What is it about paper charts and navigation?

As “modern” Americans, we are attached to our electronic leashes like never before. I am NEVER without my trusty iPhone, as it is my clock, my map, my phone, my computer, and so much more. If you don’t think Steve Jobs hasn’t changed the world, take a look around. You can’t go anywhere without someone whipping out their smart phone and Googling something. Until, that is, we step aboard . . .

For some reason, everything changes when we step aboard our boats. Not sure why, but I suspect it has to do with the traditional lore surrounding sailing. Step aboard a “proper” sailing yacht and we all of a sudden become traditionalists. We all love our teak joinery, our mahogany veneers, our bronze fixtures, and let’s not forget the trusty (if not rusty) sextant. Add in a protractor, a set of dividers, and some paper charts, and we are all of a sudden Christopher Columbus, ready to set sail for ports unknown.

Or are we. . . ?

I have a confession to make: Yes, I love fine brightwork (although I hate to varnish), I did choose a Westsail 32 as my cruising boat (you can’t get more traditional than that), but I have a secret: I admit to having never carried a paper chart on board (with the exception of one “folded map” style fishing chart of Lake Mead, which I used before I had electronic navigation). No charts aboard Nereus. Never.

“What?,” you say? “No paper charts? Not even as a backup? That’s . . . That’s sailing heresy!!!”

Is it? I managed to sail thousands of miles without once referencing a paper chart. Are we just holding on the conventions for the sake of convention? The usual cry in favor of paper charts is, “What are you going to do if your GPS goes out?”

How about use one of the four other ones I have aboard?

“What if the Global Satellite System goes down?” I’m betting if that happens, my problems of navigation will be minimal compared to those of the rest of the world.

As a simple analogy for a paper chart backup, how many of you are keeping a horse and buggy in the garage in case your horseless carriage won’t start in the morning?

What’s the point of all this? Point is, modern day electronics have made navigation a skill easily mastered by almost any seafarer without the hassles, inaccuracies, and inconvenience of hauling paper charts around. Charts are very expensive, take up valuable space, and are unruly to handle. In my professional business, I’ve been pushing for years to become completely paperless. Sailors, however, feel the need hold on to their paper charts.

In the US, electronic charts are free, constantly updated, and take up no space, except for the computer they run on. As for redundancy, I have no fewer than two computers on board, supported up by an iPhone and iPad (with navigation software installed) and a handheld GPS as a back up – all of them are digitally updated in seconds. I have three GPS antennas (one is a nifty little $37 USB device, which makes me portable). I think I’ve got redundancy covered, without the need to pay for, carry and store charts I’ll most likely NEVER use. Plus, I have yet to sail somewhere I haven’t thoroughly studied before hand, thereby giving me a minimal amount of knowledge of where I’m headed before I ever get there. Like Cap’n Ron always says, “If we get lost, we’ll just pull in somewheres and ask directions!”

Here’s the paperless set up I’m building: Primary is a Mac Mini, networked into the ship’s NMEA 0183 network, which all transducers, including the primary Garmin GPS antenna feed into. I currently use the ultra simple, yet very usable Polar Navy’s PolarView NS software. PolarView NS is all of $49 and upgrades (including the interfaced NOAA charts & Active Captain Cruising Guide) are free. My Mini cost around $600. Pricing so far is well below the closest Raymarine or Garmin dedicated system, while being useful for other non-navigation things, like watching DVD’s, surfing the World Wide Web, writing this blog, doing office work, play video games, etc. I keep my MacBook Pro on board with me as a back up, which runs off a battery, should there be an unlikely power failure (I’m anal about my electricity, so that’s not likely to happen). At $1100, the cost of both these systems is still far below the cost of the dedicated “marine” systems, yet they do SOOO much more. On deck, I carry my iPhone in a waterproof case. All these connect to the shipboard NMEA 0183 network via WIFI.

I upgrade these computers every few years, regardless of their onboard status, which reduces their “marine” costs while removing the worry of being stuck in a dedicated marine system with limited or no upgrade path. When Raymarine legacies a system, you are stuck. Ask me about my old Standard Horizon chart plotter sometime.

So, there. I said it. I’ve come clean. Yes, I’m a traditionalist with great electronics for navigation. It’s just so simple, I’ll add one last secret: I don’t know how to use a sextant!