3 ms·
Having come back to sailing/cruising after many years I was surprised at the level of navigational knowledge of the typical boater. In the old days, I had my ch
by roter 4y ago
Having come back to sailing/cruising after many years I was surprised at the level of navigational knowledge of the typical boater. In the old days, I had my charts, my hand-held compass, binoculars, dividers, etc. Now people go out with their smartphone and end up hitting the wrong side of a marker. Course, there seems to be less drinking and boating these days so that's a plus.
For those interested there are a lot of free options for charts. One is OpenCPN [0] which provides an interface to charting and all your electronics (e.g. AIS, GPS, radar). There are free raster & vector charts available worldwide (e.g. NOAA) which can be downloaded onto your PC or Raspberry PI.
[0] https://www.opencpn.org/ https://www.opencpn.org/
- yardie 4y agoIf you have source on free charts I’m all ears. Except for the US, most charts are paid. There are a few non-legal sources like CM93. As a cruiser who tried to make do as cheap as possible I gave up and bought a subscription for Navionics. There was very little choice in truly free charts.
- matt_the_bass 4y agoFree charts from NOAA are only US waters. Few other countries provide their charts for free. Previously one had to pay for paper charts, now one pays for digital charts.