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cmdkeen | 6 years ago

It's a really satisfying thing to work with paper charts, rolling rulers and dividers. These days for proper navigational planning it is all ECDIS (or WECDIS for really fun stuff) and electronic.

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bdjewkes|6 years ago

> These days for proper navigational planning it is all ECDIS (or WECDIS for really fun stuff) and electronic.

Its not strictly true that 'proper' navigational planning happens entirely on ECDIS, especially on smaller vessels. My preference while working on offshore tugs was to work out the rough voyage on paper first, before transferring them to ECDIS; the 2nd mates I worked with in training had a similar preference.

That said, paperless navigation is becoming more and more common (and saves a ton of time on chart corrections), and in that case you don't have a choice.

codeduck|6 years ago

I loved learning navigation. You peel away a layer and a new, more complicated set of skills presents itself.

topbanana|6 years ago

It's good fun. Plotting tidal vectors to calculate course to steer is very satisfying, especially when you end up in roughly the right place!