The Nav Station Is Obsolete, Let's Build a Bar!

[JulieMor]

In the old days, we needed a protected area where we could store and view our paper charts without fear of the weather making them useless. In today's world, electronics rule.

Yes, the nav station is dead.

Now we can mount a sail pod at the helm with a chart plotter, depth, wind, speed and whatever gauges you want. And you can have your VHF right there at your side to hail whoever you want.

Wanna blow your mind?

Yes, the nav station is dead. But don't fret! There's hope!

Your nav station is just begging to come into the 21st Century. What better place to create your own personal bar? And what better place than right by the companionway.

What's your poison?

[SlowButSteady]

The smaller display in that video (on the right) has an MSRP of about $5700. That's almost as much as I paid for my boat.

[MarkofSeaLife]

Some boats with the full plastic and sunbrella enclosures have been very sucessful at utilising the cockpit as a permanent additional room.
So, sure the nav station and the helm station can be combined.
Cockpit tables have electrical outlets for laptops for additional info sources.
The library of books needed are now on computer, including the requiremens to have a copy of ColRegs for instance... All on computer.

The space given to the nav station below has been reduced and reduced and now on many new boats its multi function with a saloon sofa. Anyway its become the electrical switch board and entertainment center.
The other night a friend was describing how he has connected he tv on the saloon wall to the PC and uses a wireless keyboard and mouse to do his nav from the lounge instead of the nav station.

So yes, the nav station can become a bar, or added space, if the elements are moved to better locations.

Every other walk of life is modernising, why shouldnt boats. Inner city trendy appartments dont have kitchens any more but areas integrated with the living room where one can cook.... My house doesnt have a laundry anymore... The clothes washer/dryer is in the kitchen under benches...

A creative mind can do a lot for the livability of a boat.

[chef2sail]

Ha....our helm Navopds look exactly like the picture.

I do use our nav station frequenyly. It always has the chart of the area out when we are traveling and we mark position evey half hour. I have a tridata repeater as well as all my electrical panel and VHF is nearby. Our stations "desk" is also great for storage for many items.lso where I sit when I want to use the laptop vs the IPad.

Dave

[Minnewaska]

While I almost never use the Nav Station while underway, I use it nearly every morning when cruising. A cup of coffee and my Ipad, checking weather, harbor/marina data, even just catching up on email. Sure, its more of a desk than a navigation necessity. However, I will also enter routing into the chartplotter at the nav station and it will transfer up above as we leave later in the morning.

And, I most certainly have paper chart books that I reference there as well. Usually for planning, more than enroute nav these days.

[chucklesR]

Ha.
My Nav station:


Note the cabinet to the left of it? That's the liquor cabinet - Holds 15 bottles securrely in round slots.

Here's the cabinet - note the front holds a first aid kit - convenient to the booze.


Now, as to the helm - yeah I got some work to do there. I'm bouncing back and forth between a nice curved teak 'box' with my 'stuff' face mounted - or a navpod box.
I want to keep the teak look and style that goes with the wheel.



Anyway, that's a whole thread of my own eventually.

[denverd0n]

Love that wheel.

[MarkofSeaLife]

Yes the wheel does look great.

[chucklesR]

I got distracted on my original post and left out a comment for Julie -

Julie, it's absolutely true what you say about the electronic stuff taking over, but not the need for an adequate nav station below decks.

The stuff at the helm is for where you are now and what you are doing now; planning the trip still needs a layout where you can sip wine/coffee etc.. and plot the courses with way points and such.

If you build it out at the helm only you have to do all that plotting at the helm, not so comfy nor nice as sitting below and doing it with your partner over some goodies.

Check out the thread about iPod's and chartplotters, there are lots of good tools out there now that let you use them remotely from below decks like my Raymarine e7d does (not in the picture, that's the 'as bought' view of my helm.

And always carry paper charts, they make nice conversation pieces (and backups).

[BluemanSailor]

Originally Posted by JulieMor

In the old days, we needed a protected area where we could store and view our paper charts without fear of the weather making them useless. In today's world, electronics rule.

Yes, the nav station is dead.

Now we can mount a sail pod at the helm with a chart plotter, depth, wind, speed and whatever gauges you want. And you can have your VHF right there at your side to hail whoever you want.

Wanna blow your mind?

Yes, the nav station is dead. But don't fret! There's hope!

Your nav station is just begging to come into the 21st Century. What better place to create your own personal bar? And what better place than right by the companionway.

What's your poison?

If I wanted to watch TV I would stay at home- toooo many screens. Have a friend who has all these screens on his Tarten - I have to keep reminding him to LOOK UP and around ! He keeps staring at his collection of screens. There's the real world here - not a TV screen.

Me - have a small screen showing depth, speed!