Adjusting/Setting your magnetic compass?

[KathyL]

Am I the only one?

You guys have lots of great reasons to not rely soley on the GPS, etc and I support every one of them. But I also enjoy working with paper charts. I've liked maps and geography since I was a little girl (perhaps the urge to see the world presenting itself at an early age) and I think charting and plotting courses is part of the fun of sailing. Anyone else?

 

[Ross]

Kathy, I love to sit around the table in the evening and discuss

the next day's trip. That just can't be done with the electronic gadgets. I have several charts on my walls. Some of places I will never visit but that I dream about. I collect maps and charts and covet those that I can't afford to buy. I saw some last summer that plotted everything as east or west of Washington D.C. The meridan for Washington being zero. I use my GPS as a means to get a fix that I plot on paper.Nancy(my wife,best friend and sailing partner) says if the paper chart crashes I should pick it up and smooth it out.

 

[sailaway78]

The answer by now should be obvious

Most do what they enjoy doing. Ross likes to look at the charts, and plan a trip. I would bet a couple of rounds that Ross is knowledgable enough about his area to plan almost any trip in his head. I think that the ones who enjoy using paper charts use them and enjoy them. Most of the time I use my laptop for trip planning. Point and click, and I have distance, course, water depths and other info at hand. I don't do this because I enjoy it. I do it because basically I am a lazy loafer, and for me this is the easiest way. To each his own. But I still say that on a longish offshore passage, I can hold a truer course with my chart plotter, than you can with a compass, with a lot less work. And the name of the game for me is less work. Told you, I'm basically lazy.

 

[Joseph Shirley]

Kathy, you're not alone in liking to use charts

I don't go anywhere without them and plot courses whenever I make a trip. I have them out on my chart table even when sailing locally when I wouldn't be charting courses. I have 3 GPS's, 1 chart-plotter WAAS enabled, and a Digital beacon receiver. One GPS is interconnected with my radar, my flux-gate compass, and my autopilot, and in spite of all that I still use visual navigation and paper charts.In the 6 years I cruised in Mexico I got used to the idea that the instruments could take you near where you wanted to go but they never agreed with the charts. Many times I was anchored and all my instruments said I was a half mile ashore or more. The datums used up here don't translate to the Mexican charts so all the cruisers make up their own waypoint lists.Using charts is the way to go, and my Canadian charts tell me that in Canada, having the appropriate charts aboard is the law.Sail safelyJoe S