Category : Applications

All applications

Routing : from game to reality

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On the second day of racing of this Vendée Globe 2020, we can say that the weather conditions that the skippers will experience on the descent towards the Doldrums will be particularly tough. After a departure in a damned weather, A first weak cold front passed without incident, The Solitaires will cross a second, much more violent front during the night and morning from Tuesday to Wednesday, for the group that went to the West, and in the evening for the group passed between the DST (¹) and Gallicia.

But these upcoming conditions are very different for Virtual Regatta players and For sailors… Read more …

Navigation Mac embarks on the Vendée Globe 2020

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Hey yes, everything happens ! In all my computer-nautical career I had never played any computer game whatsoever, not even the historical Windows card game that consumed thousands of hours of idle office time for businesses… but you should never say : Never !

So, therefore,, here I am registered for Virtual Regatta, one among the most 340.000 players registered at this time, ready to start the Vendée Globe tomorrow at 1:02 p.m.. Like any beginner, I watched a few videos to quickly understand this game, Who, on balance, seems relatively easy for a confirmed sailor. But, from there to play in the big league, there are still several oceans to cross ! Read more …

Weather4D embarks on the Vendée Globe 2020 [Break News]

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No, it's not a joke ! Weather4D Embark with SailGrib in the Vendée Globe 2020 with Virtual Regatta. The two friends Henri and Olivier have together developed a routing module directly integrated into the game.

Philippe Guigné, the creator of the online game Virtual Regatta, explains in an interview with Voiles & Voiliers :

"… we want the virtual Vendée Globe to be aimed at the general public and it is therefore logical that we help neophytes by providing new tools. Thus, For this edition, we offer a routing assistance system, Directly integrated into the game, in partnership with SailGrib and Weather4D. These routings will first be simplified so that everyone can use them. In a second phase, We will set up more elaborate routings that will allow us to determine long-term strategies…”

A new evolution for the two leaders in navigation applications, Weather and routing on mobile devices, which should allow them to popularize their applications to a wide audience, and perhaps spark vocations among the large number of players who have never been on the water before.

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Cyberattacks and boating

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Garmin was the victim of a cyber attack that began on 23 last July and lasted several days. The resulting outage disrupted many of its online services.

Navionics customers could no longer access the Navionics server via their login credentials. L’application Navionics Boating, the Navionics chart installer and chart viewer have all been impacted. products could no longer be purchased directly from the Navionics website. Chartplotters could still be used as standalone devices during this Garmin outage, but the maps could no longer be downloaded or updated. Read more …

Weather4D Routage & Navigation supports Imray charts

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With the delivery yesterday of the version 2.0.54, Weather4D add Imray (¹) to the Routing & Navigation, recently available in Geogarage. Five layers cover the Atlantic facade (²) , from the North Sea and Shetlands to the Canary Islands and the Azores, and one layer covers the Greater and Lesser Antilles.

But the most important are the three layers covering the western, central and eastern Mediterranean, which now provide detailed coverage from the Ionian Sea to the Aegean Sea. An excellent complement to the international SHOM layer. Read more …

Receive facsimile weather maps with an iPad [Update]

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Un récepteur BLU plaisance

An SSB receiver for leasure boating

HF Weather Fax to Black Cat Systems is an application allowing you to decode facsimile weather maps on an iPad, an iPhone or Android device. The analysis and forecast maps are provided by radio stations around the World. Broadcast on shortwave, they can easily be received by BLU receivers as found in boating catalogs.
Read more …

Receive graphic weather maps on iPad [Update-2]

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Weather analysis and forecasting maps developed by the NOAA (USA) and the Met Office (UK) cover vast areas over the Wold. They can be obtained sending a request by email to the weather server of british company MailaSail. With the latter, many maps are available in a listing (¹) in which it suffices to click on the links to load the request in a message ready to send.

[Update September 13 th 2025]

Read more …

Navigation Mac tutorials on your iPad [Update]

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A growing number of boaters now uses an iPad at sea. But offshore, when no network connection is available, and therefore no more internet access, how to access the various help or technical instructions concerning the tools used ?

The answer lies in building a library of files in PDF format that can be easily stored in the application Apple Books, for free, very fortunately. Read more …

APP4NAV discontinues the Android version of Weather4D

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Weather4D had been ported to Android from fall 2013. One year later, in December 2014, Weather4D integrated charting navigation, NMEA data support via TCP-IP protocol, Autopilot control. Routing was only missing, already developed on iOS for Apple devices.

Alas, the following years, the time-consuming increase in iOS development had not allowed the developer to keep up with the Android version at the same level of features. Finally, two years ago, Google has announced that apps using native code should include a version 64 Bits (in addition to the 32 Bits). Read more …