The boat was leaking. I guess that shouldn\u2019t have come as a surprise, she was half full of water when we arrived at the dock. But a few hours later, even with our hastily-installed automatic bilge pump chugging along and one of us on the hand-pump we were only breaking even. And it didn\u2019t help when the white-capped seas being blown down from the northwest would hammer into the old catboat\u2019s starboard bow and send buckets of water back on everything. <\/p>\n
We were planning to deliver the little boat some 20 miles to windward, but the wave action was hard on the hull and her rotten timbers, and we had some concern she might really open up in these conditions. It was time to consider a nearer destination or bail out point in case things went south. <\/p>\n
I went to my PFD for my handheld GPS only to discover I\u2019d left it at home. Fortunately I remembered my iPhone, pulled it out and opened the Navionics app. Within seconds I had our location, speed, and detailed chart I could zoom instantly in and out with my fingers. As I was picking our new route I was able to see the real-time weather forecast and tidal currents\u2014and since it was a phone, I was able to call ahead to ask the marina a question. <\/p>\n
I\u2019d played around with Navionics on my phone before, but had always viewed it as a secondary or tertiary navigation method after GPS and paper charts. But using my smart phone (in its waterproof case) this time convinced me it had made my handheld GPS more or less obsolete. <\/p>\n
In a coming issue we\u2019ll take a closer look at the smart phone vs. handheld GPS question and the pros and cons, and I\u2019ll include comments and strategies from some experienced small-boat cruisers. We\u2019d love to hear from you on the topic. Do you still carry a handheld GPS? Is your smart phone part of your typical navigation strategy? Is the handheld GPS obsolete or on its way to being obsolete?<\/p>\n
\u2014Joshua Colvin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The boat was leaking. I guess that shouldn\u2019t have come as a surprise, she was half full of water when we arrived at the dock. But a few hours later, even with our hastily-installed automatic bilge pump chugging along and one of us on the hand-pump we were only breaking even. And it didn\u2019t help…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4778"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4782,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions\/4782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallcraftadvisor.com\/our-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}