This bulletin board, hosted by the CDSOA, Inc., is the on-line meeting place for all Cape Dory owners and groups. We welcome everyone's questions, answers and comments about Cape Dory sailboat
The quest to find a location for the chart plotter resulted in this.
Stainless guard with a clip in holder for the plotter. This is Rev A. The sides are now wide enough to hold binoculars on one side and any number of things on the other. The fiddles are about 4" high and made of walnut.
The fold down table was rescued from the dumpster at the marina. I made up new ash edges and it also has walnut fiddles. The fiddles are easily removed with screws from the bottom so I can more easily keep up the varnish.
All of the walnut came from a tree on the farm which my grandfather first owned and where I grew up as a child. I like the connection as well as the wood, Steve.
I bought a used 1" pedestal guard at the consignment shop and some fitting from defender. Lots of people are replacing these guards with larger ones to accommodate plotter pods so used ones are easy to find. The lower horizontal legs attach to the original pedestal guard with tees. I had a guy weld the top loop into the elbows. He also welded the horizontal pieces to the assembly. The top piece has a captive nut welded into it so it can be bolted through the existing guard. This makes it possible to remove the whole thing by taking out the top bolt and sliding it off the original guard.
The wooden part clips onto the stainless pipe with those nylon clips. This allows me to stow the whole thing down below or take it home for refinishing. I am very happy with this set up as it keeps things low with very good protection and hand holds.
I do have to look past the stainless pipes to see the plotter but it doesn't seem to interfere as much as I feared it might, Steve.
Steve, your setup is really beautiful. And functional. One of my fears of adding too much to the pedestal guard was that it would block handholds.
Are you worried about having the GPS so close to the compass? I noticed that Garmin devices have recommended separation of at least 26in. Perhaps you have moved the compass from the binnacle...
I installed a huge chart plotter on a customer’s boat and the customer did not know how to dim the plotter when sailing at night and simply covered it. I will never understand why people need to have the plotter staring at them all the time. If you know your home waters, you should be able to navigate with only the compass and a glance at the depth. When I am blue water sailing, even at night, I go below and check the radar every ½ hour
I like to have the plotter right in front of me while I am at the helm when sailing close to shore.
It allows me to zoom in to a level of detail that is hard to read on charts. This lets me poke into places that I would not venture with chart and compass alone. With the vessel position shown on the plotter in a heads up configuration it is very easy to originate myself. When you are using a chart and trying to pass between underwater obstructions it is hard to tell exactly where you are and how far you need to stay away from things. The plotter also gives the true course over the ground. This would be very hard to determine in close quarters where currents can vary greatly.
This may sound risky but has proven to be very reliable. I only ever had one incident where we bumped a rock that showed 7' on the chart and plotter. It was a very slight bump in mild conditions or I would not have been there. I always have a chart of the area as a fall back and to get a better idea of the overall picture.
I have never noticed a problem with the compass when the plotter is in place. Most of the time I punch in a go to way point and get a heading from the plotter and then steer it with the compass. This automatically factors in set and drift. I can also use it to get the distance to any point and it gives me a true speed over the ground. This makes it easy to figure arrival times. It also allows me to tweak sail trim and get a very accurate and instant readout as to weather it has improved speed.
I like the fact that I can superimpose the radar over the chart. Radar is hard for anyone to read for anything other than very basic functions. Having the image over the chart helps to define what I am seeing.
While sailing far from shore the plotter becomes far less useful. The little Map 76 stays on down below where I can easily take lat, long and speed to record my position onto a paper plotting chart.
When I asked the Raymarine rep about learning the different functions of the plotter he told me the best way was just to play with the thing. He also gave me a DVD which wasn't as much fun as pushing different buttons to figure out what they do. I figured out the dimming feature very early on so I don't need to cover the it up at night.
I may be a traditionalist in many ways but I have whole heartily embraced the chart plotter. I started with a Map 76 but found it to be lacking in features and the read out was too small to read charts with much accuracy. This was especially true at night when my eyes were tired. I could not imagine having the plotter mounted in a place where I could not access it while at the helm, Steve.
