SatFish

whyulittle

I'm looking into something for a friend of mine.

He's looking to get a SatNav, and was wondering would it work while out fishing! He would be going about 10 miles off shore, mainly off the Wexford coast.

I'm not exactly sure what he'll want it to do. I presume just to show his location in relation to the coast. Do maps extend out to sea, or are there any special ones for off shore that can be bought and loaded onto a normal SatNav?

Thanks alot.

Krusty_Clown

Garmin have an entire range of 'On the Water' maps:
http://www8.garmin.com/cartography/ontheWater/
But they wouldn't be cheap.

If he's only going to be 10 miles off-shore, and wants to know where his is relative to the shore, than standard maps would do the job fine. Just don't expect any sea-based routes/landmarks etc.

Garmin's WorldMap product also includes 'Coastline detail which includes many offshore islands, as well as worldwide nautical navaids such as daybeacons, radiobeacons, RACONs, fog signals, lights, buoys, and other navaids'. Whch might be useful. This map product works on any Garmin GPS receiver (It's an unlocked product), but wouldn't be very up to date.

dak

whyulittle wrote: »

I'm looking into something for a friend of mine.

He's looking to get a SatNav, and was wondering would it work while out fishing! He would be going about 10 miles off shore, mainly off the Wexford coast.

I'm not exactly sure what he'll want it to do. I presume just to show his location in relation to the coast. Do maps extend out to sea, or are there any special ones for off shore that can be bought and loaded onto a normal SatNav?

Thanks alot.

Most of the normal car ones are not waterproof so they would not be much good at sea! I think most sailors/fishrmen who are going to be that far off the shoreline will seek and buy the right equipment from marine suppliers . Maybe try someone like www.marineparts.ie for advise Otherwise expect your friend to be calling the coastguard someday !

whyulittle

Cool, thanks lads.

dowtchaboy

Hi whyulittle - I've used marine GPS so here's some info.
The prices will stun you, particularly for the on-board ones with mapping and interconnection with all the other boystoys yachties use. You can get handhelds - most more like the early GPS units giving Lat and Longitude rather than a map - you use these coordinates to plot position on paper marine charts. You can also get handhelds with maps - well i should say charts to be more nautically correct - these will show nautical points of interest like navigation buoys and lights and shore navigation features like lighthouses and leading lights. They will handle Man Overboard which gets you back (you hope) to where you pressed the MOB button when Klumsy fell over the safety rail etc. They will NOT show roads, towns etc.

Prices vary a lot - ships chandlers charge through the nose - much better value available on the net though watch out that you get the chart areas you expect. Garmin, Magellan et al make a lot of money selling charts and chart updates to yachties who are scared of scraping their bottoms on some nasty bit of rock....

The one I had was a Garmin GPS76 - waterproof AND floats. There's a version with chart built-in GPSMAP76.
They turn up on ebay now and then at very good prices from private sellers.
Mind you one yachtie I know uses the most basic and cheap eTrex unit he could find - tells him his lat and long, his speed and direction - that's all he needs to know.

My info is a couple of years old - maybe there are now units with SIRF chips inside and maybe combined marine chart and land maps inside - dunno.

Hope this helps. db

Krusty_Clown

dowtchaboy wrote: »

The one I had was a Garmin GPS76 - waterproof AND floats.

Ha! Floating! Would've never thought of that! Could almost be like your blackbox (or floatation device :eek:).

dowtchaboy

Indeed - but I often wondered if floating was really any great use - if you drop it overboard while moving, especially if sailing, what are the chances you are going to be able to make your way back to fish it out - or even find it - since your GPS that you rely on to tell you where you are is now floating away.... umm... IT knows where it is..... but you don't

By the way - here's one for your next trivia session - what colour is the black box referred to in airplane disasters?

Tis red or orange so it's easily found - why it's called a black box is a unclear. (there's a few theories) . db