software – Navigation Mac

Celestial, navigation on iPhone and iPad [Update-2]

Posted on20 January 202520 January 20253 comments

[January update 2025] This great app, not updated for several years, No longer working. It's a shame because I had made the French version. A similar alternative could be Celestial Navigation whose latest version 1.4 Mid-2020 date. I haven't had the opportunity to test it yet.

The company Navimatics, located near Seattle, state of Washington, has been offering since October 2010 a complete application for celestial navigation. for iPhone, iPad , and also mobile under Android . It has just been updated to version 1.5 with a new iOS-compliant interface 8/9. Read more …

Bloc Marine is back

Posted on19 February 202420 February 20244 comments

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 …

Predict storms with Weather4D

Posted on14 July 20213 August 2024

In Weather4D (all versions) most weather models provide a data called CAPE.

Convective Available Potential Energy, in French : Energie potentielle de convection disponible. Behind this obscure acronym hides a powerful storm forecasting tool. CAPE is measured in Joules per kilogram of air (J/Kg) and defines the vertical buoyancy energy of a hot air particle in a colder atmosphere. In other words, vertical acceleration of the air particle will be directly related to this energy measurement. Read more …

Receive facsimile weather maps with an iPad [Update]

Posted on23 th 202023 th 20249 comments

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]

Posted on16 th 202028 th 20236 comments

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. Read more …

Navigation Mac tutorials on your iPad [Update]

Posted on17 February 202018 February 20208 comments

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 …

VMG / VMC – for dummies

Posted on18 February 20196 th 20245 comments

Navigation apps are full of acronyms. This coded and abstruse language was originally developed for electronic navigation instruments, GPS mapping and other chartplotters. These acronyms, in the form of three letters most often, are the contraction of terms defining specific navigation data and according functions. This facilitates on-screen display taking few space. If some of these acronyms are relatively well assimilated by the boater, as SOG for Speed Over Ground (speed over the bottom), you can quickly access subtleties that are not always mastered as COG for Course Over Ground, meaning "route runned on the ground", that the word "Course" in English can mean "Route" or "Heading" according to the context. Read more …

Weather4D makes its (r)evolution

Posted on26 th 20181 May 202552 comments

Hear, hear, hardy boaters, new Weather4D applications come up !

I wrote “the” in the plural. The two historical applications of Sarl APP4NAV, Weather4D (th 2011) and Weather4D Pro (November 2011 ), change to the user interface of the now famous application Weather4D 2.0, which had been the subject of a complete review of its development published in December 2015. In order to make the range more coherent, the names of the three applications are harmonized :

Guide Escales 2018 – Red card ! [Update-2]

Posted on20 December 201715 August 20243 comments

It saddens me to end the year with a critical article, but the subject deserves it. I wrote in December 2016 (*) a sincerely positive appreciation of the evolution of the application Guides Escales 2017 - Bloc Marine digital version by Figaro Nautisme editions - compared to 2016. But for edition 2018, is unfortunately go back, supply regress and severe rate increase.

Unlike the print edition you can keep several years in your boat library, the annual update of the application Guides Escales clears all purchased regions the previous year. It is therefore not a purchase but an annual subscription, nuance!. And that's not all…

[Updated 2022] The Escales Guide has been withdrawn from sale.