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Dick,
We are agreed and you are correct I was being a little tongue in cheek. The more serious point is though that the ‘automatic’ routing function on the Navionics App is very good and worth exploring.
Simon
[quote=Dick]Hi Simon,
I am afraid your nervousness about my response, although I know done in jest, masks a mis-portayal of my concerns: the safety aspects of the use of routing software by those who do not have the knowledge and training background that are essential to their safe use. Daria wisely mentioned that there were product limitations (being addressed by the designers). I am flagging some of what I see as “skipper pre-requisites” for the safe use of this product. Used by skippers with the requisite background I have absolutely no trouble with.
I know you to have the requisite background knowledge and experience to use these products wisely. My focus is not with the product itself, but in the safety aspects of its use (and its advertising). Using these products without experience and training in the tasks that this product finesses is, to my mind, a safety issue for the skipper, his/her crew and any rescue personnel who might be sent out to help them. It is the safety aspect that concerns me.
Please do not get me wrong. I was not challenging that you used “such a tool for planning purposes and found it really good for the reasons Daria states”. I am sure that it produced what it advertised. I am in no way a Luddite and I like very much many of the technological advances that have accrued over the last few decades. I think they have made all wandering by boat much safer. I would be very unhappy to return to life before chart plotters, EPIRBS, AIS, GPS and the like.
In essence, I see wandering afar by sailboat as one area where one jumps the learning curve at their peril. And too many marine products, to my mind, are advertised, implicitly or explicitly, as ways to jump the learning curve. Statistically, they are likely to do fine. Most skippers, nowadays, feel that GPS is so dependable that one can go to sea without celestial knowledge/training or a sextant (and I hesitantly agree, although for 2 decades, I have carried a sextant: never used for anything beyond recreation). I do not believe we have yet to achieve that degree of reliability with chart plotting, routing software, MOB equipment and the like. They all need training in the background skills that they aid in executing.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy[/quote]
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