Cruising World – May 2018

BOATS & GEAR

may 2018

cruisingworld.com

78

A

lthough I grew up

in a sailing-obsessed

household with a

physicist father who was an

early and enthusiastic convert

to electronic navigation, my

first time experiencing a truly

state-of-the-art navigation sys-

tem was in 2007, when I was

invited aboard Puma Ocean

Racing’s Volvo Open 70 Avanti

to document the team’s off-

shore training ahead of the

2008-2009 Volvo Ocean Race.

The great Mark Rudiger

was navigating, first threading

us under New York City’s

Verrazano-Narrows Bridge and

then into the open Atlantic be-

fore our bow unexpectedly and

dangerously began delaminat-

ing, necessitating a retreat back

to the Big Apple, up the East

River to Long Island Sound

and, eventually, to Newport,

Rhode Island. Rudiger master-

fully leveraged the boat’s elec-

tronics, which included tablets,

laser range finders, weather-

routing software, state-of-the-

art radar, a satellite-communi-

cations system and a bevy of

belowdecks computers and in-

strumentation to facilitate this

improbable passage.

As gobsmacked as I was by

Avanti’s navigation systems

and electronics, I’m equally

astonished that now, a decade

later, even higher levels of

navigational precision, sit-

uational awareness and

electronic sophistication are

available to sailors at prices

that won’t crush the cruis-

ing kitty. Here’s a look at

some of the latest features

in navigation and marine

electronics, broken down by

equipment category.

AIS

When automatic identification

system technology was first

introduced to recreational

mariners in 2008, its prima-

ry purpose was helping to

avoid boat-to-boat collisions

while enabling captains to di-

rectly hail another ship via its

nine-digit Maritime Mobile

Service Identity (MMSI)

number, which is specific to

a particular vessel. There are

two kinds of AIS: Class A is

typically required on com-

mercial boats and ships over

65 feet, and Class B is intend-

ed for smaller recreational

vessels. (Additionally, there are

two kinds of Class B systems:

the 5-watt Class B-SO and the

2-watt Class B-CS. For compar-

ison, Class A units broadcast at

12.5 watts.) Given the system’s

widespread adoption, the U.S.

Coast Guard now uses AIS to

mark virtual and synthetic aids

to navigation on electronic

charts, and — thanks to AIS’s

ability to deliver updateable

HERE and NOW

As navigation and safety technology continues to evolve, users reap the benefits of ever more

sophisticated features.

BY DAVID SCHMIDT

messages to a vessel’s chart

plotter — to share localized

and germane application-

specific messages, which can

include updated Broadcast

Notices to Mariners or infor-

mation about shipping-lane

adjustments, for example, to

protect whale pods. More-

over, there are two types of

AIS devices available to sail-

ors: “listen-only” receivers and

transponders, which transmit

your vessel’s navigation infor-

mation and collect AIS data

from nearby marine traffic.

Cartography

Electronic cartography has

evolved significantly since

Navionics’ founder, Giuseppe

Carnevali, unveiled the recre-

ational-marine market’s first

electronic chart display, the

Geonav, in 1984, but the basic

premise remains unchanged.

A chart plotter, computer or

mobile device displays a raster

or vector chart on its screen

and uses a networked (or in-

ternal) GPS to drop a pin on

the vessel’s location. What

have changed, however, are

the kinds of information that

charts contain and the de-

tails that are overlaid atop

bathymetric data.

Electronic charts fall into

two categories. Raster charts

are essentially scanned paper

charts. Vector cartography is

computer-built and can in-

clude both official and us-

er-generated bathymetry

information and points of

interest, and they can be over-

laid with AIS, radar, weath-

er and other types of in-

formation. Some modern

cartography can also perform

auto-routing calculations to

determine your safest routing

to port B, and chart updates

are easier to tackle thanks to

Wi-Fi and cellular connec-

tions. Finally, cartography

companies have created accu-

rate and easy-to-use mobile

device-based navigation apps,

giving coastal cruisers serious

redundancy.

Chart Plotters

Carnevali’s Geonav chart plot-

ter, as mentioned earlier, came PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MANUFACTURER