During a search on the App Store for my previous post, I found out under the term "Simrad" an application that furiously reminds me of something. From research to research, I discover the company Electric Pocket. This British applications publisher Develops the Mobile Apps from 1997, andrecently the applications Nautical under the name Pocket Mariner. That Company is based in Wales, United Kingdom, and deals with partners from all over the world.
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Category : Navigation
Articles related to maritime navigation
Marine electronics manufacturers and the tablet phenomenon
A few days before the opening of the Nautic Paris boat show where, I remind him, I will be present on the stand iTabNav (Hall 2.1 – D31), An overview is in order. And precisely, in our immediate horizon we shall have, like every year, proximity to marine electronics manufacturers and their representatives.
At the previous edition of the boat show, I had noticed the reluctance – not to say hostility – of manufacturers towards the growing phenomenon of tablets and other smartphones on the navigation market. By dint of promoting these devices and their applications, I probably didn't just make friends in this business. However, Strong pressure from boat buyers, and therefore navigation electronics, has forced those manufacturers to integrate a minimum of interactivity between their own hardware and the mobile devices now owned by a majority of browsers.
This prompts me to take a quick look at the status of the applications provided and the progress of the proposed functions.
Routing and usage precautions
With the advent of powerful weather-routing applications on our tablets and smartphones, as Weather4D and SailGrib WR, at truly affordable prices, routing is becoming more popular for pleasure boating. The quality of these applications is already appealing to amateur sailors, and even some high-seas professional riders, but also a growing number of leisure boaters. Riders use the routing in the essential interests of performance, Achieve the fastest route from one point to another, so leisure boaters are more focused on getting safer and more comfortable routes. For them, The notion of speed is mainly used to avoid periods of bad weather, and the optimized route to escape areas where sea and wind conditions can be dangerous. Routing is also used for this : even in powerboating, you may try to avoid too much wind speeds or wave heights to ensure ypur crew comfortable and serene trip. But what credibility can be given to routing ? Read more …
ZenLoch, The boat loch of the 3rd millennium
After the sextant of the future (¹), presented at the Paris Boat Show last December, here is the loch of the future revisited by a "Professor Calculus", an electronics engineer and genius inventor from Nantes.
The oldest among us will certainly remember this venerable and inexpensive instrument of the old sailing navy : The "boat loch". Quote (²):
The "boat" is a wooden plank, weighted to float vertically and connected to the log line by a crow's foot. On the line we tie knots, spaced in principle 7m72 (or 1/240th of a nautical mile). We put the "boat" in the water and let the line go. we then count, from the first node, how many knots pass through the hand in 15 seconds, which gives the speed in knots.
Charting, the game of 7 errors
A recent Thread on the Hisse Et Oh forum, I salute by the way, I challenged the accuracy of the chart data provided on the electronic charts. The subject concerns the observation that, in some location, existing information on the Navionics Marine HD application, or on some chartplotters, are missing on Navionics charts available on the website x-traverse.com used with iNavX (and MacENC). Quote :
"So the question is : Is there a difference between the 46XG map and the Europe map or is the difference due to the software that makes the cards tick?. ”
Damned ! It seemed useful to make comparisons closing electronic charts from various sources. As far as I know particularly well geographic location used in example, since it is the approach to the port of Concarneau, near the beacon tower Le Cochon, passage I borrowed hundreds of times over the years I was working with Glenans Nautical Centre. Read more …
G-Stell le sextant du futur
Amazing ! At a time when GPS networks are multiplying (GPS, GLONASS, Beidou-2, and soon Galileo) a genius engineer, sailing enthusiast, creates a company and invents the replacement for dad's sextant : an electronic sextant requiring no knowledge, with a claimed accuracy of less than one nautical mile, the G-Stell. Read more …
SEAiq professional navigation on iPad
A few days before going on a long trip from Toulon to Noumea, my friend Christophe Mahé introduced me to this application which had gone completely unnoticed by me. I sincerely thank him ! As it is never too late to do well, a few discussions with the developer allowed me to install this application on my iPad with all its options. SEAiq went live on the AppStore in April 2012. Its developer, Mark Hayden, is a Californian computer engineer living a good part of his time with his family or alone around the world aboard his Super Maramu, the happy man.
SEAiq Open (¹) is the only application on iPad / iPhone for using vector charts ENC IHO official standards S-52, S-57 and S-63. With information database included in these charts, and update systems , SEAiq transforms the iPad into a real ECDIS (²) professionnal. Read more …
Marée.info is evolving its offering
You know all the good things I think about this excellent application. Unfortunately, many users did not understand that the “Free” download was intended solely to allow testing of the application before subscribing to the data.. This misunderstanding caused dissatisfaction and the developer took it into account.
Since the last update, access to all tide stations is free for the current day : Read more …
Charting compared, a mixed result
Three weeks and 600 nautical miles of sailing between the mainland and the Balearic Islands have allowed me to test in live some of iPad maritime applications we have.
Warning : There is no question of making a point-by-point comparison between applications, but rather to highlight certain essential aspects of their use. On the other hand, applications used were up-to-date at the beginning of July. Developments are rapid, and updates may have occurred in August or early September that I did not have. Finally, the messaging app iNavX associated with Navionics charting available from the X-Traverse server for me is the "master-standard" marine applications. iNavX is the most complete application in terms of features to date, and Navionics charting (from the X-Traverse server, I specify) closest to the geographical reality observed by many users.
Marée info : SHOM tides prediction on iPhone [Update]
Thousands of users have known about the excellent website for several years tide.info which offers the tidal times and heights of the SHOM for all the coast stations of the Channel and the Atlantic. Boaters, professional fishermen, beach fishermen, kite surfers and other relevant users visit daily the information pages of this website.
Its author, Guillaume Bolo, set about creating an app for iPhone (iPad compatible) using the content of its website, but with the particularity of providing, for a low subscription (*), tides for a whole year. The data are tidal predictions from SHOM, reproduced with permission by contract. Their reliability therefore leaves no doubt, although SHOM does not control the content before editing. Read more …