Read the article in Power & Motoryacht, and was hoping that it would dig into the relationship between the various systems, especially the use of Coastal Explorer and the MDFs. While on a Gulf Coast ICW run I ran into a tug caption who uses CE onboard, and had all of his waypoints and routes on his laptop, but I didn't think to ask him how to merge the CE data with the radar, AIS & chart data from his MDFs while underway. Anyone have thoughts on this?
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Its quite possible that he has his waypoints/routes on a laptop that he carries (potentially between tugs), vs a MFD that stays aboard. If that's the case then he has charting with overlay/AIS on MFD and can do routing on PC with Coastal Explorer. A quick serial/NMEA 0183/2000 interface to pass routes back and forth, or a card reader and he's good to go.
My cousin is mate on a coastal tug, and they do month on, month off. I can see where the captain would want to bring his charts aboard, much like an airline pilot would carry sectionals, and have his preferred routes on his personal system.