Are You A Video Game Navigator?

[msponer]

Someone ran aground in the Tuamotus last year by telling their autopilot to 'follow the track we took in' and then going down below.

[Mike OReilly]

I’m not hung up on format. I like digital charts in the cockpit. Chart books are great as well. Full format charts on the chart table are ideal. It’s not digital charts that are the problem. It’s the GPS overlay which claims to emulate real life. Often it does, sometimes it doesn’t. If you’re not using your eyes, ears, feel and secondarily your depth sounder and radar, then you can be deluded into believing that a chartplotter is showing what is real.

A chart can be off by quite a lot, but matched with eyes and an active brain, it can be just fine to navigate by. It’s when an old, or poorly sounded, chart is married with a mindless computer that thinks it knows exactly where it is that produces the problems.

[seaskip]

Rule 5 (Look-out)
Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and or the risk of collision.
Simple really. Dave had it down. I read "a full appraisal of the situation" as situational awareness. So, sight and hearing, plus as many extra methods as you can. Electronic charts certainly have their weaknesses, but I well remember how much time I used to spend below plotting fixes (Up and down like a yo yo. &#128516, so especially when shorthanded, there are problems with paper charts too.
2 cents.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by wyb2

Probably down at the nav station plotting his course on a paper chart. Too bad he wasn't using a helm-mounted gps/chart-plotter, could have dealt with navigation tasks without sacrificing a prudent watch.

+1

[StuM]

Originally Posted by rognvald

... One of our favorite anchorages on Lake Michigan places our boat several hundred yards inland when anchored in 15-20 feet of water. Many shoal areas are also consistently in error. It is for this reason that when sailing at night, we always maintain a 1 mile minimum limit when sailing along the coast and always use paper charts to plot our position from GPS fixes.....

So how does manually plotting GPS positions on a paper chart give you a different location than your chartplotter doing exactly the same thing?

Believe it or not, the big companies use the documented chart origins for alignment of their charts. If the chart plotter is out, your GPS position on the same paper chart that the display is based on will be out by the same amount.

With a decent chartplotter, you can adjust the origin when actual pilotage identifies an offset error in the chart origin.

[ohdrinkboy]

GPS is great, but I've also seen it go bonkers in the Norfolk, VA area for over an hour. Got to know how to use paper and mk1 eyeballs.

[Lepke]

I've used paper charts and manual fixes for about 55 years and electronic nav for about 7. I like the new way. At sea, on a stable ship, the best I could do with stars was within a mile. GPS is feet or yards although as others said it can jump. Coastal nav with a sextant turned sideways, shooting angles between well plotted objects I can get GPS accuracy, but with a lot of hustle.
Leave your nav program on at the dock with tracks turned on and you will see how much GPS jumps. Pic is max zoom in OpenCPN. Open sky.

[hafa]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

...The best navigation tool is your mind when it has situational awareness...

QFT. Whenever I see a thread engaging in the "paper vs electronic chart" debate, I think back to when I used to sail between islands with only my senses, the stars and currents and a few birds to guide me. Never had any issues and did many a journey.

When we train crew, we turn off all electronics, cover the compass, and get them to learn to feel the wind, the water and the boat. Only after successfully navigating distance by site and feel alone do we start to allow the use of instruments. Crew on watch (watches are drawn up ahead of time and enforced) are instructed to spend the majority of their time watching the horizon, and only occasionally consult the helm mounted chartplotter.

Charts are fallible. The medium used to work with them is entirely irrelevant, as the map is not the ocean; paying attention is simple respect.

[Mike OReilly]

It’s not about paper vs electronic charts. Charts are charts. Format is irrelevant for this discussion. The issue here is about charts with superimposed GPS positioning (chartplotters), and the issue of blinding trusting that your little boat dot is actually reflecting reality — all too often it is not.

There are certainly pros and cons with digital and paper charts, but that’s a different discussion.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by StuM

> traversing coastal waters without a lookout at the helm? Is this prudent navigation?

That has nothing to do with navigation, prudent or otherwise. It's just bad seamanship.

Please don't conflate primary use of electronic navigation aids with bad seamanship.

"Chartplotter/eyeballs" is far more effective and less error prone than "paper chart/eyeballs" for many,many reasons.

Very good comment

Before this degenerates to a paper vs electronic brawl, let's talk about seamanship and navigation in general.

It's really not a question of paper vs electronics in the first place.

A chart plotter can certainly -- no question about it -- make it easier to kind of navigate without really knowing how.

BUT that does not mean that electronic navigation is equivalent to bad seamanship.

I use both paper and electronic, and I know how to do chart work, take three point fixes, and all the rest of the traditional methods. I find paper charts almost indispensable for certain kinds of passage planning, although raster charts and a large HD display start to be a pretty decent substitute.

Knowing where you are instantly (rather than having to do many minutes of chartwork to figure it out) and seeing it instantly on a chart -- something which electronic chart plotters do -- is a huge advantage to a good navigator or a good pilot, allowing you to much better interpret data from the Mk 1 eyeballs. Can this advantage be abused, in order to avoid learning how to do actual navigation or pilotage? Absolutely.

[rognvald]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

It’s not about paper vs electronic charts. Charts are charts. Format is irrelevant for this discussion. The issue here is about charts with superimposed GPS positioning (chartplotters), and the issue of blinding trusting that your little boat dot is actually reflecting reality — all too often it is not.

There are certainly pros and cons with digital and paper charts, but that’s a different discussion.

Well said, Mike. Exactly!

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

It’s not about paper vs electronic charts. Charts are charts. Format is irrelevant for this discussion. The issue here is about charts with superimposed GPS positioning (chartplotters), and the issue of blinding trusting that your little boat dot is actually reflecting reality — all too often it is not.

Not just chartplotters. Exactly the same is true of superimposing your GPS position on a paper chart.

The chartplotter actually reduces the possibility of error compared to manually marking up a paper chart with a GPS derived position.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by StuM

Not just chartplotters. Exactly the same is true of superimposing your GPS position on a paper chart.

The chartplotter actually reduces the possibility of error compared to manually marking up a paper chart with a GPS derived position.

Yes, I agree it is exactly the same basic issue. As I said, format is irrelevant. The chart is the problem.

Now, unless you have actual evidence for your second claim I tend to think the greater danger goes in the opposite direction. The technology is so simple, effortless and apparently definitive that I think it is more likely to seduce people into believing that what they are viewing is equal to reality.

Those using paper charts and overlaying their GPS positions will face the same errors with regard the accuracy of the underlying chart. And yes, there is the added error in manually transcribing the plot. But the very act and effort of putting plot to paper would, I posit, force people to be more situationally aware. They will see that this depth doesn’t correspond to their sounder, or that this fix is too far off the point… Effort inspires awareness.

This makes digital chartplotters more error-prone when it comes to navigation.

(mic drop)

[ArmyDaveNY]

[QUOTE=Diesel Bill;2407807]

Originally Posted by ArmyDaveNY

The last paragraph brought to mind our 2 Navy patrol boats captured by the Iranians in the Persian Gulf (last year?) I personally think they were purposely
led into Iranian waters by a false GPS signal. (impossible?) You tell me.

It's a very real possibility. Another very real possibility is that they lost situational awareness. Still another possibility is that the broke down (I thought there was some mechanical issue at one point but I don't remember) and drifted. Finally, there is the possibility that it was a combination of issues.

I do know the North Koreans are messing with GPS signals that are affecting the airlines going to and to a lesser extent, from South Korea.

[rognvald]

Again, there is no attempt on my part to morph this topic into a paper vs. electronic chart discussion but rather to promote situational awareness when navigating your vessel. Another example of this concept is an experience we had when transiting from Florida Bay to Marathon. When underway, we have a dedicated DR track on a paper chart with updates every 5-10 minutes from GPS and LOP fixes from charted objects when in shoal waters. We also use our chartplotter as another source for our relative position. We then follow a compass course to our destination. As we approached the main channel into Marathon, our compass began to spin in circles and our GPS became erratic. We slowed our boat speed to a crawl and although we had a visual bearing on our destination, it was a very insecure feeling since we felt we were navigating by eye with a 1.5-2 knot cross current in a channel that was surrounded by shoals that were coral bedrock covered with shallow sand. This anomaly continued for a couple minutes(which seemed much longer) until our compass and GPS resumed their proper function. We called the Coast Guard station(in Marathon) and related our experience. They made no comment. Perhaps a Coastie on CF Forum can explain what happened and why the CG made no attempt to explain this unusual occurrence. However, the point at hand is that using multiple sources of navigational information is necessary for safety on the water. And, specifically, those "navigators" on CF who do not know traditional marine navigation are placing themselves and others at risk when their sole source of information is a boat icon on a screen. Are you a video game navigator? Good luck and safe sailing.