Navigating your chartplotter

Accuracy always trumps efficiency, but can you improve one without harming the other? Rob Melotti investigates how to set up your chartplotter to get the most out of it

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Navigators are necessarily tunnel visioned under way: they're only interested in where they are and where they are going.

But once the boat is safely alongside, the bigger questions get a look in. Shouldn't there be a way of getting the plotter to do that bit? Surely I can get that instrument to talk to this one and put the right number on the screen? In short: am I getting the most out of the chartplotter on my boat?

The answer is far from simple: if you currently use a matrix of published charts and instructions, instrument screens, chart displays, apps and handwritten notes to navigate safely, it may be possible to upgrade, combine or replace certain elements to become more efficient, to increase the amount of time between nav tasks without compromising on safety.

But the nagging worry is that as chartplotters become more and more capable at maritime navigation, they can become more difficult to use.

In addition, as 'stare at the screen' pilotage becomes easier and easier, the worry is that newcomers to boating will no longer consider studying traditional navigation to be much of a priority.

So what is the best way forward? I spoke to a few experts to find out, and as expected, the response focused on the continued necessity for navigational knowledge, but the way to overcome the complexity of it was a little more playful than I expected.

GPS basics: accuracy and backup

It's worth starting at the beginning to illustrate how a lack of basic maritime nav knowledge can leave you severely exposed to hazards even when using the most advanced electronics.

When GPS first became available for leisure users in the 1990s, the receivers were capable of three main tasks: to find your current location; to save a series of other locations in the memory (waypoints) and to link them together into routes.