen to be
fully opened due to the raked windshield. There will not be enough vertical
clearance between the top of the dash and the rake of the windshield to
fully extend the screen. I hope you checked this before drill holes for the
mount.

2. Assuming you found a way to work around problem #1, due to the pounding
that can be experienced when operating a small boat in rough water, and even
though the base of the laptop is now secured, the hinge for the screen is
not, therefore the screen is likely to be slamming either closed or fully
extended when operating in rough water.

3. Supposing you installed a mount at the helm of a small power boat, and
supposing the mount also secured the screen of the laptop in the open
position for viewing, the size of even a 13" laptop would appear comically
large on a smallish helm, and more important would severely restrict the
skipper's view through the windshield by creating a significant blind spot.
Now you have a device intended to aid navigation that actually turns out to
be an impediment to navigation and the safe operation of the vessel.

4. Supposing the screen managed to stay in the upright position for
viewing, and supposing you didn't mind the blind spot created by said
screen, you couldn't read the screen in direct sunlight, a condition often
found more often than not when boating, once again negating the entire point
of the exercise.

A small, dedicated fixed-mount chartplotter easily solves all these
problems. Somewhere else in this thread, Wayne mentioned the ease and
convenience of trip planning and the creation of waypoints and routes on a
computer as opposed to the difficulties of doing the same exercise on the
device itself. I concur with this 100%. However, at least in the case of
Garmin products, the same charts that exist in the device can easily be
installed on a PC. Using MapSource, Gamin's PC software, the trip planning
exercise can be easily accomplished on the PC, and the waypoints and routes
then saved to an SD card. The card is then inserted into the chartplotter
and the data is transferred to the chartplotter. If the data for the trip
is altered using the device during the trip, such as creating a new waypoint
on the fly, or if you wish to review the actual tracks of the trip, the
process can be reversed and using the same SD card, the trip data can be
downloaded back to the PC. Best of both worlds. At least that's how I do
it.

Russ