Do You Still Need Paper Charts?
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I would be, at this point, quite OK with going solely electronic (with appropriate backup gadgets, of course, for when the main one dies).
I would emphatically not be OK with relying purely on GPS and radar, without the skills to navigate on my own. “Selective availability” may be gone and the GPS satellites are probably out of reach of a Kessler cascade, but I spend enough time programming computers to know better than to trust them without a way to double-check for myself. There are times, as John mentioned, when the datum is screwed up and all the chartplotter can do is to display “well, this is what the paper chart would look like”.
Until affordable 4K displays show up, though, I’m keeping paper around. A 1080p display is nowhere close to good enough to replace a two-by-three foot spread when you need the big picture.
Oh, and a note to the Canadian Hydrographic Service: Get with the times, guys. If the Americans can make up-to-date S57 charts for all their major waterways available free online, I don’t see what excuse we Canadians have for charging a king’s ransom for update packs in crippled, DRM-locked formats.
Dear John,
The question we come back to as defining whether we need paper charts is whether we think we could navigate into safe harbor if all electrics got disabled (lightening most likely). Our need for paper charts then becomes a safety question, rather than a cruising question. If all goes pear shaped electronically, we are then in safety/repair mode rather than cruising mode.*
For example: we are looking to be off the coast of Norway (non-stop we expect) where we have no paper charts at all for a couple hundred miles of coastline. I feel we need a small scale chart that would allow us to approach and enter larger harbors, fjords, rivers along that coast if we need to bail out and get safe (electronics out & storm coming). Once the small scale charts get me close in (off the harbor) then I would have guides books such as yours (w/ large scale harbor charts) to get me into the harbor where I could get sorted. Or a radio call to port authorities.
In cruising mode, after years of piloting and navigating almost exclusively by e-charts, we found an area where we felt having paper charts was close to necessary for cruising and that was the archipelagos of Finland and Sweden. One could certainly stay safe in the archipelagos with e-charts exclusively, but we found cruising was made much easier and far more enjoyable with their excellent and information- packed paper charts.
So, to answer, your question, we do not think e-charts are a 100% replacement for paper in our choices on Alchemy. Safety in admittedly rare but not unheard of scenarios underline a call for a bare bones paper repertoire of charts while certain cruising areas we have found, are greatly more appreciated for what they have to offer with paper charts.
My best,
Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
*Need is the operative word here, as we do want (and buy usually old) charts for most areas we visit and spend many pleasurable hours pouring over them. It is a little like books, read often on Kindle now, but we are near a library this winter and I find myself enjoying the tactile feel of paper books and putting off e-reading till the cruising season.
Dear John,
Since the issue of chart plotting in the cockpit is brought up so prominently in this article stream, I will respond here lest everyone reading believes that navigating from the cockpit is the last word.
First, I agree that doing all charting from the cockpit is likely the safest, certainly the most efficient and is most likely to preserve situational awareness.
My caveats include:
I see this as another BBB (big boat bias). The bigger the boat, the more likely having navigation in the cockpit can be made to work. On 40 footers, charting with the larger screens you are espousing becomes a real estate issue as well as a visibility forward through the dodger windows issue. Paper charts would usually only be considered able to be worked on top of the companionway slide: feasible, because we have done it, but not easy nor convenient.
I would also challenge your description of the trials of a navigator using a laptop at the nav station (except possibly for single-handers, but even there I am doubtful). When things get complicated (or even when we get near something hard as you put it), Ginger is most likely at the nav station on the computer/chart plotter and I am on the helm. No one is jumping around or demented. She is feeding me relevant data and I am asking her questions while I maintain situational awareness of the boat and surroundings. She has her own situational awareness and they work well together in a synergistic fashion.*
It sounds like near-shore is primarily where you are making the case for cockpit navigation. This is where we are operating with 2 people available when needed and a single-hander may have the challenges you describe.
Offshore, where we are more likely to be on watch alone, having access to the laptop/chart plotter is far less important (when near something hard, both of us are active usually) and it is usually off to save power. We care where we are every hour or 2 when we log position and even then we rarely turn on the laptop. Most important are the AIS and the radar, both of which have displays in the cockpit.
Finally, we have navigated in this fashion (laptop below) for 12+ years now and, while sometimes finding it a bit inconvenient, I can’t think of a time where I deemed it unsafe.**
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
*Once for a long forgotten reason, we switched positions mid-way through a challenging manoeuver. Both of us took a dangerously long time to orient (establish situational awareness), became quite scarily unsettled, and we learned a valuable lesson.
** Far more dangerous, from my observation, is the modern tendency to install big complicated chart plotters at the helm. I suspect this is not what you meant by having nav ability in the cockpit, but I would want to challenge this seemingly innovative, reasonable and efficient (at first blush) and very seductive innovation. It is way too easy get lost in electronic manipulation, and then loose situational awareness. This task, that should never be the province of the helmsperson. An automobile equivalent is manipulating a cell phone by hand during driving: done all the time, but not good judgment.
Hi Dick,
All good point as always. I particularly like your condemnation of installing a huge plotter at the helm and then letting the person steering mess with it. (I should have said that). Like you two, in a tricky situation, Phyllis and I always have one navigating one steering. And, when I am single handed in the cockpit, I let the autopilot steer while I focus on pilotage. It’s also important to have all the courses and waypoints entered into the plotter or computer well before any tight situation is encountered.
However, although I agree that two people can make below decks navigation work, I would say that on deck is always better (as you do). There is just no substitute for looking up from the chart, be it electronic or paper, and seeing the realworld.
I would also contest the idea that on deck navigation is a big boat bias. Rather I would say that the lack of a place to navigate properly on deck on smaller boats stems from design failure and failure to prioritize. We will have space for on-deck navigation on the Adventure 40, under the dodger.
By the way, this is another reason I don’t like leading the halyards and reefing lines back to the cockpit. If we did that, even on “Morgan’s Cloud”, we would severely impinge on our navigation area, and also compromise the splash proof integrity of the under dodger area.
Much has been written on this subject and it will continue to provide a lively topic for discussion amongst the crusing fraternity for years to come.
I recently did a 1300nm delivery of a new 36′ yacht from Queensland to Melbourne. This vessel had a Simrad chart-plotter mounted on the compass(steering-wheel) binnacle and an auto-helm facility. The owner was on board for the duration but very soon declared that his “next” yacht would have a “spokeless” steering wheel. Yes, Dick… you are right it really is a question of suitability for the space available…. I prefer to have a back-up chart(or i-pad) readily to hand in the cockpit … but independent of the binnacle.
John,
Well reasoned as usual. In addition one must caveat even paper charts. We have encountered three major, as in potentially boat totalling, errors on paper charts in the last three years. At first we blamed the electronic charts. Then we discovered they were perfect representations of the paper charts. Research revealed the incorrect paper charts were based on engineering drawings provided by a engineering firm or municipality — not on a survey. Apparently the wrong drawings. Two bridges and one jetty were as much as 300m out of position.
The bureaucratic response was to poor mouth.
Caveat navigae in all cases.
Hi Chris,
So true and, in my opinion, another reason to navigate on deck since chart errors become apparent much more quickly when you can relate to the real world with a quick glance.
Yes to “navigate on deck,” and we now have a way to bring the below deck data topsides. We recently discovered a paired app that runs on our nav station laptop and an android tablet — making the tablet a remote display AND providing touch screen control of the laptop. Not only can we access anything on the laptop, with a webcam installed, we can see anything in the nav station (or anywhere the camera can see). It works through our wireless router. Used this way, the app is free. There is a license fee for being able to control the laptop from anywhere on the WWW.
Hi Chris,
Now that’s interesting and gets my mind whirring.
http://brilliantstarcruises.net/2014/01/14/ais-now-being-served-in-the-cockpit-sans-wires/
John, I have since gone to a tablet after the experiment with my phone. Chris
Hi Chris,
Just read your post. Great stuff. Looks like a really elegant and relatively simple and inexpensive way to get navigation data on deck. As soon as we get back on the Cloud I will give it a try.