UK Hydrographic Office Paper chart withdrawal

GPS signals and charts are two separate systems so your conclusion doesn’t follow.

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Precisely my point. GPS signals can be hacked. Paper charts cannot.

That doesn’t make any sense. We’re not discussing GNSS systems, were discussing charts. GPS hacking has nothing to do with the topic.

So, when our GPS goes out and the ECDIS goes into DR mode, how does that work then?

It works the same way it would if the GPS goes out and you go into DR mode on your paper chart. There isn’t anything special you can do on a paper chart without GPS that you can’t do on ECDIS.

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How did we manage before the advent of GPS with only paper charts?
I still remember navigating without GPS and one, non-stabilsed radar that was only allowed to be used at night time.
As Darth Vader so very nearly said - ‘Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed. The ability to build a GPS system is insignificant next to the power of the Sextant.’

8 posts were split to a new topic: Minimalist Navigation

Nobody hacked a sunstone either, but you could probably drop it over the side accidentally.

An interesting question is , when will the lowly magnetic compass disappear from ships altogether? At one time it was the absolutely indispensable navigational tool. So much so that no proper navigational bridge on a big ship would have recourse to less than four, and that doesn’t include the one in the steering room and the one over the captain’s bunk.

Now redundant displays of satellite and gps compasses have made the magnetic compass quaint. Maybe to some minds dangerous, because it requires human interpretation to use correctly. And because its accuracy is presumed to be so dodgy it has to be corrected at regular intervals.

How long will it remain?

Same thing with the Marcq Saint-Hilaire method.

I’m pretty sure then, just as now, people that actually did high stakes navigation quickly adopted best practices.

This discussion brings up interesting questions about the way we test mariners. There’s clearly people that just weren’t aware of how to apply normal nav techniques on an electronic chart that hold licenses. The testing process should change.

Different problem.

Aside from my air gapped laptop I won’t sail without my handheld compass.

I don’t think you’ll see magnetic compasses disappear until reliable inertial nav is a reality, and there’s little market pressure helping inertia forward for maritime uses.

I have carried one since my days of doing boat and ships delivery (1973-74) and all the years of rig moving after that. It is still with me. (Not much in use these days):

Many of the boats did not have much in way of navigation equipment, incl. reliable compass.

When I sat for my ticket we had to correct a magnetic compass mounted on a deviscope. A boat shaped plank with the compass mounted on it that the examiner had introduced errors into. The examiner sat there while you fumbled small magnets around as you tried to produce a deviation table with no value grater than 3 degrees + or -.
Swinging a compass now is easy with a hand held GPS where you can see it giving constant true bearings of a prominent object as you swing the ship .

You do manual plots. :man_shrugging:

I don’t think anyone’s mentioned a MAJOR drawback of current ECDIS - their size. Having a chart spread out over a table is so much more user friendly than a tiny standardized screen. Much more information is available instantly (without needing to go into a menu)

We could make electronic chart screens larger, but seems manufacturers are stuck in the restrictions IMO has for them. Non ECDIS chart plotters have become better than ECDIS in other ways because of their freedom to innovate.

I’d be comfortable with ecdis if we could get full size screens

I agree that a larger screen would be better. I’m only familiar with Transas but when properly set up there’s very little need to go into the menus, less so than than with using ARPA in traffic.

My experience is learning the significant feature of an unfamiliar port is far quicker with the ECDIS then with a paper chart. Dealing with traffic in restricted waters is easier as well. Not on own ship’s position shown in relationship to the boundaries of traffic lanes and anchorages but other ships as well.

I got accustomed to an ECDIS then did a relief trip on another ship without. It was an adjustment to having lower situational awareness.

It’s like traveling now without a mobile phone. You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.

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No direct relation but…:

Absolutely fine but I have never heard of a paper chart being hacked or succumbing to a solar flare or EMP.

I can pour a whole pot of Coffee on the ECDIS and still have another ECDIS, Pour a full pot of coffee on the paper chart, and we’re lost.

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They dry out, trust me.

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A lot of offshore vessels don’t have a magnetic compass.

Some flags/class don’t require a magnetic compass if the ship has 3 or more gyros.