Chartplotter 101

[Figment]

My father has reasoned that it's time for him to buy a chartplotter, and he's looking to me for guidance. These are my preliminary thoughts:

Color display. Something fun for my mother to play with underway.
7" minimum display size. Their eyesight isn't improving with age.
The fewer buttons to push the better. Ten buttons maximum.
No need to interface with radar or depthsounder.

That's all I have. I've never wanted one for my boat so I've never payed much attention to the different attributes of the different brands or models.

Does anyone know of a decent consumer-education resource on these things? or, have a specific line they'd reccommend?

We played with a Si-Tex unit at the Defender sale today. It seemed user-friendly enough.

[JonnyBoats]

One thing to consider is that the essence of a chartplotter is the charts, and different units use different formats, some of which are proprietary (read as such things as updates may be pricey).

The federal government gives away for free all the charts in digital format. Take a look at http://www.nga.mil/portal/site/dnc/

One question you might want to ask is if the unit you are considering can use these free charts and updates. Incidently this format is used by both Coast Guard and Navy ships.

[Commanderpete]

The current (April 15) issue of Practical Sailor has a review of 10 -12 inch chartplotters. I didn't read the article (being cheap and all).

Let's see...top pick was Raymarine C120, followed by Furano GP1900C

I could send you the issue.

[Figment]

hmmmm..... I must've skipped over that article. Probably for the same reason you did!

It's gotta be around here somewhere. Thanks for the reminder.