Thread: AIS systems
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Old 01-21-2013, 05:53 PM   #39
bfloyd4445
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City: coos bay
Join Date: Oct 2012
Posts: 1,290
Quote:
Originally Posted by psneeld View Post
Safety/Risk Management is a mindset from a way of doing things/practicing/training...NOT material objects (which are just tools).


I just went 800 miles, Jersey to Georgia, winter cruising with a cheap laptop, free charts, a 15 year old Furuno chartplotter/fishfinder (no charts) that was given to me, and all I had to do was buy the $29 GPS antenna for the laptop and a $99 transducer for the sounder. I hardly even look at the stuff as it doesn't tell me much more than what the chartbook would or even easier...SEEING THE MARKS WITH BINOCULARS!!!!

Again...travel at night, bad weather or even in a faster boat and those electronics do make it nicer....but for most cruising...they don't make it safer because the weak link is still attached to the helm.

..........your absolutely right. Free charts?? Where do you get those?I'm one of those that loves the electronic gadgets but i also like simplcity. There is a free application for your smart phone that will do the gps tracking, My Tracks, anywhere and it then downloads the charts when you reenter cell phone areas. But i still find it useful to find my way home in the fog ro when hiking and get turned around. I saw a demonstration by an avid sound boater that uses nothing but his cell phone and the $15 navionics app with there charts. You still must purchase the charts but they are also cheap like 10-15 dollars. I don't have much radar experiance and none with the new systems but it seems to me like they are still a bit iffy and can miss object close to you so there is no substitute for the ol eyeball. I guess with a trawler you are always going snail speed so speed isnt a factor
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