Friday 13 November will not be a lucky day for the Vendée Globe skippers 2020 (¹). Ils vont devoir négocier la rencontre avec la tempête tropicale « Theta » qui croise leur parcours avec des vents moyens pouvant atteindre les 40 nœuds et de puissantes rafales. Surtout la mer sera à craindre car, fortement croisées au passage du centre dépressionnaire, les vagues pourront dépasser les 6 mètres et déferler de façon chaotique. Read more …
Label : Weather4D
Routing : from game to reality
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. Après un départ par un temps de demoiselle, un premier front froid peu actif passé sans encombre, les solitaires vont traverser un deuxième front beaucoup plus violent dans la nuit et la matinée de mardi à mercredi, pour le groupe parti à l’Ouest, et dans la soirée pour le groupe passé entre le DST (¹) et la Gallice.
Mais ces conditions à venir sont bien différentes pour les joueurs de Virtual Regatta et pour les marins… Read more …
Weather4D embarks on the Vendée Globe 2020 [Break News]
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.
Weather4D Routage & Navigation supports Imray charts
With the delivery yesterday of the version 2.0.54, Weather4D add Imray charting (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 …
APP4NAV discontinues the Android version of Weather4D
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 …
Geogarage to introduce ENC charts for Weather4D
Geogarage, the mapping platform of raster charts derived from official services, today introduced two ENC-S57 rasterized charts layers for Weather4D Routing & Navigation, covering ’Spain and Croatia. The recent update June, 12 th of the application allows the activation of these two new chart sets. Read more …
Weather4D and SailGrib improve the AIS network
Numerous AIS tracking networks broadcast over the internet are available. Among the best known : Marine Traffic, Vessel Finder, SiiTech, LocateEverything, and many others. One of these networks particularly stands out, AISHub, an AIS NMEA data sharing center, which offers developers an API allowing the integration of its network into applications, and therefore display of AIS targets received over the Internet directly into the application. Featured from the beginning in Weather4D Routing & Navigation, this system has made it possible to envisage new and particularly innovative services. Read more …
VMG / VMC – for dummies
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 …
Man Over Board
Credit: SNSM Bandol
Sailors have always been haunted by falling into the sea. Even with a trained crew, the operation of recovering a crew water fallen is risky, Already with the engine, even more with the sail. During my training years in Glénans Sailing School, Each boarding was an opportunity to systematically practice this maneuver, under sail, striving to come "die" heave to windward of the unfortunate, fortunately materialized by a buoy moored in a bucket as drift anchor. But that was not the real problem. It was above all not to lose sight of the crew, because come back to its fall position "reckoning" was virtually mission impossible. And still today, with our sophisticated electronic means, It's not as easy as you might think… Read more …
Weather4D – User Guides updated
Christmas comes soon, and Apple Books Store will close its doors for the holidays. Publishers are required to send their books according to a set schedule. So I updated the user guides in advance in French and in English for all three versions Lite, Routing and Routing & Navigation.
You will be able to discover in preview the latest news to be published around the Paris Nautic boat show. Read more …