'Track Up' or 'North Up'

[Bella Sera]

North up, suppose because that's the way I was trained as a nav. Plus my feeble brain gets confused taking bearings off the compass and trying to visualize them when in track-up mode (you can tell I never fully trust my electronics!). Of course, using both at the same time on split screen means you can turn any way you want and end up going the right way.....right?

[Pblais]

The one mistake you can make is thinking you know which way you need to go and being wrong. You sure as anything will steer right into the worst place at the last moment. I like North up because you should have some idea of what direction you want to go. Course up has you always going forward. You can't be going backward. Looking ahead can do that without a chart. With north up you always have a sense of the direction you are going and it might tell you you sure can't get there going the way you are. If you work north up always it helps prevent the really stupid mistake. The little ones you get just because you are only a human.

If you are off just 5 degrees you might not get there as fast but it normally won't put you in trouble. Being 90 of 180 degrees usually means trouble. North up means from a distance you can look and a warning.

[NDH]

Originally Posted by Highlander40

I'll bet that track uppers can't read a road map either!

SWMBO has the answer to that one!! if we are hiking she turns the map round...............dont ask!!!

[jck339]

North up of course. That also works better if you overlay radar over the chart and radar is much safer and easier to interpret North up.

Curry

[SeattleBaba]

I will try track up for the reasons above, but track up drives me nuts in the car. Our rug-rats (college-aged) both like track up. The seasoned citizens like north-up. Charts, Rand McNalley, AAA, assessor's maps, almost all surveys and, therefore my brain are north up. In Seattle and Puget Sound, we always know which way we are headed by which mountain range or body of water you are facing so making the inversion is easy.

[Ex-Calif]

Like everything there tends to be polarization.

For those who can't read "north up" - Maybe it's time to learn a new skill.

For those who can't read "track up" - Maybe it's time to learn a new skill.

You can never have too many skills in your bag.

The world used to be flat as well.

[jackdale]

North up on charts. My laptop charts are raster.

Head up on radar.

Jack

[DWT]

I have always had it North up. Not sure it can be changed on my GPS.... I'll look and see the next time I'm in the boat. I think my wife would have a easer time with the track up.

[Big bliss]

Definitely track up. You have a compass to know which direction you are going. The only time you will use a chart North up is while planning your route. You cannot tell me that you stand at the helm with your chart pointing north and trying to match it to what you see, while your boat say is facing east.

Whether the GPS is redrawing the map or :just: the cursor should be the same, the map eventually will move and needs to be redrawn anyway. If your chart plotter freezes out it may be time for a firmware upgrade or new charts.

Radar and chartplotter overlay jjust the same whether in north or track up.=

I am cruising at 30+ and even with zooming in and out the plotter has no problem keeping including radar overlay and everything being set to track up. When cruisingb at night and wanting to confirm a marker it is most certainly easier and less error prone to have everything the plotter set to track up. In coastal areas where you may have hundreds of lights from houses, traffic, including emergency vehicles mixed in with your navigation aids. Do not want to be in the situation where I have to quickly assert which marker I am facing out of myriad of lights blinking, a plotter facing north, rembering the deviation between my magnetic compass and the plotters, etc. facing track up, the plotter shows what I see.

[Talbot]

This thread only gives two options, when there are actually three.

Head up. - The picture rotates as the ship wanders from side to side on its course. Thus all contacts wander around the screen by the same amount as the boat yaws.

North Up. - This requires a gyro compass to provide heading info to the radar and keep north up. If you are running Marpa, you need the gyro compass.

Course up. - Same concept as North up. It is gyro stabilised, but the course of your navigation track is selected at the top of the display. This also demands a gyro compass.

[bstreep]

Well, we went sailing with friends yesterday, on their Catalina 40. Great sail, winds in the mid 20s (as usual) on Corpus Christi Bay.

Like me, he is a "North Up" guy. We had our chief "Track Up" proponent on the boat with us. So, we set his chartplotter display - a smaller version of my Raymarine unit - to "Track Up". And we set off across the bay.

Pretty soon, Mark said to me: "You think we can tack and miss the spoil island and make the point?" We both looked at the chartplotter and then at each other. I said "Hmm... If I knew where we WERE on the chart...". And both laughed. Of course, we knew where we WERE, by looking around. But, if we'd had only the chart to navigate with (fog, rain, darkness), we'd have had a bit more trouble... The plotter got switched back to "North Up".

Again, I can certainly see - and WILL try - Track Up for ICW navigation, for instance.

[Therapy]

I found that the plotter worked better for me as track up when in the Okeechobee waterway but out in the Gulf I seem to like the north up display.

Could this survey be linked to age?

I was brought up with charts on the table. Then a gps that provided only a bunch of numbers - requires some work. Then a plotter, my first, a few years ago - WOW - where have I been.......

Well, here I am, though I am now an "older version" using a Garmin 5212. look at that, oops I touched the screen, dang, OK.....wait......OK touch that, good back to the screen, LOL - Just learning it - how do I find that track? Still not sure how to set the anchor alarm but there is a red ring around my boat sometimes....hmmmm.

PS
It does have that fancy dancy chip in it (gives you all the info on places and such like amenities, phone numbers, depths, owners cell phone number, how many forks and spoons are set on the cloth or plastic table covers) and we were later than we wanted to be (again) on the delivery trip home...... and........hey, that place looks good - dock, restaurant, groceries, good, lets go there. Yep, the waitress said she had been there a while and didn't know anything about groceries but across the waterway at that "other" place, they had a few things and if not there was a 25 cent (or whatever) bus that did a loop and one stop is the PUBLIX!!!

So I do know that sometimes (like in the past when I was a "newer version") no matter which way I think is up I may be mistaken.

LOL.

PS The fish dinner (special - LOL) at that place was fantastic.
PPS We know that if you are really, really hungry and the day is at an end then the food is always better, but still it was sooooo goooood!!

[Ex-Calif]

Originally Posted by Big bliss

You cannot tell me that you stand at the helm with your chart pointing north and trying to match it to what you see, while your boat say is facing east.

I agree completely. Methinks there is deception afoot!

If you are steering 190 at any significant speed, I guarantee that the paper chart is being held south up.

You see an object estimated bearing 30 degrees to starboard (210 magnetic) - You can't efficiently estimate a magnetic bearing to that object with north up.

[Lodesman]

I don't have a chartplotter (don't need one where I sail), but in my professional life I've had a lot of experience using ECDIS and ARPA. I almost always prefer to operate North up (& true motion) with both systems, but have experienced situations where Head up was required/desired: 1) when there was a failure in gyro input; 2) when dealing with an extreme number of close contacts (this is specific to ARPA - head up relative motion was the safest and most efficient method; and 3) navigating in canals and very narrow channels - there was no benefit to being North up, so it made sense to eliminate any chance of ambiguity.