First appeared at the end of June 2023, l’application Bloc Marine, edited by Weather Consult / Le Figaro Nautique, has replaced the Guide Escales (¹), previously removed from the Apple Store. This latest application was far from unanimously accepted following a catastrophic pricing policy over successive updates. (²). Read more …
El Niño weakening in the Pacific
Following the prediction of an episode El Niño started in March 2023 (¹) and confirmed the following June (²), this climatic phenomenon of the Pacific Ocean, called ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation), strengthened until the end of December, early January 2024.
The February ENSO forecast developed by the U.S. Climate Prediction Center predicts that we are on the eve of an episode La Niña, even though the Pacific Ocean is still affected by the El Niño episode. According to the forecast, there is 79 % chance that El Niño will become neutral by April-June, and 55 % chance that the Pacific will return to ENSO La Niña between June and August.
Weather4D R&N and distance calculations
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Since the arrival of ARM-based Mac (M1… M3…) and the system macOS 11 Big Sur, Weather4D Routage & Navigation works natively on our favorite computers (¹). But this happy event did not go, since then, without some small restrictions. The most annoying for users was, until this day, loss of distance calculation. This is carried out on touch devices by a two-finger long press, no function allowed the translation of this gesture on Mac. The mouse only has one pointer, not two ! Read more …
CHS Canada map catalog update at Geogarage
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Update of the British charts catalogue CHS Canada for Weather4D Routage & Navigation and SailGrib WR by Geogarage.
- 253 updated charts
- 6 new charts added
In total, the catalogue includes 810 charts (1765 with insets)
Warning :
NMEA OneNet® : a new high-end communication standard
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20 years after NMEA 2000 and more than 40 years after NMEA0183, OneNet® is the third generation NMEA standard for marine data interfacing and networking.
In development since 2010 by NMEA members (1), to be published in late 2021, the OneNet standard is based on the IP Internet Protocol (2) version 6 (IPv6) and works on the IEEE Ethernet local network 802.3. This new standard aims to combine the three NMEA data standards — OneNet, NMEA 2000, NMEA0183 — on a single local network (LAN). Read more …
Nomad AIS transponder is back
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Appeared in spring 2017, the Nomad to Digital Yacht was the first, and the only one, portable AIS transponder. I carried out a detailed test the following summer, reported on this blog (¹). We feared that this excellent device would be abandoned, because it has been unavailable for several months, but not at all ! Right now it is reborn in a new and improved version : Nomad-2. Read more …
MacENCx64 finally offers global charting
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Since taking over MacENC at the end of the year 2020, become MacENCx64 (¹), it took three painstaking years for the company NavStation LLC to finalize the implementation of a global charting. Since January 1 2024 it is now done. A long negotiation with the ENC charting distributor ChartWorld (²) has enabled the creation of a range of vector charts in ENC S-57/S-63 format (³) as in-app purchase. Read more …
eSail4VR V.1.24 Update
Update version 1.24
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Export of routings in GPX format from the route board.
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Showing the scale on the map.
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Full WES racing support (weekend elite series).
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Increment of 1° in order editing (instead of 0.1°).
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Taking into account future restriction zones.
Available for iOS/iPadOS / Android / Windows. Coming soon for macOS.
Warning : It is imperative to update the application. Older versions will stop working January 1st 2024.
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R-Mode, future alternative to Positioning System
Global navigation satellite systems GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), have become the primary source of Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT1) for ships and marine operations. GNSS is also used for the automatic identification system (AIS2). Unfortunately, GNSS is recognized to be vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, intentional or not, that may result in the loss of positioning information, or, still worse, inaccurate positioning information. Read more …
iNavX finally offers nautical charts for France
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After the end of the contract which allowed iNavX to benefit from the beginning all the Navionics charts (¹), and after several unsuccessful attempts to include C-Map charts, NavX Studios LLC finally contracts with the Canadian company SiiTech Inc. to provide iNavX with a charting gradually covering the world. Read more …


