NavList:

On my ship it's 2 independent computers tied to the same monitor/keyboard/mouse with an APC on the emergency buss.  There are spares for everything except the actual computers.  Computer is connected to the captain's computer via a peer network.  Updates are downloaded by the captain from the internet and placed in a folder where it is retrieved by the navigator and the pubs are updated that way.

 

For our "quasi" ECDIS (called ICE), we get CD's in the mail periodically and the captains (both of them) refuse to allow the computer to be updated for fear of corrupting the program.  For us, electronic displays are secondary systems and the charts are for reference only.

 

Jeremy

 

I would be very interested in the computer setup required to give a safe and reliable electronic chart and navigation system. I don't use the words computers and reliable in the same sentence especially when a network is involved

I imagine several independent stand alone computers each with their own uninterpretable power supply. They could be networked to a server for updates and information sharing, but have the files synced for when the network goes down, as it will. Multiple servers in a failover system can be quite relaible, but to get a system to be reliable enough for a warship must be quite a system.

I was on the bridge of a Canadian Coast Guard Vessel when they were first getting into electronic charts and they basically had 2 stand alone computers linked to the GPS and Radar, but all work was still done on paper charts.

For pleasure boaters doing offshore work I understand that 3 GPS with plotters is sort of a standard redundancy, but I would guess that paper charts are still carried, as well as a spare compass, spare watch and sextant. Redundant electricity is another problem as well.

For emergency navigation purposes, you don't need many charts. I imagine that chart from The Raft Book would even do in a pinch.

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