Albin Owners Group

We are looking to replace our ten year old Northstar 952 GPS, primarily because it shows only meters for depth readings (and, yes, we've been through hoops to change that, and no, it can't be changed unless we buy a used NavChart chip that's more than five years old) on our Albin 31TE. Does anyone use the CAPN software paired with a laptop/GPS on an Albin for navigating? My sister and her husband love it on their '87 Albin 43' trawler, and particularly like having the same software at home for trip planning purposes. My thought is to pair the software with a tablet PC which could be locked in to a mount on the dash and could then be removable to be used for other purposes. Has anyone considered this setup? Any thoughts?

KathyN

Search around. There was a post last year about software.
I have used that software (demo) and wasn't crazy about it. I ended up with TIKI Navigator. It works well for my needs. I plot, transfer to chip, transfer to GPS. I don't use my laptop on the boat. I have a convertible and wouldn't be able to see the screen in daylight. Which brings me to my second point.
If you are going with a tablet PC or laptop, consider paying the extra $$$ for daylight readable screen or extra monitor. A laptop is great for it's intended use. A marine GPS is designed for it's environment. Plus, given the nature of a computer, I'm not into "rebooting" when I'm on the boat. I can see it now. Navigating unfamiliar waters and the laptop locks up.

My 2 cents,

John

I would not use a conventional laptop as my go-to navigation device. You didn't say which boat you will be using it on, but some of the things that lead a laptop to an early grave are vibration, impact, and salt air. The degree to which your boat exposes the laptop to all three and the amount of time you boat will greatly diminish the reliable life span of a laptop that is not made for these conditions. You should expect an "off the shelf" laptop to last 1-2 years MAX in this kind of use. A panasonic "ruggedized" model a bit longer. Marine grade laptops are EXTREMELY expensive.

Remember that a computer hard drive is a magnetized plate that spins at 7200 RPMs and is read by a tiny head that floats on a cushion of air created by the moving disc a few microns above the surface. One good slam down the front of a wave and the hard drive will "literally" crash, rendering your primary navigation instrument useless and loosing all software, family pictures, email etc that will collect on this laptop no matter what you do. A ruggedized , moisture tolerant laptop with all Flash memory instead of a conventional hard drive would be the tool to use but they are hideously expensive and still hard to find.

Of course this depends a lot on your boating style. If you are on a 42' trawler in a pilot house, and you never go out in anything worse than 5-10 knt winds and 1-2' seas you may be alright. If you are on a 28TE and out fishing in all kinds of weather, your plan would be foolish at best, dangerous at worst. You are much better off to use a cheap as you can find GPS Chartplotter with a compatible software product and inexpensive laptop that you keep below and use only for planning and plotting, with an easy way to transfer wayponts & routes back and forth to the mounted GPS.

Very good points Rick. I agree. My Lowrance GPS has a 20 gig HD but I keep all the charts on the chip. My boat vibrates. I don't want to loose everything because the hard drive fails. The hard drive is a backup of what is on the chip. Also has 1 million points of interest. Just what I need on the Chesapeake.

I have Navionics chips for the lower Chesapeake Bay, North Carolina and the Atlantic canyons. I am interested in selling them if they would help you. They were used in my 1003 Furuno VX1but I changed it's software to use CMAP.

Thanks, everyone, for your input on this, and you've all made some good points! My sister and brother-in-law indeed do have a 43' Albin trawler and are happy with their computer/CAPN/dual monitor setup. We have a 31' TE which will be used mostly for cruising the Chesapeake Bay (and hopefully, eventually, farther). So we might indeed sometimes meet up with weather we might not choose to be out in. Food for thought.........back to the drawing board.

Russ, we will likely be replacing our Northstar GPS/chartplotter relatively soon, unless we fail to make up our minds; which Navionics chips do you have? Ours uses only the original Navionics Classic chip. If we don't end up switching out our old one right away, we could probably use the Lower Chesapeake.

KathyN

The ones I have are the Navionics classic chips. Lower Chesapeake US320T32, North Carolina US645XL, and MidAtlantic CanyonsNC?US823L. I was thinking about $50 each or $100 for all 3. You can probably find the Upper Chesapeake on eBAy.

This time of year brings out the grump in me and makes me think...

What's wrong with meters? If your in 1 meter of water...back up!

Good one, John! And actually, we've gotten used to reading the meters.........if we DO change out our system, we'll likely run aground because of expecting the feet readings to be meters (I.E., 2 being ONLY TWO FEET instead of six feet!!

Russ, let me get back to you on that.......Classic charts.....h-m-m-m.......could save us a bundle, if we decide not to upgrade.

KathyN