Furuno FMD 3300 ECDIS using NOAA ENC S-57 charts. Anyone know how to change the depth soundings from meters to feet? 3 of us have been looking everywhere in the program for two days. Nothing in the operators manual. Maybe an installation setting? Installer took the installation manual because Furuno won’t let them leave it on board.
Probably looking to change heights to feet as well, but one step at a time…
This is probably a silly question but… Have you tried googling it? Its worth a shot and the manual might be online.
http://www.furuno.com/en/support/
Under the heading for the type of vessel you’re on, click “contact us” and try asking them.
Where’s a good place to get a Furuno ECFIS type-specific familiarity training certificate? I have ECDIS on my license but if there is a Furuno-specific training program anywhere I would like to try and do it.
I’m not familiar with the specific unit you’re using, but I’ve seen some where you have to close out the nav program (or alt tab out) and then start up a separate config program that is paired with the main nav program. Kinda backwards but sometimes important settings are hidden like that.
[QUOTE=highseasharry;160282]Furuno FMD 3300 ECDIS using NOAA ENC S-57 charts. Anyone know how to change the depth soundings from meters to feet? 3 of us have been looking everywhere in the program for two days. Nothing in the operators manual. Maybe an installation setting? Installer took the installation manual because Furuno won’t let them leave it on board.
Probably looking to change heights to feet as well, but one step at a time…[/QUOTE]
Got the answer to my own question. Furuno ECDIS (model FMD-3300, anyway) displays chart depths as meters only. You can’t change it to feet or fathoms. Furuno says “they’re working on it”.
Beier Radio’s Marine Training Institute in Gray, LA teaches it on Furuno I think.
Welcome to the metric world.
It is not possible for any ECDIS model to change soundings on an ENC from metres to feet because the data in the ENC is protected. If you examine the ENC Cell title and find that it is produced by NOAA then there should be an M in it indicating it is metric. All ENCs are metric as they are internationally standardised.
Here is a good reference:
http://msi.nga.mil/MSISiteContent/StaticFiles/NAV_PUBS/APN/Chapt-14.pdf
If you have two ECDIS on board you could use one of them in RCDS mode to display depth and overhead clearance in feet but the ECDIS using ENCs would still need to be your primary means of navigation unless you carried an adequate folio of up to date paper charts for your voyage on board.
It’s a IHO ruling, you live in a metric world. Sooner or later will undoubtedly also shipping go metric.