Navigation Plan

We will rely primarily on the GPS, backup GPS, and the second backup GPS.

We will back up the GPS with a log entry every other hour with a log entry with position, course, heading, and speed so we can go to dead reconing if we need to.

Hand Held GPS

I would like to have a hand held, battery powered gps onboard for the
offshore trip. Anybody have one to lend?

Madness has a GPS chartplotter integrated, and a backup of the same
type. The backkup can be integrated with the autopilot in minutes.

We will also have charts and a log for DR.

Gulf Stream charts

From the ssca.org site:

Thanks for the response! I checked out the navy site and found a pretty good chart at:

http://weather.navy.mil/home1.html

From there I found Regional Support on the right panel; then clicked on North Atlantic; then under Oceanographic Products I found;

# East Coast Currents and Speeds at Surface (north):
https://www.navo.navy.mil/cgi-bin/graphic.pl/metoc/223/145/0-0-17/32

# East Coast Currents and Speeds at Surface (mid):
https://www.navo.navy.mil/cgi-bin/graphic.pl/metoc/223/145/0-0-17/24

# East Coast Currents and Speeds at Surface (south):
https://www.navo.navy.mil/cgi-bin/graphic.pl/metoc/223/145/0-0-17/16

I think that will do for plotting a few waypoints. Hopefully, Southbound II will still be on the air for weather routing and with luck we'll have a safe and fast passage.

After 30+ years in the USN you'd think I'd know to look at their sites .

Thanks again,
Pete
s/y "Brilliant

Navigation Requirements Statement

Current situation:

I need a new GPS and electronic charts - used to having cmap nt charts and standard horizon chartplotter.

cmap nt charts for all of east coast and caribbean and canada $225 (does this include bermuda?)http://www.landfallnavigation.com/cmapntplus.html

Likely replacement: Standard Horizon cp 180 (~$400). Not the best, but good. Biggest complaint is the inability to dim to low enough levels.

Alternative, smaller Garmin unit 540?

I would like to have PC charting ability also, both for planning and for below deck large screen inspection of charts. Used to navigator from Maptech.com. I have free version now. 3 versions available from $180 - $600. Has the ability to push routes into the standard horizon (and I assume, Garmin) chartplotters, but cannot read their charts.

Maptech uses NOAA charts (free) but they do not include Caribbean, nor Bermuda, can we get compatible format maps for these locations?

There is a PC Planner for cmap nt http://www.landfallnav.com/ecmnt.html for similar money to maptech software, good for Standard Horizon only, not Garmin. Garmin does not have similar product according to http://www.panbo.com/archives/2007/03/ideal_marine_electronics_mac_mini_version.html

Also: should we get AIS box to be able to tell when there are ships in vicinity? ~$180. http://www.milltechmarine.com/products.htm Does this require a new antenna? other purchases? is the power consumption an issue (>1 amp would be an issue)