Those of us who cruise (or even the weekend sailor) tend to take charts (the marine version of maps) very seriously. It used to be that one had only a paper chart and something else to figure out where you were; of course, with todays GPS technology, everyone knows where they are, all the time. Still, electronic devices can be wrong, and worse, get taken out in even a nearby lightning strike. Putting everything you can in the microwave or oven will protect them, but not everyone will or can. So, paper charts continue to have their enthusiasts. However, theres an interesting commentary which just crossed my desk. A Luddite for all things starting with a small i, Im rethinking my position, and the cubic yard or so of paper charts we have aboard... Heres the commentary: >>> The Cost of Gadgetry >>> The newsletter essay from a couple of weeks ago about paper charts spawned a number of debates among boaters throughout the internet. We loved the civilized debates. Based on the discussions it became clear that there were two points that I did a poor job of making. Briefly: 1. The lightning issue. A full section of the essay was devoted to this but time and time again, a lightning strike was held up as the death of all electronics, something that would take down all of your electronic navigation. Getting hit by lightning is a terrible thing. It will likely destroy a lot of connected electronics. However the redundancy of phones, tablets, and laptops removes the risk. While this single point of lightning failure scenario may have been true 5 years ago when boats typically had a single chartplotter, today that isnt the case. It is extremely rare to find any cruising boat without multiple backups, including ones you may not even think about. 2. Gadget cost. A very common comment has been something like, Well Jeff is a geek and has many more gadgets than we could afford. Ill admit that I probably have more gadgets than the average person, after all its what we do professionally. But be honest - who doesnt have a laptop (or 2) on board? You blog, Skype with the grandkids, buy through Amazon, and do hundreds of other things with these devices. Your smartphone has more power than the typical desktop computer had just a few years ago. Most anyone can afford a good backup device. All of these devices have become incredibly inexpensive. In fact, they are far less expensive than the typical set of paper charts. Of course, if youre using 5+ year old paper charts as your main backup, this argument falls apart and the gadgets do become expensive. But then the argument for the added safety of paper charts falls apart too. Even NOAA says that this practice may be dangerous - see Mariners need to update their paper charts: nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/paperchart.html Heres the reality of 2013/2014. You can go to Amazon and purchase the very latest Google Android Nexus 7 tablet for $225. It has enough memory to hold every chart you could ever want in a lifetime of boating and includes full GPS embedded hardware. Add to that a chart app like Jeppesen/C-Maps Plan2Nav or others for Android - the product and charts are very inexpensive. Youve now spent the equivalent of about 2-3 chartkits of paper charts. Thats still fewer than the 5-6 we used to purchase every year. But the Nexus will also show you tide predictions, handle your log, download the best weather analysis available, and even allow you to watch movies. No matter how long you stare at those paper charts, the image will never change. Well, unless you have some official Canadian charts which, seriously, dont use waterproof ink. Yeah, we were shocked too - theyre not lithographs. Next, mobile phones. Its simple to find free or very inexpensive smartphone deals. If youre using an old feature phone, you can upgrade for free to a smartphone capable of showing any chart in the world (and tide, log, weather, and movies). Even the new iPhone 5C is only $99. And if youre a cruising couple, upgrade both phones. So now you have 3 backups to the other built-in electronics. And we havent even gotten to a laptop or two onboard. It just isnt the case that you need a large budget for these gadgets. Those are obsolete arguments. And heres the icing on the cake. You can have the latest charts all quickly and inexpensively (if not free). And if you honestly believe that NOAA charts arent updated frequently, check out this page: ocsdata.ncd.noaa.gov/ntm/Default.aspx Accept the terms and then enter a NOAA chart number. Our home chart 13309 for the Penobscot Bay in Maine is quite typical - about 30 updates made this year with 5 made last month alone. And thats for a chart in Maine. This just in - this holiday season is going to find multiple $50 Android tablets available. Just make sure there is a built-in GPS or else youll need an add-on GPS. But at $50, theres an incredible opportunity for a backup or two: news.yahoo/50-android-tablets-look-over-holidays-004514348.html Welcome to 2014.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 15:55:39 +0000
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