Suggestions for navigation software for Ipad

[seadaddler]

I am a much better sailor with a chartplotter or tablet with some kind of charts because knowing where I am going and what to expect and bringing up tides real quick on that unit is a big plus.
I can plan my trips way in advance knowing the tides and any bad area’s a heads up.
I see so many sailors run aground or in trouble by just using eye sight or depending on some one
to let me know what is a head and with some type of charts either app or chartplotter gives me time to be ready for what ever is ahead.
I cruise with a lot of sailors in our club and some times newbie first timer here in SW Florida has a lot of shallow water and so helping them with heads up off my tablet at a meeting is a big
help keeping more sailors from running into trouble and so easy with a tablet rather than dragging out paper charts.
More and more sailors are getting tablets rather than a chartplotter,but I like having both back up at the helm.
I usually have both my old Ray C-80 and my always updated Navionics.
Nick

 

[Jackdaw]

Crashing into things as your eyes are glued to a screen seems total myth to me. There's not much to see on a screen except your boats icon placed accurately on the latest chart. Contrast that with piloting your progress on a paper chart, which is how I sailed for decades. The latter, especially if the chart is below, was much more likely to keep my attention.

Today, when ships hit the bricks around here, you can be sure the boats icon showed the boat crashing into those rocks, in real time.

The eyes onboard were not looking at that screen. There aren't as many excuses today yet boats still crash into the same rocks.

Inattentiveness is inattentiveness, no matter what you think you should be looking at.

 

[TomY]

Inattentiveness is inattentiveness, no matter what you think you should be looking at.

Agreed. On these forums the vast interest is the dangers of storms at sea or entering exotic harbors. But I believe (and I have no data to back this up) the chances are much higher that you will damage or sink your boat, very close to home (and that could include bodily harm).

Seems every season just after the last few boats are launched, one or two (not rare for several) start limping in for extensive repairs. Here in Maine, the biggest insurance claim must be collision with fixed (and a few un-fixed )objects.

It's often the same hazards that get hit around Penobscot Bay, and these are very unforgiving hazards.

A few aren't marked but most are - but they are all accurately charted. And despite GPS accuracy of a few yards in this area, the numbers of these accidents don't seem to change.

In many cases, these are hazards the captain has safely negotiated dozens of times (some in home harbors). Routine routes regularly traveled.

Daylight, fair weather conditions, are when many happen.

I call this type of inattention, close to home complacency.

They are putting stuff away onboard, fiddling with something, talking to guests or family. There's no excuse but who hasn't operated their boat without a look out at times. Or not actively 'piloting' the boat on chart (e or paper) because, they think, they know where they are.

BAM!!! That is the sound of winter employment at boat yards on our coast.

 

[Jackdaw]

Agreed. On these forums the vast interest is the dangers of storms at sea or entering exotic harbors. But I believe (and I have no data to back this up) the chances are much higher that you will damage or sink your boat, very close to home (and that could include bodily harm).

Seems every season just after the last few boats are launched, one or two (not rare for several) start limping in for extensive repairs. Here in Maine, the biggest insurance claim must be collision with fixed (and a few un-fixed )objects.

It's often the same hazards that get hit around Penobscot Bay, and these are very unforgiving hazards.

A few aren't marked but most are - but they are all accurately charted. And despite GPS accuracy of a few yards in this area, the numbers of these accidents don't seem to change.

In many cases, these are hazards the captain has safely negotiated dozens of times (some in home harbors). Routine routes regularly traveled.

Daylight, fair weather conditions, are when many happen.

I call this type of inattention, close to home complacency.

They are putting stuff away onboard, fiddling with something, talking to guests or family. There's no excuse but who hasn't operated their boat without a look out at times. Or not actively 'piloting' the boat on chart (e or paper) because, they think, they know where they are.

BAM!!! That is the sound of winter employment at boat yards on our coast.

Indeed. It even has its own proverb: 'familiarity breeds contempt'

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

Crashing into things as your eyes are glued to a screen seems total myth to me. There's not much to see on a screen except your boats icon placed accurately on the latest chart. Contrast that with piloting your progress on a paper chart, which is how I sailed for decades. The latter, especially if the chart is below, was much more likely to keep my attention.

Today, when ships hit the bricks around here, you can be sure the boats icon showed the boat crashing into those rocks, in real time.

The eyes onboard were not looking at that screen. There aren't as many excuses today yet boats still crash into the same rocks.

The only exception I would add to what you wrote, Tom, is when people zoom out so the nav software doesn't show all detail. It's OK to zoom out to get the big picture, but the default view should be zoomed-in "local" so all hazards are displayed (especially in areas with islands and reefs).

 

[AaronD]

Yeah best and easiest if you wire it directly into the boats 12 V system. Wi-Fi-only iPads don’t have GPS because the GPS hardware that they use is built into the cellular radio chipset.

If you have NMEA output from a GPS device, you can use an NMEA -> Wifi bridge (e.g. http://yakbitz.com/Default.aspx) to transmit GPS (and other NMEA data) to an iPad. I must admit I haven't tested this system extensively, but it seems to send both GPS and AIS info from our Standard Horizon VHF to iSailor. The update frequency didn't seem great, but that might have been my old and slow iPad. More testing to come with a newer iPad as the summer progresses...

 

[Jackdaw]

If you have NMEA output from a GPS device, you can use an NMEA -> Wifi bridge (e.g. http://yakbitz.com/Default.aspx) to transmit GPS (and other NMEA data) to an iPad. I must admit I haven't tested this system extensively, but it seems to send both GPS and AIS info from our Standard Horizon VHF to iSailor. The update frequency didn't seem great, but that might have been my old and slow iPad. More testing to come with a newer iPad as the summer progresses...

Excellent suggestion.

Our RaceGeek D10 does the same, sending all of its data (SOG, heading, course, heel angle) and combined with whatever it finds on NMEA (in our case wind, depth, STW) over WiFi via a hotspot it creates. Nice having depth and a bottom plot on the mast when cruising about!

A software bug betrays the devices UK origins... the depth is only displayable in Meters! Thus the 10.1 on the display really means 33 feet. The bar graph shows a history of flat bottom.

 

[AaronD]

Excellent suggestion.

Our RaceGeek D10 does the same, sending all of its data (SOG, heading, course, heel angle) and combined with whatever it finds on NMEA (in our case wind, depth, STW) over WiFi via a hotspot it creates. Nice having depth and a bottom plot on the mast when cruising about!

Showoff! Jealous of your RaceGeek! That's a great setup! (and at least it's not hardcoded in fathoms or cable lengths )

 

[Jackdaw]

Showoff! Jealous of your RaceGeek! That's a great setup! (and at least it's not hardcoded in fathoms or cable lengths )

It's a great piece of kit. Most fun is that team behind it are sailors and racers, and are adding new functionality to the device all the time. I'm going to be beta testing the wind/polar page when it's ready for that, and I can't wait.

Once you get used to having speed, heading and other important data on the mast, there is no going back. Not just for racing, it's a great add for cruisers and sailors in general.

 

[seadaddler]

OMG
I just look up price of your Racegeek D10 Holly Molly
I race and have my Raymarine C-80 and Ipad with Navionics at helm eye level and my
Depth & Knot speed forward and sorry even Raymarine has something that gets mounted on mast and think it’s $500;maybe more and RaceGeek around $1400.
Nick

 

[Jackdaw]

OMG
I just look up price of your Racegeek D10 Holly Molly
I race and have my Raymarine C-80 and Ipad with Navionics at helm eye level and my
Depth & Knot speed forward and sorry even Raymarine has something that gets mounted on mast and think it’s $500;maybe more and RaceGeek around $1400.
Nick

I hear you. So a couple of things.

In particular when racing, its not about having data visible behind the wheel, or small numbers on the cabin bulkhead. That’s really not helpful or useful while racing. Big numbers on the mast that everyone can see. Driver, tactician, trimmers. Ideally speed, heading, and a line of data based on what leg you are on.

There are several simple stand-alone digital compasses and (maybe) speed devices that mast mount for $600-900. Including the Raymarine Racemaster.

Repeater Displays that integrate into your existing network normally run about $500-1000 per line of data, like the $1100 Raymarine T215.

To control those things, you need a $550 remote. See where this is going? On the RaceGeek you use a free app on your phone.

So the $1400 RaceGeek with 3 big lines of data is right there, and it also has all its own sensors plus WiFi.

 

[Meriachee]

Gee Clay, that picture portrays something we see all the time on our little puddle of the world - some personage in a wakeboat doing a 180 right in front of a reasonably loaded up sailboat after dumping their charge right in front of you.

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

So I looked at iSailor and it appears its roots are in Transas, a Russian entity. Is/was Transas a Russian government affiliated company? This story seems to imply there have been some ties http://en.portnews.ru/news/255432/ from before the publisher of iSailor acquired Transas last year http://en.portnews.ru/news/255175/ .
With Russia tampering in our elections and government, showing aggression to our ships, and everything going on in cybersecurity I am not about to knowingly load Russian software on my devices. (Same goes for Chinese software. I bought a cheap phone just for the DJI drone app. Would not put it on my real phone).

 

[Jackdaw]

So I looked at iSailor and it appears its roots are in Transas, a Russian entity. Is/was Transas a Russian government affiliated company? This story seems to imply there have been some ties http://en.portnews.ru/news/255432/ from before the publisher of iSailor acquired Transas last year http://en.portnews.ru/news/255175/ .
With Russia tampering in our elections and government, showing aggression to our ships, and everything going on in cybersecurity I am not about to knowingly load Russian software on my devices. (Same goes for Chinese software).

Transas is pretty much the world leader in integrated bridge software, the software suite that runs the bridge of all large modern ships. They have a well-deserved reputation for quality and integrity. Isailor is their commercial product for the recreational sailor. The company was owned by a Russian private equity entity, but was recently sold to a Finnish company. When this happened they had to return Grant that they have gotten from the Russian government to develop software for ship maneuvering in the golf of Finland.

 

[Jackdaw]

Gee Clay, that picture portrays something we see all the time on our little puddle of the world - some personage in a wakeboat doing a 180 right in front of a reasonably loaded up sailboat after dumping their charge right in front of you.

While that happens all the time down here as well, at this particular moment it was pretty benign. As you can see on the display, we were essentially drift in that 1.0 knots!

 

[Meriachee]

While that happens all the time down here as well, at this particular moment it was pretty benign. As you can see on the display, we were essentially drift in that 1.0 knots!

Saw that. Front end tucked away, but none the less, might put you into a position of evasive action. Irresponsible. Potentially negligent.

 

[Jackdaw]

Saw that. Front end tucked away, but none the less, might put you into a position of evasive action. Irresponsible. Potentially negligent.

Totally. I wanted to go ward them off with some deadly fire from our Super Soaker, but I would have to set down my beer.

 

[Captain Larry-DH]

Transas is pretty much the world leader in integrated bridge software, the software suite that runs the bridge of all large modern ships. They have a well-deserved reputation for quality and integrity. Isailor is their commercial product for the recreational sailor. The company was owned by a Russian private equity entity, but was recently sold to a Finnish company. When this happened they had to return Grant that they have gotten from the Russian government to develop software for ship maneuvering in the golf of Finland.

Caveat emptor. Where was the software created and where are the programmers who maintain it? Kaspersky antivirus software is also used widely and is well respected. I would not use it. As part of a 2017 national-intelligence law, China expects its citizens and companies to support its national-intelligence activities.
There is a cyber war underway (if you haven't noticed) and governments and organized crime are employing sophisticated hackers to exploit vulnerabilities. Software is always one update away from becoming malware.

 

[Tucker67]

The vast majority of these devices are battery powered, but can also be wired into your boat’s 12 V system with a little ingenuity. That saves you from having to remember to charge the battery all the time.

I put a waterproof usb connection on one of my pods so it is plugged in all the time I am sailing. Found before I added one, overnight trips you would have to take it below and charge it for a few hours which is not optimal.

 

[Jackdaw]

Caveat emptor. Where was the software created and where are the programmers who maintain it? Kaspersky antivirus software is also used widely and is well respected. I would not use it. As part of a 2017 national-intelligence law, China expects its citizens and companies to support its national-intelligence activities.
There is a cyber war underway (if you haven't noticed) and governments and organized crime are employing sophisticated hackers to exploit vulnerabilities. Software is always one update away from becoming malware.

To each his own.
For sure I deal with this every day; I'm the CTO of a software company, and am dealing with hacking right now. But the point about 'Where was the software created and where are the programmers who maintain it' is much harder than you might think. The vast majority of companies use offshore development. Unless you have personal knowledge of a USA-based team doing 100% of the development of the app using ZERO 3rd-party tools and libraries, and running on a device not made in China (good luck with that) you actually have no idea were the software is coming from, or what it might be doing.

You simply cannot verify everything. So reputation does matter.