Where are you getting the screen? Looking online, they cost as much as a 7" Garmin?
Another nav equipment post
- Thread starter Ken Cross
- Start date
Keep in mind that chart updates may not be even necessary where you boat. Here in Maine they pretty much mean squat where the currents & tides don't move sand around and change water depths like they may in the intra-coastal. Even so NOAA charting rarely updates these sand-bar movements on their RNC / raster charts. What is on the floor of the ocean here has not changed in hundreds of years unless there is a wreck. Heck on my work skiff I am running a Garmin chart from the mid 2000's. No need for anything more accurate as the hunks of granite have not moved since the days of plate tectonics.
CHIRP is a transducer technology ideally suited for fishermen and is related to depth and fish finding. It really has no bearing on a sailboat moving at slow speed not fishing. You'll pay more for a CHIRP enabled plotter, but it is not necessary. Some plotters can now upload your sonar info, and other boaters sonar info, crowd sourced data, to create more accurate vector charts (ENC's). I don't know of a single free government raster chart that has been updated via crowd sourced sonar data.
Active Captain is not available on any plotter that I am aware of, except for Furuno $$$$$, but is avaible for your phone or tablet.
Garmin's free standard g2 vector charting looks the most like a NOAA chart, except it is a true digital vector chart.
Out of all my customers I have only one who prefers a raster chart (RNC) over a vector because he is so vision impaired that he likes to zoom in on soundings and as he zooms the sounding gets larger. It gets larger because he is simply zooming in on an "image" of a chart, not a digitized chart.
Digitizing charts is expensive thus they are not free. A vector chart (ENC) is a digitally made chart that allows zooming without having to load an additional chart. A raster chart is an "image" or "picture" of a NOAA chart so when you zoom in it just gets more grainy. If you are enter a harbor for example and you zoom in on a loaded raster you will only ever get that scale and would need to load the next scale NOAA chart for the harbor. With a vector chart the zoom is automatically loading, as you zoom, because it is a digitized chart not just a scanned image.
There are no plotter manufacturers, who offer the direct NOAA ENC viewing capability. For that matter I don't know of any that allow a direct downloaded NOAA raster chart either. They all adapt the NOAA charts to work with their software. Raymarine has units that can display the free "Lighthouse" charts (based on NOAA charts) but IMHO they are horrible, stripped down versions, not the same as a direct NOAA download. If you wanted RNC for a Raymarine you'd need to download their Lighthouse RNC charts in order to work with the Lighthouse II software.
Buy an inexpensive plotter, with the free charts, and go have fun. Or get a computer and remote display.
I purchased the Raymarine es7 last year and used it for my trip to the Bahamas.
They give you a choice of 4 different chart sources at no extra cost. I went with the C map version as I was familiar with it. Is compatible with most every other device and instrument and a pleasure to use. Last year they had a rebate program in place as well.
Good Luck
Mike
s/v Ladylike
Sabre S38, MK II
They give you a choice of 4 different chart sources at no extra cost. I went with the C map version as I was familiar with it. Is compatible with most every other device and instrument and a pleasure to use. Last year they had a rebate program in place as well.
Good Luck
Mike
s/v Ladylike
Sabre S38, MK II
Thanks, everyone. I think Mainsail summed up why I can't find what I'm looking for.
I had in my mind to get the same functionality I get on my android. It sounds like it isn't available yet.
Ken
I had in my mind to get the same functionality I get on my android. It sounds like it isn't available yet.
Ken
Navionics has an interesting feature I found in their Platinum+ digital chart set. It allows you to upload and download user-created bathymetry from Navionics. I don't have sonar but I was permitted to download the user-created bottom data from other contributing users. It is a bit cluttered and mostly designed for fishermen but when I am in a tight waterway I turn this data source on in my Simrad MFD and see the kind of bottom contour you see here. Pretty cool.
Amazing what you guys will go through to have a plotter. I would note that a plotter is not an autopilot and you don't actually HAVE to look at it every single minute that you are under way. You are going like 5 knots so unless you are using GPS/plotter to dock the boat (good luck with that) you might have to check the plotter 4 times an hour. I'm not thinking that any plotter out there takes that long to update its data so I'm wondering why slow updating is one of the problems you are trying to solve.
My solution is a "sign here" post it sticker, waterproof maps, and a gps lat/long output. Just check the gps every 15 minutes or so and update the sigh here sticker on the map.
My solution is a "sign here" post it sticker, waterproof maps, and a gps lat/long output. Just check the gps every 15 minutes or so and update the sigh here sticker on the map.
I use booklet charts in the cockpit, full sized for trip planning and I keep a hand-held in the cockpit as well.... (eBay used)....I check it about once an hour to check my navigation skills and to make sure I'm still heading towards my mark...but I also have a depth gauge and a swing keel... so if I kiss the bottom it is not a big deal.
If I had a 6' draft fixed keel, I'd just be stressed all of the time.
Planning a route is the problem. A few hour sail may take 20 minutes as it switches between charts as lines are drawn or range changed. Now if you decide to look ahead, same issue.
Ken
CHIRP is a multifrequency transducer in which the computer can draw images in near 3 Dimensions (by color variations and Side scan). You can ID fish and bottom objects by their shape.
Now Digital Radar is made to have the same CHIRP type multifrequency.
If you have both and you have them properly installed, your MFD can define partially submerged objects in front of your boat.
Before you all clobber me, the depth of water and speed of your boat will determine how far in front you can detect. This may be more a novelty for pure sailing, as Maine Sail was implying.
For some examples of what you can sonar detect...
http://www.raymarine.com/view/?id=10299
CHIRP was top secret Military in the 90's and perhaps before.
________
My MFD had the CHIRP built in and when I bottom paint in 2 years, I plan to install the "through hull" transducer. Unfortunately the multifrequencies will not pass thru Fiberglas® to work properly.
Jim...
PS: Sometimes scuba and fishing are part of sailing too.