Are paper charts as a backup still necessary?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Your sailing along at night, Its pitch black out there, No moon,
The only thing thats working on your boat is the compass,
Your heading west,
Lightning Strike, Fire on board, Wave has taken out the electrics, Etc Etc, Whatever,
How do paper charts help you in those circumstances,

The right type will greatly assist with your DR..
for example my ocean passage charts give currents average speeds and directions and the same for winds all year round.
You could say if both off us are blinded at the same time my paper white cane gives me an edge.
But I would say that..

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by StuM

That's a bit of a stretch.


Fugawi's Oceania and Pacific Ocean contains just ONE chart product - New Zealand 2018.


And they apparently don't have ANY coverage of SE Asia.


That's a big chunk of "the whole world" missing.

OK, then let's say "Most of the World".


But Fugawi is just one of a number of sources. Here's the South China Sea: South China Sea Electronic Navigational Charts East Asia Hydrographic Commission For free!



Australia is available cheap from O-Charts.


And you get truly worldwide coverage using the Oesenc plugin and commercial S63 charts like what ships use (bit pricey though)(you can get them here: https://www.chartworld.com/shop/off_enc).




I don't think it's that hard get up to date charts for just about any place that charts exist for -- OpenCPN is quite open and can use a great variety of chart formats.

[sailorboy1]

I have paper charts for all the places I'm cruising. I find them very valuable and useful. They are large, cover a bigger area in 1 view than my electronic ones, and can be written on.

Yes they are kind of expensive. I say kind of because they are soooooooo cheap in the big picture of costs and if you feel they cost too much I wonder what other important things you would talk yourself out of.

[thomm225]

So far I only use paper charts. Mainly one huge foldout.

Yes, it's only in the Chesapeake Bay so far but it's a big Bay maybe 30 miles wide by 150 Long

My charts work great except they are from the 90's and every now and then when I enter a new river, bay, or creek off the Chesapeake there will be channel markers that aren't on my charts, or I'll start to hit bottom when I should have another foot or so according to my chart(s)

I was trying to explain my last anchorage off Mobjack Bay up the Severn River to a fellow bay sailor last week and had to pull out my old chart with all its rips and covered with my notes

He was like ….no chart plotter?

If I'm low on power, it's the chart and my handheld Suunto Compass in the early am

The PO had taken one last voyage/cruise from Massachusetts to the Bahamas via Florida and had charts for the complete trip that were still on the boat when I bought it

[Van Der Beek]

Originally Posted by Mr B

Your sailing along at night, Its pitch black out there, No moon,
The only thing thats working on your boat is the compass,
Your heading west,
Lightning Strike, Fire on board, Wave has taken out the electrics, Etc Etc, Whatever,
How do paper charts help you in those circumstances,

They could still assist you, although not as effectively. But. The analog compass sure will, key word there.

Unless `you´ wanna ditch that one also and go digital, since using common sense in the digital age has become more or less thrown upon and viewed to be behind the times. As if life skills (in this case being able to actually navigate) would EVER be behind times.

It doesn’t matter what year it is, these skills will always be relevant.

Not to forget you grow both as a man and a sailor, you become more confident, self sufficient etc etc.

[Mr B]

Originally Posted by Van Der Beek

They could still assist you, although not as effectively. But. The analog compass sure will, key word there.

Unless `you´ wanna ditch that one also and go digital, since using common sense in the digital age has become more or less thrown upon and viewed to be behind the times. As if life skills (in this case being able to actually navigate) would EVER be behind times.

It doesn’t matter what year it is, these skills will always be relevant.

Not to forget you grow both as a man and a sailor, you become more confident, self sufficient etc etc.

Under the circumstances I mentioned,
Paper charts are bits of paper with lines on them,
You may as well read a comic book, Thats if you have a light of some kind still,
Gas light from the stove maybe,

Common sense comes into it, Yes, You know approx where you were before the electrics went down, Within 25 or so Nmiles,

So you just keep sailing west, You already know how far from land you are,
If you have clear sailing ahead. From Memory from the GPS,
Close to shore, Drop the anchor and wait for daylight, Then you sail by eyeball along the coast,,
It would be scary with out a depth sounder operating,

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by Dsanduril

If all of your electronic charts die how will you know your position? Seems likely that all of the GPS's will also be dead. So paper charts don't cover all your needs, you also need some way to find your position.

FWIW we carry any number of redundant electronic charting and position finding systems. I'm hard pressed to envision a scenario where all get killed (at least one where I care afterwards - a massive EMP from global thermonuclear war may stop all my devices but will also probably stop me from caring).

We also tend to carry ocean-scale paper charts because I just like having them. And a sextant with the necessary paper documents. All because I'm old school. Even for passage planning I haven't broken out the paper in years. Do break out the sextant from time to time just for grins.

Even just keeping a good DR is better than nothing. Or having a sextant and knowing nothing more than how to take LAN, that is all Columbus had. Of course he did think he was in India when he was actually on Hispanola, but points for trying really hard, right?


One nice use for charts, ANY charts, is constructing plot sheets on the back sides. If you have a compass and triangles, (or compass and parallel rules) you can make a mercator projection plot sheet for your lattitude or course leg mid latitude. Oh yeah you need a protractor if it isn't marked on the triangles. Or fold the corner with the compass rose on it on to the back (blank) side and use that. For open ocean navigation with no pesky islands or reefs in the way, that's all you need.



Paper charts (and plot sheets) are an excellent backup, yeah, if you are not on a widdle bitty microboat. It can be frustrating trying to do paper navigation on a 27'er especially if there is no dining table. On a bigger boat, sure, why not have them along? Foolishly I tossed all mine a few years back. Now I got to get new ones.

[Ip485]

I think that is correct, size can actually be a problem. I am lucky and have a full sized chart table - which is taken up with the keyboard and mouse !


For most, folding charts and working with them in the cockpit is a complete pain, which I suspect is another good reason for the popularity of chart plotters or iPads. So many modern yachts dont even provide a proper chart table anyway.



It is even worse in the cockpit of a small aircraft I might add.

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by 2savage

I remember when LORAN was high tech!!!

A or C? LOL


I grew up on A, btw.

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

OpenCPN does require some skill to use properly, however -- It is not an Apple product.

Ooooooooh, STING! LOL!

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Van Der Beek

They could still assist you, although not as effectively. But. The analog compass sure will, key word there.

.....

One of life's biggest rip offs is that after a lightning strike magnetic compasses are often wildly off.

[GrowleyMonster]

Originally Posted by Ip485

Diesel engines in light aircraft will stop without electrical power - there are no mags. Yet they are fully certified. The engines have a backup electrical source sufficient to get you on the gorund before the engine(s) quit.

I have never even heard of a diesel engine in light aircraft. But most diesels can be set up to run happily with no electricity until they are out of fuel.

[SVRocinante]

In response to the original poster; I would not sail without my paper charts.
Now, is that reasonable? I don’t know, it’s simply my preference.
We always have our paper charts in the cockpit and log our position on it based on the length of trip and area we’re in, but typically every hour.

Obviously, that also means that before we head out, I’ve laid out our course on our chartplotter and on the paper charts. On the paper charts, that includes distance, heading and anticipated travel time for each leg.

Originally Posted by Mr B

Your sailing along at night, Its pitch black out there, No moon,
The only thing thats working on your boat is the compass,
Your heading west,
Lightning Strike, Fire on board, Wave has taken out the electrics, Etc Etc, Whatever,
How do paper charts help you in those circumstances,

In response to Mr. B: Without all the drama of lightning & fire, we lost our chartplotter in the middle of the night in a storm (nothing major, but not a nice summer evening sail ) as we where headed down the coast of NJ a number of years back.

Because we had our charts, my trusty headlamp and we had been keeping track of where we were, the initial panic subsided rather quickly and we simply switched to maintaining a compass course of 210°M (still remember to this day!) timing our arrival (based on our last know speed) at the next bouy off the Barnegat Bay inlet where we set off on our new course heading towards Cape May. We arrived safely just as the sun was rising, made our way in, anchored and crashed! Slept for hours & hours!

Anyway, could we have done it without the charts? Probably, but I assure you that the level of comfort would not have been the same... at least not for us. We had never sailed the area before and I sure as heck didn’t have the markers memorized to know where we were. We probably would have recognized the entrance to Delaware Bay, but again, the anxiety level would have been through the roof!

Just some thoughts... YMMV!

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Ip485

I think that is correct, size can actually be a problem. I am lucky and have a full sized chart table - which is taken up with the keyboard and mouse !

For most, folding charts and working with them in the cockpit is a complete pain, which I suspect is another good reason for the popularity of chart plotters or iPads. So many modern yachts dont even provide a proper chart table anyway.

It is even worse in the cockpit of a small aircraft I might add.

It's even more of a pain using a large fold out chart in the cockpit cruising along at 5 knots plus heeled over 20-25 degrees slightly off course and trying to avoid running aground (depth finder showing 2' under the keel) while at the same time switching back and forth from your distance glasses to your reading glasses to see the chart properly

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by thomm225

It's even more of a pain using a large fold out chart in the cockpit cruising along at 5 knots plus heeled over 20-25 degrees slightly off course and trying to avoid running aground (depth finder showing 2' under the keel) while at the same time switching back and forth from your distance glasses to your reading glasses to see the chart properly

To actually do what you’ve described in this day in age of readily available cheap navigational devices, would be extremely foolish, especially while using 30 year old charts as you’ve previously described.

Download a cheap app onto your smartphone along with a local chart for well under $50 and be safe, both for yourself and the others around you.