Garmin charts

Portholme · 24 April 2011, 19:51

I've just put a cheap and cheerful Garmin 451 on the RIB and I used it today. In all the literature on the website/box/ it says preloaded with UK maps. I used it this weekend and I was pretty underwhelmed by the detail of the charts.

I'm now wondering if I have something configured wrong or if I want depth/nav info I will need to buy a G2 card.

The detail was very poor - basically three colours (land/deep/tidal) and a rough grey line for safe navigable waters. No buoys marked at all.

Can you guys help - should the standard charts show any nav or depth info?

Having said all that the viz was so bad off the Norfolk coast I'm glad I had what I had.

BogMonster · 24 April 2011, 21:09

My 556 shows good info on the preloaded base maps - I had to buy a map card for this neck of the woods but I can still zoom in on say the Solent area and get quite detailed charts including depths.

"Preloaded with maps" is a very wide term though ... mine was "preloaded with a worldwide basemap" which translates to they put in a really shi^te Google Earth satellite photo where each pixel is about a mile across - you couldn't navigate with it unless all you wanted to do was miss the Falklands by 50 miles.

The only gripe I have on the Garmin charts is that unlike the proper Admiralty charts they don't show kelp - fine if you know where it is, less useful if you happened to be in unfamiliar waters in the dark.

Some of the info on mine is out of date (some nav beacon lights the wrong colour, that sort of thing) but that's just a function of how infrequently the source charts for this part of the world are updated. Some parts of the coastline here have never been charted; other parts have a source chart dating to I think an 1842 lead-line survey...

Top banana · 24 April 2011, 21:09

Did you pan in far enough. the further you pan into the chart the more detail available. failing that you need to get into the menu and set it up properly. theres no difference in detail on the 451 as there is on the larger plotters. the g2 vision chart enhances the basic chart with 3d above and below the waterline. have a play with it as theres loads of hidden menus.

Portholme · 25 April 2011, 19:07

thanks for the replies. Won't be at the coast until next weekend. Is there anyway I can pan to a coastal venue and then look at the detail as if I was there??? Probably some of the config isn't right

BogMonster · 25 April 2011, 22:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Portholme

thanks for the replies. Won't be at the coast until next weekend. Is there anyway I can pan to a coastal venue and then look at the detail as if I was there??? Probably some of the config isn't right

Certainly is on the 500 series - you just zoom out loads of times with the - button to like a 20 or 50 mile range, pan the cursor with the rocker arrow buttons till it is sitting over a suitable bit of water, after a second or two it will automatically re-centre the map over where the cursor is, then use + button to zoom back in again to say a 0.2 mile range you should see all the depths at that.

The manual for mine covers the 400 series as well so I would think they are the same. I zoomed out from here and looked at charts around England with no bother

BogMonster · 25 April 2011, 22:57

See some screen shots in post #19 here: http://www.rib.net/forum/showthread.php?t=35278

Burtox · 25 April 2011, 23:22

I've put a cheap and cheerful Garmin 451 on my RIB and like you was a little dissappointed. After a search I found a new G2 Vision card VEU706L for £36. Well its fantastic as it has so many more functions. It took 4 days to arrive and worked perfectly.

I used the new card to plan a auto safe passage to the Isles of Scilly form Penzance last week.

http://www.ioffer.com/i/garmin-bluec...land-147312555