What design features make life aboard comfortable & practical for females?

Sorry - that's what I was suggesting - you use the dinette table.
It's true, you would generally only use a paper chart to check the electronic version (which incidentally vary - even within each manufacturer - from exceptionally good to extraordinarily poor. Though they are getting better... I've spent many a night anchored in 20ft of water, yet according to my plotter I was 100m inland)
But what will you do when the plotter screen goes blank just as you are trying to plot a course across a busy shipping channel or similar...?
Me - I'd simply turn to the back up electronic one because I'm a child of the electronic era (well ... maybe just anyway )

 

I feel like the voice in the wilderness, but the nav station is essential; complete with chart table; it is a matter of the ship's safety!

This is not to say that one should not use GPS, Plotters etc. They're great! Mike mentioned the laptop sitting in a recess in the chart table, brilliant!

Similarily, thanks to the magic of technology, SSB and VHF radios, EPIRBs, etc. give us very comforting links to sources of rescue. Thankfully no one has suggested that therefore we don't need to bother with flares! Maybe they are about to.

Sure, as Ari said, if you are cruising around an area that you are familiar with, then you get to know where the dangers are, and you don't need to bother looking at the charts. Find yourself on a strange coast with a power failure and it's a different story.

Geraldine Foley, who has spent 15 years living on her boat Mithril, wrote the following in the current issue of the Cruising Association of Ireland;

Any of you that subscribe to Yachting Monthly may have read the story of Gypsy Moth IV, it has since been repaired, but it had only just been through a long and expensive restoration. Luckily the crew survived without any serious injury.

At very least, before throwing away the chart table, take the batteries out of your boat and try cruising along an unfamiliar shore. It's not easy and it needs practice. Then remember the things that can happen to your electrics, a wave, a knockdown, an unexpected leak, a lightning strike, a dropped spanner across the battery terminals, or just the batteries going flat.

Wilma, I have said before, you are absolutely right to question everything, and to tease out pros and cons of the various trade-offs. It is not just for females, a comfortable place to live is just as important to the boys, even if we leave the girls to make it so. But emphatically no! The chart table is not redundant.

 

That accident had nothing to do with poor electronic charts, but only with (gross) human error.

Will, it is not only you. Even small sailboat cruising boats have a small back up GPS, or even a hand GPS with an incorporated plotter (that's my case). They are inexpensive.

The main plotter and GPS can fail, the boat energy can go out and still most of the guys will have a position fix.

Only if the GPS system fails, there is a need to go back to paper charts. With Galileu GPS system on the run, in some short years, only if two independent GPS systems fail simultaneously, you will have a need to go back to the old days.

 

Paddy if you read the post I mentioned that you can do away with the chart table and use the "saloon table" instead - I did not say DO AWAY WITH THE TABLE ALTOGETHER, conversely by your reasoning even a 10 foot dinghy needs a chart table! But please remember that whatever you have its no good if you can't use it! It's then that we have sinkings and groundings - when the skipper doesn't know what he's doing!

 

I don't know how you made that leap Walrus. However having had a few experiences with reefs that were not on any chart, paper or electronic, I am a lot happier in the dinghy after I have seen the layout of the rocks at low water.

I still don't agree with you about doubling up on the saloon table. Are you only using the paper chart as a fallback in the event of system failure? If not, do you put the chart away after every position recording or do you leave the chart on the table while on passage? If the latter, don't your charts get messed up with spillages, coffee, etc?

Vega,
The thing is that whatever it was that knocked out your main GPS (water / lightning / Uncle Sam throwing the switch ) is quite likely to have hurt your back up. Also, a position fix on its own is of very limited value until you plot it on a chart.

Roll on Gallileo, I agree with you there, but I still don't believe in the all electronic approach. Print outs would do, though I don't seem to have the option to print from my copy of CMap.

As for Gypsy Moth, you may have seen more detail on the subject than I, but in the statement issued by UKSA according to YM, not marking the position on a chart was one of the reasons given for firing the skipper and first mate.

To be honest, I am a bit surprised that there seems to be such animousity towards the chart table. I have lived long enough to know that when I find myself in a minority of 1, it is time to re-evaluate my position. However the truth is, outside of this forum, I am far from a minority. Previously in this thread, it was pointed out that the big manufacturers layout their boats for a reason, and I have yet to see a sailing boat over 30 feet which doesn't have a chart table.

Maybe it's my professional background in information technology that has just ingrained in me a lack of trust for computers (including dedicated boxes like plotters, etc.) But even if I am guilty of being a purist, I want my paper chart, I want my dedicated nav station, and I wouldn't recommend anyone to leave familiar waters without them.

 

Paddy, normally the secondary Plotter/GPS unit is a hand held, small battery independent unit, and mine is also a waterproof model. As I have said, inexpensive stuff.

So, if the main one fails, there is no reason for the second one to fail too, unless it is a global GPS system problem.

About paper charts, I would not like you to have the idea that I dismiss them completely.

Yes, if it is for open water, no problem navigation, but for small channel, with rocks all around I use everything, including my eyes.

This summer, I entered the Ria de Arosa with half tide, by the North tricky channel, instead of the main channel further South (long detour). I had a detailed C-map and a detailed paper chart.

I was steering slowly, checking the depths and position by the C-map chart when I saw a suspect water movement 50m ahead. I almost stopped the boat, went for the binoculars, and it looked like a submerged rock to me.

I checked on the detailed paper chart (at the wheel) and there it was, a submerged rock. I have checked again and it was not on the C-map (first time it happened to me) and I was in the middle of the secondary channel. After that, in those waters, I have checked for rocks, every tricky pass I went through, with the paper map, but the C-map proved to be accurate.

(By the way, do you know if there is a proper C-map channel to report this?)

In less navigated waters, sometimes rocks show neither in the electronic maps nor in the paper maps.

So I guess that in a tight spot you should use everything you have and go carefully, looking at the ploter and at the paper map, while steering and that means that unless you have a pilot-house boat, the map is not inside, on the chart table, but in your hand, at the wheel.

 

I don't know any reporting system for CMap, but if you email sales@thenavcentre.com they may be able to tell you.

 

Paddy

Remember everything is an AID to Navigation, not a MUST HAVE, having said that we try to get as much as we can afford and store onboard to assist us in our endeavours! IF YOU WANT A FULL SIZE CHAT TABLE THEN HAVE ONE! what I'm saying is that it is not as essential as you seem to think it is! There are more important things to have - how will you use the boat being the most important question (most livaboards spend some 80% of their time in port - in this case the questioner is a lady who has asked what everybody considers desirable for two to 'livaboard' a small vessel for a considerable length of time, and cruise sucessfully - now that is the question)

Incidentally what do you consider to be a "full size chart table?" enough to fully spread out your admiralty chart? read your chronometer properly through the glass in the drawer that it is in? store spare charts underneath? fit depth sounder, GPS, barometer and other navigation equipment on (including room to work out your daily sights? About four metres by one and a half metre should do it! That's about the size most Merchant and Naval Ships use so MUST be considered a full size table ('bout half your cabin I believe on a reasonable sized vessel - I have other uses for that space I'm afraid) 'Nuff said

 

I must agree about the space needed;it is a sacrifice.

You have to decide is it worth the sacrifice.

Last week I struggled with a ( brand-new) Imray paper chart on deck, in blustery conditions when sailing solo on my Schooner.
There is a large nav station below, with the requisite chart table in permanent residence; no folding out or messing around needed.....yet I still prefer to have the chart with me at the helm, so my "sacrificed space" below looks kind of squandered.
Rain makes the struggle even worse of course, and reduces a new £15 ( $ 30 ) paper chart to pulp pretty quick.

I cannot remember spending time below on a chart table whilst actually moving through the water; seems dangerous to be below a lot.

Maybe I need to get crew?

If I had a GPS too, I would be happier. A GPS is worth a LOT of crew in itself, and it lights up at night, wow.

Must write to Santa Claus and hint about his next gift idea for this skipper.

"Use everything you can" is my motto.

More is good.

 

Paddy - I too believe you may have jumped to the wrong conclusion about some of the comments made. As I said earlier, electronic charts vary enormously in their accuracy. I would dream of relying on them entirely for working in unfamiliar waters. However for 90% of the work that charts were traditionally used for (route planning etc) the electronic versions are faster, simpler, and as a result possibly less prone to human error.

 

I don't remember saying "full size". If your question is serious then about half the size of the typical admiralty chart is the usual compromise for a chart table. This is not an unreasonable amount of space in a 40' boat.

Secondly, I have said on a number of previous occassions in this thread, that everything is a compromise. I have also said that the chart table is a matter of safety. Personally I don't like to compromise on safety. It is rather important to be able to navigate under all circumstances for the 20% of the time that you are under way.

So if you can still use your dinner stained charts when your electronics fail, good luck to you. If you can't, well, if I'm nearby I'll do what I can to help you.

 

Of course the electronic tools are better than paper charts most of the time. I agree with you whole heartedly. The issue is about getting rid of the chart table to make more living space. I think it is most unwise.

 

Get a clear satin polyurethane varnish, thin it 50% and paint your chart. We have been doing it for years. makes them last forever with little change in how they handle and pencil marks erase better.


To address Paddy's comments

These days It is considered far more dangerous to navigate by paper chart than by GPS laptop based plotter.
In bad conditions closing with the coat you should be logging heading, position, speed and leeway regularly enough to transfer the info to a chart. But if the GPS system is down the Plotter is simply switched to DR mode and you plot your bearings onto the computer chart. If all power electronics etc has failed then a paper chart on a bunk base will be just as good as anywhere else aboard. Considering it will be the last option the saloon table will be just grand, many of us prefer it anyway for traditional nav.

On many smaller boats the nav station elctronics radios etc are over and and or beside the saloon table anyway.

Very few cruisers now use paper charts for anything other than emergencies . And yes of course we should all be able to, but if you have a good working electronic system aboard then you won't.

Incidentally small scale charts can be compiled in an emergency with a plotting sheet and the information from the Admiralty (or other) Pilot. Sufficient to enter port.

As Walrus says they are all aides to navigation.
There is nothing intrinsically absolute about paper charts and many of them are based on innaccurate datum themselves whereas the CMAP vector charts are now 100% accurate and cover all known geographic hazards.

I am an evangelical convert, as is every sailor I have helped set up the laptop GPS CMAP system.


All the best

 

You too are missing the point. It is not about paper versus computer, it is about throwing out the chart table.

 

"It is not about paper versus computer, it is about throwing out the chart table".

Not sure I would be willing to toss that paper away.

The next Islamic attack might easily be a small nuke blast , at the highest altitude they can purchase a missle from France or China to obtain.

This will WIPE OUT virtually every computer within a large area including UP.

So long GPS , the power grid , and most everything with a computer chip inside.

Paper charts , lead lines , sextants and wind up watches will still work.

FAST FRED