Bit of a poll - computers on board and measurments

Sheeps Head

Hi All,

Been having a chat with a guy in the US who seems to think 'everyone' has electronic charting and navigation on board these days.

So what about it?
Do you have a chartplotter or laptop on board?

And what about measurement of distance - nautical miles and such?
He seems to think that anything below 1 NM is in yards or maybe metres.
Never heard of cables ( 0.1NM )

What's easier for you?

There was a navigation warning recently issued by the Coastguard that used cables for position, and 'threequarters of a mile' for an exclusion zone.

Ron.

Pigeon Reaper

I have a chartplotter. I don't use it much. Generally only with bad visibility close to the coast and with radar. I use NM as this is what the charts use. Depths will be in metres.

JohnCleary

Have a shart plotter on board, doesn't get used to it's full potential. I generally just use Garmin's TrackBack if fog comes down, it's easier than plotting a route from my waypoints (On a lake with lot's of bends, waypoints are a pain in the ass)

No laptop on baord as I only have a small 25ft sports cruiser. I generally use Nm when at sea, depth in ft

Sheeps Head

Thanks for replies.

John. Interested you use ft for depth. Is that common on inland waterways?

And what about distances less than 1 NM? Would you use decimal miles, like 0.6, or call them cables, 6 cables, or use yards or metres?

As far as I can tell, the EU wants us to use metres for less than a certain distance, but whether that's less than 1 NM or less than 0.5 NM I can't tell.

At sea I do everything in NM or decimal NM, like 3.6 NM.
And the coastguard uses cables so that's easy.

Ron.

JohnCleary

I use decimal for less than 1Nm

I use ft out of habit, i've used it all my life, as did my father. Also, when we moved inland from the sea, water's were much shallower so used ft. Now whenever back on the sea I use ft because i'm familar with it