Re: [Paddlewise] Seeing Red?

From: Dave Kruger <kdruger_at_pacifier.com>
Date: Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:07:11 -0800
Bradford R. Crain wrote:
>   There's an interesting letter to the editor in the Sunday Oregonian
> newspaper (12/06/09). It seems there is a GPS product out there made
> by Garmin which directs people onto a roadway which actually turns out
> to be the letter writer's driveway. So many befuddled drivers have turned
> up at the house that the owner wants to put up a solidly built gate across
> the driveway, to the tune of about $1000, and wants Garmin to pay for it.
> But Garmin claims that the mistake belongs to Navtec, and Navtec isn't 
> returning calls from reporters or the irate land owner.
> 
>   I look forward to reading the next chapter of this story in our 
> newspaper.

I saw that, also.  I bet Garmin's lawyers and Navtec's lawyers are gonna 
need some Pepto Bismol before this is over.  Guy with the driveway needs a 
pit bull, I suppsoe (grin).

Similar vein:  a year ago or so Garmin retracted a charting SW product 
(series of charts, IIRC) because of sizable errors on some of the charts. 
I believe a 100-ton-ish vessel ran aground where the electronic chart said 
there was a fairway.  And, paddling close in on the outside of Gibraltor in 
the Broken Group, Barkley Sound, Vancouver Island, I noticed a couple of 
the isolated rocks weer mischarted by a hundred feet or more.  Not an issue 
in a sea kayak, but a major problem in a motor cruiser.

Must be some sort of disclaimer on limits to the resolution on those 
products.  On my power boat's "plotter," a Garmin 198C (4-inch screen; not 
really a plotter), the unit tells you when you have "over zoomed," which 
equates to showing detail beyond the reliability of the chart.

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR
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Received on Sun Dec 06 2009 - 13:07:18 PST

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