- Joined
- Dec 25, 2005
- RO Number
- 19814
- Messages
- 31
On my trip this past weekend from N. Myrtle Beach SC to New Bern NC as posted on this site. After leaving Moorhead City and going through Adams Creek we entered the Neuse River. Since cruising south of here on the ICW the Neuse River gave me a very large body of water to work with. After clearing the channel in Adams Creek we came to course 321 degrees for almost one mile to marker 1AC. At this point I turned to port and came to a course of 270degrees and red marker 8. Upon reaching red marker 8 I decided to put some of my electronics to work and see just how good they were. I have a laptop computer running Capn Voyager, Garman GPS and Auto Pilot. 7.3 miles away on course 299 degrees was the start of a channel marked on either side by a red and green marker. I used the “fallow this temporary course" part of the program. As I moved the curser away from the on ship location a dashed rubber band like line followed the curser. I put the curser right between the to markers at the beginning of the channel a little over 7.3 miles away. At this point I left clicked the computer and a solid line was placed on the chart from the position of the boat to the start of the channel and turned on the Auto Pilot. The rubber band line was still present and moved as if it were attached to the boat on one end and to start of the channel on the other. From the start I was worried about the amount of swing from one side of the solid line to the other. But as we got closer to the entrance of the channel the less boat swing there was to either side of the solid line. During this run Capt Voyager constantly gave out information such as length of time to arrival point, distance to arrival point, time traveled, distance traveled, speed and current position. I thought for sure I would need to make at least a little manual adjustment at the end of the run, but this action was not needed. The boat was placed right at the mouth of the channel ready for me to take over and make the necessary course changes. I must say I was impressed!!!