Thread: Navigation, North up vs. Course up

I hate a map that is constantly spinning with every bobble of the boat. North up for me.

North up for me as well.

course up is easer. once you line up on wpt you get better visual on land bearings. I spend 320 days a year on a tug inland and offshore. 95% of capt`s I work with use course up. The only time we use N up is when crossing extreme current or heavy wind where the boat is being set. A heavy set will make relative and true course look as if your going to the big tree in front of you, but your true motion is taking you to the red house to starboard, it takes a few to get use to when that happens. It`s much easer to relate to the object on the plotter being of stb and when you look to stb and see it.

"Course Up" for me

I prefer to orientate my map to direction of travel. I just got a unit with a chartplotter, now I have to change or verify that setting. Great question.
Thanks,

Question if the OP doesn't mind. My Humminbirf 899 gives me three options; North-Up, Head-Up, and Course-Up.
What's the difference?

North-up is self explanatory. Head-up is your current heading, regardless of your course. If you even have a course (when moving, you always have a heading, but not necessarily a course). Course-up is predefined to a set course/waypoint, regardless of the boat's current heading. An instance of a swinging chart while underway is in the head-up mode. Hope this makes sense.

Think of the “Heading” as the direction the boat is pointing while the “Course” is the direction that the boat is actually moving in. These will normally be the same unless there is some external force acting upon the boat (wind, current, waves). Example: if your boat were drifting sideways it would be pointed (heading) in one direction but moving (course) in another direction. Unless you have a heading device (AS-GPS-HS) I would not recommend using this setting.

Thanks Tracker123 and HumminbirdGreg. Excellent information. Sounds like Course-up is what I want.