Stuff That Works is a series of posts we are making about things that have worked for us on our trip from Victoria, Canada to New Zealand. Please remember, we are not gear testers. This is a sample size of one. We do not have extensive experience with a large number of products and software. Having said this, at the time of writing, we have sailed more than twelve thousand miles since leaving Victoria, so our gear has been tested. If you plan to do a trip like ours, do your own research. Our perspective is one piece to your research puzzle. Hopefully, you will find it helpful.
We are tagging posts in the series with #stuffthatworks and #stuffwelike so if you’d like to read more posts in the series, search for either of those tags.
Before we get into the specifics of what we use, it’s important to remember that Chartplotters1 are only as good as the charts on them. Chartplotters shouldn’t be considered without simultaneously thinking about charts. Likewise, the use of charts can be greatly enhanced with the right chartplotter/software. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg thing. I wrote about our charts in a previous post. It might be good to read it before you read this one.
Garmin
There was a dedicated radar on Cambria when we bought the boat. It died soon after the money cleared our account. It was very old and not worth repairing so we replaced it with a Garmin radar and MFD (Multi Function Display). We chose Garmin because the electronics dealer we were working with said it would be compatible with some of the older electronics we had onboard. In his opinion, Garmin products were the best at working with older legacy electronics. Also, I have been using Garmin GPS units for many years and was familiar with their interface so it made sense to stick with Garmin.
The plotter came with charts for Canada and the U.S. but we have not purchased any other charts for it. We have found excellent and cheaper alternatives. We do use it as a radar and as a radar it’s been great. We use the radar regularly. It also talks well with our Vesper GPS unit so we can see other boats displayed on the screen even when we don’t have charts for an area. Finally, it powers our NMEA 2000 network so we have it on most of the time when we are underway. We have found that putting it in sleep mode saves some battery power while keeping the network running.
Our plotter is mounted down below at our nav station. We debated mounting it in the cockpit but in the end did not. The decision has turned out to be okay. On passage we rarely use any screens in the cockpit. There’s nothing to see. We’re just a little dot on a screen of blue! If we need a screen in the cockpit, we can use an iPad that wirelessly connects to our Vesper AIS. We do this when coastal sailing but rarely do it when on passage. If we need a closer look at something when on passage, it’s easy to drop below and use the plotter or iPad at the nav station.
I add our routes to the plotter even when we don’t have charts. In the cockpit we have an old Raymarine screen that displays our course and bearing to our next waypoint. It gets the information from the plotter so that’s why I add our route to the plotter. When on passage, the small Raymarine screen is the main screen we use for navigation.
OpenCPN
OpenCPN is my preferred tool for planning our routes. It is open-source software that we run on our laptops. Once I have plotted a route I export it as a .gpx file. From there I can AirDrop the file to our iPads and import them into Navionics. Also, I copy the file onto an SD card and import the file into our chartplotter so we can see the course and our waypoints on the digital display in the cockpit.
OpenCPN has a relatively steep learning curve. I found it quite confusing to use at first. One of the things I found confusing is that you can’t do much with it when you first install it because it doesn’t come with any charts. Installing charts is one of the first things you have to do with it. Unfortunately, it took me a while to understand how to install and manage charts. Because the U.S. charts are free and one of the easier chart sets to install I installed the charts for Washington State and then did some virtual trips around the area.
Bruce Balan of The Chartlocker, has a good video showing how to use OpenCPN. If you are new to the software, his video is a good place to start your climb up the learning curve.
Also, I recommend practicing with the software before you need to rely on it and while you have access to resources like YouTube so you can watch tutorials when you have questions. Give yourself time to learn it before you need it.
As I mentioned above, we use it for charting but we also use it to display our course overlaid on satellite images. This is a game changer in many areas.
We keep our laptop connected to our Vesper AIS wifi network. This allows us to see our GPS position on the OpenCPN software and also other boats that have AIS.
It’s very powerful software. People continue to develop it. It’s now much more than just charting software though that is what we use it for. For me, it’s now my preferred planning software.
Navionics
We run the Navionics app on our iPads. It works well for us. It’s free though we do buy annual chart subscriptions for the areas in which we sail. It is a cost-effective way to get charts and charting software.
We have a RAM mount so we can mount the iPad in the cockpit when we need it. Actually, we have two RAM mounts–one is back by the wheel and the other is tucked up under the cockpit dodger which protects the iPad from the elements in all but the worst weather.
I am familiar with the Navionics user interface and therefore, comfortable planning our routes on it. I prefer OpenCPN but this is a close second. For coastal cruising it’s good. Please note that I do not use the automatic routing feature. I have tried it but even after adjusting the settings for our boat, it routes me through areas that I don’t agree with. I always create routes manually. Sometimes I will start with an automatic route and then adjust as I feel is necessary but usually it’s just as easy to make a route manually.
We keep our iPads connected to the wifi network created by our Vesper AIS unit so we can see AIS targets displayed on the Navionics charts. It also gives us our GPS position. This works well for us.
Hardware and Redundancy
A sailing friend asked me what laptop he should buy for sailing. My answer was to buy what you are most familiar with because you will have to maintain and troubleshoot the laptop yourself.
Sharlene and I are most familiar with Apple products–Macs and iPads. That’s what we have onboard. I prefer Macs and am most familiar with them. I am most skilled at keeping Macs and iPads going should we have a problem. It just makes sense for us to use Apple hardware.2
We have two of everything so if something fails, we can switch to a different device. If my MacBook Pro dies, we can use Sharlene’s MacBook Air. If my iPad dies, we can use Sharlene’s. We can even run Navionics on our phones if necessary.
We get our GPS signal from our Vesper AIS or Garmin chartplotter. We even have a small Garmin GPS receiver. It’s battery powered so should we lose ship’s power, we will still know where we are.
Now you know, how we know, where we are. 🙂 It was a bit complicated to figure out but for day-to-day use, it’s quite simple to use and it’s effective.
Links-Resources
Here are links to the things I wrote about in this post. I have included links but do your own research.
O-Charts instructions for installing S-63 licenses
- Please note that when writing I often use the term chartplotter or plotter to refer to dedicated stand-alone chartplotters or charting software running on laptops or iPads. Some people make a big deal about the importance of having a dedicated chartplotter on a boat. I do not. ↩︎
- The only software we haven’t found to run on our Macs is the software used to make MBTiles–satellite images. We haven’t found this to be a problem. Making MBTiles is time consuming and we haven’t had the need to make our own. We have found all we need on sites like The Chartlocker.) ↩︎
Cormacks On Cambria 
Hi Rob. A good write-up on what has worked for you. I am currently installing PiOS as a test on an old mini PC (Intel NUC), since it has been 5-6 years since I’ve used a Pi. I do like OpenCPN also, and will spend some time getting familiar with the charts we’ll need; so far I’ve mostly used it for BCA “virtual” passage planning, including one from Tonga to NZ a few years ago… 🙂
It’s interesting that you chose to install the Garmin plotter at the nav desk. Are you using Garmin screen mirroring on your tablets so you can view the radar display in the cockpit? Or have you been able to use the OpenCPN radar plugin to view the radar on the laptops?
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Hi Shawn, We do use the Garmin app on our iPads in the cockpit when it’s needed. For what we’re doing these days, we rarely need to. On night watches I will drop below to check the radar at the nav station. We don’t run it all the time in order to save batteries. We find AIS is very useful for seeing freighters and other cruising boats. We use it much more often than the radar. It’s basically always on though we may have screens turned off on the plotter or the iPads to save batteries. Also, limiting light from the electronics is better for our night vision. We haven’t had to sail in fog since getting south of the US. Radar was handy going down the US west coast when it was raining hard or foggy. Also, we found many of the fishing boats didn’t use AIS. They usually had lots of deck lights on so they were easy to spot.
I haven’t been able to get the radar to show up in OpenCPN. Our Vesper AIS unit sends AIS and GPS data wirelessly to the laptops and iPads. I haven’t been able to get the Garmin to share its GPS or radar info on the network. It may be possible. I haven’t played around with it for a while.
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