Cheap plotter...

For Christmas I bought myself a Netbook - mainly so I could use it for reading ebooks, browse my email, blogging and stuff, without having to go and start up my PC which is in a separate part of the house..... all in all it's been a huge success, as in addition to the aforementioned (which it does well) it also means I'm not leaving the current Mrs Papillon sitting on her own for hours at a time.... never a good idea...

In the back of my mind though, there was always the thought that I might also be able to use it as a budget level plotter, so the Netbook I chose was largely determined by the battery; specifically how long it could last between charges - I ended up buying a Hewlett Packard 210 (left - yeah...  looks like a Netbook doesn't it...) as theoretically it has a battery life of 8 hours...

For £10 I doubled the memory - not sure this was necessary for the plotter but useful for all the other stuff I'm doing with it and at £10 it seemed foolish not to...  so it now has 1Gb RAM.

For the plotter software, based on feedback on the Practical Boat Owner forum I decided to go for OpenCPN - it's free and open source, and is constantly being developed, but the version I'm using is v2.5.0... one simple download and install later and OpenCPN was running without any issues...  I also plan to check out SeaClear later, which is also free.

Both applications require you to source charts - for SeaClear you can buy them..  among other places from VisitMyHarbour who do the whole of the UK on a DVD disk for about £30. The only downside of the arrangement is that you need to have the DVD in every time you start the plotter as it has an encryption key - I'd rather not....

Charts for OpenCPN are more difficult as there are currently no UK charts available to buy in the correct format - you have to search the web for a suitable download (Google "CM93") the set I found are oldish - 1993 but as a backup to my proper paper charts they'll do...  according to the chap from VisitMyHarbour, they will be producing a set of OpenCPN compatible charts later this summer which would definitely be on my "buy list"..

So - with charts sourced and downloaded, all you need do is point OpenCPN at the relevant folder and it should start up with the relevant chart loaded and your position indicated at lat 0 long 0 (the default)...

Next step plug your GPS in to the Netbook, and tell OpenCPN about it - for this experiment I'm using my main boat plotter which is the eminently brilliant Garmin GPS72 (right) - I think that at some point in time if I decide to carry on with the experiment and actually take the Netbook afloat I'll buy a separate GPS for resilience - you can buy a simple waterproof, GPS with a USB connection for about £30 from the likes of Amazon or Maplins...

Once the GPS is plugged in, on the Garmin at least you need to change the "conversation type" from native Garmin (which is the default), to NMEA type...  if you use the GPS72 you'll note it has a lower speed for NMEA than Garmin as well...  reflect this speed in OpenCPN, tell it what port the GPS is using, and if you also start the NMEA conversation window all of a sudden you see screeds (and screeds) or text flowing from the GPS to OpenCPN - and you appear as a red ship icon on the Netbook screen on the relevant chart ...

See following.... which shows me as being moored inland as that was where I happened to be with the GPS at the time...  you can also see the NMEA conversation window (labelled COM2) and also a sample of the vector charts that OpenCPN uses

Now with that done, and the Yachtmaster course finished, and only 30 days or so to go to launch day it's time to start finishing off some of those jobs...