B&G Chartplotter Sailing View

This is a nice way to setup your chart plotter for sailing. I note the the Outremer 55 Cat “Great Circle” uses a very similar setup.

In addition to the chart plotter you would often have 2 other Triton 4″ displays. One of these would be showing the Autopilot settings including heading, rudder angle etc. On the second display I like to show the TWS & TWD wind history for aprox 30 min.

This page is made up using four seperate “panels” that can be configured very easily using the View Builder on the home page of the B&G Chart Plotter.

• Panel 1 is the chart view.

• Panel 2 is the SailSteer display – which displays both the Aparent & True Wind angles as well as current speed and direction

• Panel 3 is a Dashboard display – which is underneath the SailSteer panel

• Panel 4 is a “global” side bar panel on the Right Hand Side.

SOG – Speed Over Ground: This is the speed from your GPS device.

STW – Speed Through Water: This is the speed your boat is doing through the water – which factors in local tides and currents. This is the most important speed reading – and is what is used in the Polar performance diagrams.

The STW is calculated using the paddle wheel (or ultrasonic) sensor under the hull of the boat. Its super important to make sure this is calibrated accurately.

Importantly STW is used to calculate both True Wind Speed, True Wind Direction & True Wind Angle – so even more reason to ensure that your boat speed is accurate.

There is a B&G setup setting which also allows you to use SOG to compute TWD, TWS & TWA. I’ve be very careful when using that setting as it can be very confusing.

I have a seperate blog post on how a very simple way to calibrate Speed through Water. (https://copelands.blog/2023/03/11/calibrating-boat-speed/).

Note: I have discovered recently that “Boat Speed” can display either “Speed through Water” or “Speed over Ground” – so be very careful with using this value. Boat speed will actually show what ever has been selected in settings to calculate True Wind Speed. I’d strongly recommend not using “Boat Speed” and use the “Speed through Water” value – as that is very explicit.

FWD Depth: On my boat I have a Forward Scan depth scanner which is under the port hull – so this is the depth under the port hull.

DEPTH: This is the main depth sensor mounted under the stbd hull. Make sure you configure the depth to account for the offset below the water line of the sensor.

POS: This is the latitude & longitude of the boat. I always like to leave this here in case of an emergency and you need your location in a hurry.

WPT DIST – Waypoint Distance: The distance to the next waypoint on your course.

Sea Temp: Water tempreature

Sail Dial: Lots of useful visual info on this diagram A) shows the Aparent Wind Angle T) Shows the True Wind Angle. The arrow in the middle shows the current/tide direction & speed. The small white arc under the arrow shows your rudder angle. The Red & Green dashed lines show the Port & Stbd tacking angles

AWA – Aparent Wind Angle:

AWS – Aparent Wind Speed:

VMG – Velocity Made Good: I beleive this is yoru speed towards your next Waypoint – but need to check that.

TWA – True Wind Angle:

TWS – True Wind Speed:

TWD – True Wind Direction:

HDG – Heading: This is the direction your boat is travelling through the water. This will be the “black” projection line from the boat shown on the chart

COG – Course over Ground: This is the direction the boat is heading – factoring in current & tide. If there is a strong cross current you will be swept sideways. This is displayed as the “blue” projection line on the chart.

Time: Your local time

ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival: The Estimated time of arrival at the end of your current route.

WPT Bearing: The bearing to your next Waypoint.

TTW – Time to Waypoint: The time to the next Waypoint.