Capnmike said:sail2wind said:rhans said:
And that's important why?
It's all easy line of sight.
It's fun to look at <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Grin.gif" alt="" /> I like to time trips and estimated speed, just something else to do. I could be wrong but heard Brent disables chart plotters and auto pilots, so the charter guest has to pay attention.
The auto pilot was available but Brent requested that we do not use it. I really didn't miss it, I rarely use one so it is no big deal.
We were on our way to Cooper and had to tack due to a drone sailboat, no body on deck, we yelled still got nobody's attention. About 5 minutes later they jibed and followed us in. We had a small friendly discussion at the Beach Club.
As any kind of tools autopilot has it's place. One can use a hammer to build a house , somebody else to kill a person. It is not a hammer's fault
I agree that autopilot is probably not necessary in BVI, but still can be useful in certain situations: for example when you raising sails with a short crew, rather than have some inexperienced person try to steer the boat into the wind. As far as a plotter is concerned: even if it is line of vision navigation you still need a chart, and a plotter is a nice electronic version of a chart at your fingertips.
