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I’ve
written a lot about charting programs and plotters over the last few years,
and one byproduct of that work is “the question.” By e-mail,
by phone, or right on the dock, it goes something like this: “Should
I get a plotter or a PC charting program?” In formulating a response,
there are all sorts of variables to consider—voyage plans, nav station
setup, PC tolerance level, and budget, to name a few—but for many
situations these days my answer is “both.” The core idea is
that current plotter and PC technologies have certain complementary strengths
(and weaknesses), and, by creating a combination system, you can enjoy
the best of both and gain some precious redundancy in the bargain.
Let
me describe a real-life system I helped put together for a friend a few
years ago. As a boater Jack is experienced and adventurous, but rather
the opposite with computers. Nonetheless, he owned a fast laptop and liked
the familiarity of the paper-like charts that were then only available
on PCs (Northstar 961 excepted). So we set up fiddles and a foam pad to
secure the laptop near the helm of his 36-foot Downeast-style cruiser,
and alongside it we installed a Garmin 162 mapping GPS with an external
antenna and the simple but all-important computer data cable.
We then
loaded two software packages, along with two flavors of electronic maps,
onto the laptop. ChartView 3.0, notable for its solid display engine and
ease of use, reads a variety of SoftChart, Maptech, and NDI raster charts
thoroughly covering Jack’s Nova Scotia-to-Chesapeake cruising ground.
(ChartView, once part of the Nobeltec software stable, is no longer being
developed but is still marketed by Weems and Plath). MapSource provides
a way to move chunks of Garmin’s inexpensive, low-resolution cartography—like
U.S. Waterways—to the 162; the simple coast outlines and nav-aid
information are quite suitable to the machine’s 4.2-inch (diagonal)
gray-scale screen.
All
this may sound complicated, but the result is powerful. Jack usually plans
his cruises at home, supplementing all the data on his laptop with guide
books and large-area paper charts spread around his den; hence he can
carefully, and with mouse-click ease, build thorough and numerous routes.
Once onboard, he uploads these routes to the Garmin, a critical step in
the master plan, and off he goes. During harbor entrances and in other
tricky areas, he focuses on the laptop with its full-chart detail, the
little plotter LCD serving nicely as a zoomed-out second display. At slow
speeds, he can still manage the keyboard and mouse. While the boat is
on fast legs, the Garmin alone can provide sufficient nav data, given
the prior route planning, and is also less distracting and easier to use
while on a plane.
The
system’s redundancy is comforting. If the laptop goes down, Jack
has his routes and sketch charts on the little plotter; in the less likely
event that the plotter fails, he has his laptop and an old handheld GPS
to drive it. In either case, he is quickly back in business with routes
intact. And there’s more. When and if software updates are available,
Jack or his faithful service person (me) can easily install them on the
laptop or, via the laptop, on the plotter. We were thus able to turn the
162 into a WAAS-accurate unit a year after the original installation.
When and if Jack moves up to a flying-bridge cruiser, the laptop could
continue to serve him well, connected with a longer data wire to a more
fully featured plotter above.
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