Yes, but who leaves a chart plotter they are using at a much larger scale when you are 8-10 miles from shore approaching Islands in your way, etc.?

It woudn't make sense in a motor vessel doing 25 knots, let alone sailboat at 6 knots to have a larger scale as your background, default view.

If you do that, then you're not using a chart plotter, you're just misusing it. This would be especially true when motoring with an autopilot in "open" water.

I think the general default setting might 10 MILES at the most. As I'm pretty sure, you'd have the setting more likely set at 6 miles or less (that's an hour ahead).

You can get in trouble with a setting at 3 miles if there happes to be a buoy, rock, reef, etc. using a chart background that would obscure it. Again, we're talking about A GROUP OF ISLANDS -- the first and second largest of which they apparently hit DEAD-on.

When most of us set-up a route (which I'm sure he didn't really do, or at least didn't use for navigation), one would naturally zoom in and check for smaller obstructions, anyway. I guess if you set your chart plotter on the way to Australia at ""WORLD VIEW", you'd miss noticing the Hawaian Islands.