Most Cost Effective Chartplotter with Radar Option INCLUDING Worldwide Charts

[schoonerdog]

I've seen lots of people asking the same thing I am, but what I'm interested in, and I imagine many are, is the total cost of operation. When you include charts for world wide cruising, what is the most cost effective chart plotter. Obviously since I am worried about cost, I guess the type of chart plotter would be in the medium size catagory.

[S/V Alchemy]

Paper charts included? Worldwide charts meaning EVERY chart a company produces?

[Tellie]

Would I be considered a smart azz if I said cost effective would be good charts for the areas you will really sail to, plenty of pencils, pencil sharpener, erasers, parallel ruler, divider and a hand held GPS or two? Got me every where I ever wanted to go.

[Lowcountry]

I would think that the cheap option would be to find a used one somewhere and then supplement it with tons of paper charts.

[rebel heart]

Originally Posted by Tellie

Would I be considered a smart azz if I said cost effective would be good charts for the areas you will really sail to, plenty of pencils, pencil sharpener, erasers, parallel ruler, divider and a hand held GPS or two? Got me every where I ever wanted to go.

Yeah but then you'd be practicing actual navigation and need basic piloting skills.

[Cotemar]

Most Cost Effective Chartplotter is actually a laptop with Free OpenCPN software along with Free USA raster charts and CM93 world charts at the nav. station

[schoonerdog]

Yeah, we've done a ton of cruising on paper charts with a hand held GPS as well. It is the most affordable option. Actually, that's pretty much all we've done. And the laptop as well with the Captain software.

The thing that sells me on possibly upgrading to a modest chartplotter is their ability to get XM weather plots, it's hard to overestimate the importance of good weather info. So the question then becomes which plotters have the most reasonable prices for maps....

[JayH]

Originally Posted by schoonerdog

Yeah, we've done a ton of cruising on paper charts with a hand held GPS as well. It is the most affordable option. Actually, that's pretty much all we've done. And the laptop as well with the Captain software.

The thing that sells me on possibly upgrading to a modest chartplotter is their ability to get XM weather plots, it's hard to overestimate the importance of good weather info. So the question then becomes which plotters have the most reasonable prices for maps....

But the XM weather coverage is only coastal US. Seems contradictory to the need for worldwide charts.

[schoonerdog]

for the first two years we'd be in the Caribbean and Central America, where it can be received (they can't by law state that's it's available for outside the US, but in fact it goes down to the top of South America).

Out in the Pacific its a no go. I'm still not committed to getting one, but trying to reason out the options.

[BambooSailor]

For me it is Standard Horizon chart plotter ($1800 for new 10") + Si-Tex MDS8 radar (around $1200) + mega-wide C-MAP charts (around $200 per area). All European products. Other option I am considering is a netbook/ipad with GPS + C-Map reader + PC radar, overall probably cheaper but I have a problem finding good PC radar. Even without radar it is very cheap plotter configuration and good backup for primary plotter.