Read this article first : Technical point
Plotter, be careful with plotters. When you start using it, you can’t go back. You don’t know how it was possible to sail without it. During my work for big vessels, I installed and serviced many different plotters. Most of them ECDIS plotters (professional certified plotters) like Transas, Sperry marine, Sodena… and Maxsea (not ECDIS) 10,12 then TimeZero. Thankfully we don’t need to go to professional certified plotters to get something good for our pleasure boat. In my boat, I have a plotter based on a normal windows 7 low consumption computer with two different software. The free software Open CPN and the commercial TimeZero from Maxsea.
I have to say here that Maxsea gave me TimeZero. We have worked together for 10 years… But they never asked me to write an article on my blog.
Open CPN is doing a great job. It does the minimum task, what’s needed, no more. The software is free, open source. Really small amount of bug. You can improve the software by installing Plugins. Then it theoretically becomes almost complete. Some Plugins are peace of cake, some other are real pain to make them working.
But the problem are the charts… There is a pirate world wide version, but it’s not up to date or you can buy charts from o-charts, but I don’t know how, I have never done it. What so ever, these charts are the charts used by the cargo ships, so they are good and accurate but they are not so detailed in little bays or little harbors. So not perfect for us.
So OpenCPN is great, you can definitely do the turn around the world with it. But you need to know a bit about computer to make it working.
TimeZero is better. Probably normal, OpenCPN is free, TimeZero not. When sailing, I am only using TimeZero.
I am really impressed by the reliability of TimeZero V3. Not a single bug since July 2016 !!! and the computer is turned on 24/7, sometimes for many months in a row. (Because of the anchor alarm.) Not a single bug. Easy to install, easy to setup, and there is a reactive hotline.
The other good news, TimeZero is perfectly fluid and really comfortable to use in a low consumption computer. The processor is a celeron N3150, NO dedicated graphic card. Power 6w! It’s closer to a smartphone than a real desktop computer… it works perfectly.
With TimeZero, there are plenty of chart suppliers, Jeppersen, Navionics and others. These charts are made for pleasure boats.
There are a lot of functions in Time Zero. Everything inside open CPN, Time zero does it too, usually in a better or easier faster way. There is just one thing that open CPN does better, it’s the anchor alarm. But TimeZero does a lot more. So much that I have no use for all the functions in TimeZero.
What I really prefer and miss in OpenCPN are all the functions that TimeZero provides to organize and classify, filter the data, routes, tracks, waypoints….. Even without the layer module, it’s great. With the layer module for professional user or heavy sport fishing, it’s super.
Weather forecast and weather routing is really much better and faster in TimeZero. There is just missing the module to create the polar of the boat and it will be perfect. But most people have a series boat so they will find the polar in the library. Not my case with my prototype Kata Lind.
Because I have the VDR module, I am using it. It’s sometimes nice to replay with every data recorded to find out why or if we were sailing right, make the polar, tune the wind sensor…. but it’s not a free module and I don’t know the cost.
I have also the PBG module. And that’s really nice and unavailable in openCPN.
In a bay with a chart not so accurate, (most of bays) I make my own accurate chart. The PBG module plot the bottom with the help of the sounder and the GPS. It allows me to moor safely into place where other people are afraid to go and then find a spot for my big boat in a busy bay.(July, August) My next improvement will be to install a sounder-gps on the dinghy, send the information to TimeZero and plot the bay without any risk for the big boat. That will just be awesome and fantastic.
The PBG module is actually not designed for that and its too expensive for that, but maybe Maxsea could make a little PBG much cheaper for that. Because we don’t need to cover thousands of scare km for this purpose….
I could say more about TimeZero but these are the main qualities, reliability, easy to use, a lot of functions, good charts. But you have to pay.
To finish this post about plotters, I have to say that I see more and more people with the Navionics app in a tablet and smartphone. The price is really good and they all are happy about it. I don’t have it personally so I can’t say much about it, but for sure as a backup system, totally disconnected from anything of the boat, it gets my attention and it’s probably an interesting solution.
TimeZero has also an app, but I can’t talk about it because I don’t have it, I have never installed it (it was not existing when I was working with them) and I don’t know anybody with it.