London Olympics: Following the Sailing Online

I remember sitting on the grassy slopes of the Nothe on Friday. In front of me the 49ers were flying across the water, drawing a streaky white line of spray.

But my attention was diverted, as there were others battling courses further out on the waters of Weymouth.

I could follow one on the large screen which showed Big Ben fighting the Great Dane, but what about the Star or Laser Radial classes?

For them it was the iPad (above), using the excellent Olympics results application to track the standings at each mark.

The Navionics app on the iPhone meanwhile was being used to check the tidal flows.

Finally the iThings were also doing Facebook updates and saying hello to those who were watching the streamed video.

Phew! Information overload! Just about found time to take a few photos.

So even if you don't have a ticket for the sailing there are other ways of following the action, and the best option is to watch it "live" on TV.

Good luck to Ben Ainslie, Ian Percy and Bart Simpson!

SAC: Paper charts vs Raymarine chartplotter vs iNavX on iPad / iPhone

Its a good idea not to rely on a single source of navigational information.

To sail to the Arctic Circle we had charts in paper form, plus chartplotter plus iNavX on iPad. On the last day before leaving in a moment of you-can't-be-too-careful I also bought the charts for iNavX on my iPhone as well.

So how did they compare?

Paper Charts

It's a good idea to have these just in case of a catastrophic failure of the electrical system and we did get them out from storage as we progressed along our route. However we didn't actually use them much, apart from when planning approaches to land, and then mostly by Tristan as I'd just pull out my always to hand iPhone.

A backup then, not the primary tool for navigation.

Raymarine Chartplotter

This was in practice the main navigation tool, located as it was on the chart table handy for the log book. It was also integrated into the other electronics, such as the VHF's DSC, the radar and the AIS (which stands for Automatic Identification System). The AIS meant that if the radar spotted something you usually could put the cursor over the target and get the ship name, heading etc and if necessary could call them over the VHF by name.

The data it used was Navionics, so actually the same charts as used by the iPhone and iPad.

Generally it worked well though there were some weird things. As previously blogged at times the change in latitude and COG were not consistent and that was worrying, particularly, such as when trying to make Reykjavik without tacking, it mattered.

The AIS sometimes seemed to think the empty seas not worth waking up for and fail to work, plus the radar could interfere with the GPS lock, but it did its job (unless you really, really needed a COG that you could trust).

iNavX on iPad

I was pretty pleased with this. It had the same Navionics chart as the chartplotter and could do similar calculations of COG, manage waypoints, routes etc. While it didn't connect to the radar and AIS it has the ability to do so (wirelessly I guess) plus it had the ability to download weather data in GRIB form.

It could also be used safely on deck due to the waterproof case which for pilotage, for example through the Faroe Islands (above), was pretty useful. It created the track which could then be exchanged via Transverse with the iPhone (and vice versa) or emailed in KML format.

This was all great but using the iPad with GPS on all through the Faroes drained the battery and then when plugged into the 12 volt socket it went all "I'm too magical for this dirty power supply" and refused to re-charge, which meant it was useless until Iceland.

Yes I did test it out on Goldeneye, but alas while attached to shore power.

Moral of story: test electronics when disconnected from shore power.

iNavX on iPhone

The iPhone was a bit more tolerant of the low amps and varying voltages of the yacht's power supply and charged just fine. The software was similar but not exactly identical to that on the iPad - sometimes in a better way (for example its easier to say "Goto waypoint" on the iPhone than iPad). Again the charts were from Navionics.

Of course the screen's a lot smaller but when the magical iPad gave up we had to rely on it for downloading and viewing GRIBS. So that last minute urge to have the iPhone as a backup to the iPad turned out to be a good one.

However the next / back on-screen buttons for the GRIBs were way too small.

There was one strange omission on iNavX on both iPad and iPhone which was the lack of tidal data (or at least I couldn't find it). But if you downloaded the Navionics application (chart) you could click on the map and see tidal flow and direction.

Conclusion

Paper charts seem expensive when you consider how they're not often used, but then they're like EPIRBs, you need then to be there just in case.

But Navionics did rather well out of us as we bought the same data four times (chartplotter, iNavX iPad, iNavX iPhone, Navionics app iPhone) which all added up.

There was no ideal do it all solution, and maybe its not right to rely on just the one. The iPad was pretty good, but would be better iNavX also had tidal flows and the magical device could be recharged.

The reality was that the Raymarine chartplotter was what we used the most, integrated as it was with the rest of the yacht's systems.

However think of this: as we approached Reykjavik the only device onboard that could reliably give us our COG and determine whether we should tack or not was a phone.

Software review: iNavX for iPad

For the sail we're planning this summer we're planning on using a range of navigation tools, including paper and chart plotter, but also iNavX for the iPad.

The reason for not using a laptop was two fold: firstly we didn't have one available and secondly the iPad is actually easier to make waterproof (touching wood at this point). Combined with the iNavX software it seemed to give a pretty flexible tool.

So far, checking it out on land, I've been impressed. Its not like Navionics just a chart display program as allows you to define waypoints and routes plus download GRIBs of weather information including wind strength and direction and wave heights.

To get the GRIBs while offshore a satellite phone is needed and in this case we used an Iridium phone. The standard USB cable doesn't work so instead we used the Iridium Axcess point which turns the phone into a very slow wifi hotspot.

Again a bit of practice was required but it seems to do the job.

To download charts for Europe you need an X-traverse account, but then its pretty straight forward. You have to buy online and then download within the application and then they get backed up to you computer which is a bit backwards but I'm blaming Apple's 30% AppStore cut for that.

My only grievance is that you have to buy them twice if you want it to be both on your iPhone and iPad which is a bit cheeky if you ask me.

Anyhow looks like being a good option for offshore sailing and will report back after return.


Updated: see comparison with paper charts and chartplotter here.

Review: Navionics Mobile Charts

Following on from yesterdays iPad review here's another, of the Navionics Mobile Charts, and to be honest it's a bit disappointing.

Maybe its the glow of a recent purchase and seeing something about entering lat/longs directly made me think there was iNavX style features. But no, waypoints can only be entered by finger taps on screen.

There are some nice features, such as ability to overlay Google or Bing! maps:

And as before there is a pretty graphic to show tidal rates and directions:

But the round the island route had only a little more functionality than Google Earth's path tool.

It's not a serious navigational tool, it's like a coffee table book: nice to look at and talk about. The market is social, for occasions where trips are planned or talked about afterwards.

As the warning goes: not to be used for navigation.

Get iNavX instead and download the charts you need.

Navionics and the iPad

Oh my golly goshes....

Today showed shocking lack of self control. There was a PC World between my train station and home - ok, not exactly, but only a little way off - and found myself walking in and.....oh wow, what a co-incidence.... its the UK iPad launch date. And what's this email just received this afternoon? Navionics charts available for iPad?

Yup, I now am what can only be described as playing with my new toy.

Full review to come, but it looks gorgeous.

iPad and the Planets

It's a good time for the tech-head, with the Apple iPad out in the US and oh so anticipated here in blightly land.

So it's probably not a coincidence that today there was a whole host of new releases of iPhone apps, including the Navionics charts. Must admit am really looking forward to seeing what they look like on the iPad - proper size charts for a reasonable price.

Alas my iPhone is completely full - it's the 16 GB 3G version and just out of contract but think it might be worth waiting till June/July to get the next version. The buzz on the tech blogs is "HD" - better screen and camera, but for me I'm hoping there'll be a 64 GB version.

So at the moment spending my time deleting apps, which makes reviewing the V4 Navionics impossible. But one that stayed in was the Planets app, which shows the location of the planets in the sky wrt the main constellations, as in the screen-shot above.

And it's been very useful in weeks passed to spot Mars and last night Venus & Mercury (see above for their positions at 8pm BST in London), so big thumbs up here.

No doubt there are others in the increasingly hard to navigate Apple Store, and again these are the sorts of app that would be wonderful on the iPad.

Update: Yes! "Planets" is an iPad app so no doubt it will look just great on that big screen.

Navionics iPhone Chart V3.2

What's this? Is it an update to the Navionics iPhone Charting App?

Yes it is! Oh no - I hope it doesn't include loads of new features that will take ages to blog.

Lets have a look..... hmmm... no, looks like will be ok this month. The only new feature spotted is it now shows the distance and heading from one purple pin to the other in the top toolbar.

Ok, that's that done, time to put feet up and finish a book, and if it's any good will blog on it another day.

iPhone Apps in Yachting World

This month's Yachting World has an interesting article about sailing applications for the iPhone.

It lists a couple of the most useful ones, some of which don't have yet, like tide information and wind meter apps. Other's have already installed and tried out, like the Immray Rules and Signals which blogged earlier.

Unsurprisingly the Navionics Charts get a starring role - and their summary is something can quite agree with "the usefulness of the waypoints is compromised by the lack of VMG, COG, and SOG".

So listen up Navionics and add some of these features!

Navionics iPhone Charts 4 wish list

I've still not got round to mock-ups of how the Navionics iPhone App should look in an ideal work. Something to do with too much work I guess, but here's a few ideas.

1) The screen is getting a bit complex: it might be an idea to have separate views for different tasks

2) Example of different views:

a) Chart all screen

b) Chart half screen, other half four numbers (configurable)

c) Numbers eight numbers (configurable)

d) Route editor

e) Way point editor

f) General settings

3) Lower control area: at the bottom rather than lots of buttons have just a few, e.g.

a) arrow button to previous view

b) button to bring up configuration options (show / hide ruler, waypoints etc)

c) user configurable / multi-mode button

d) arrow button to next view

4) Numbers in views b) and c) should be selectable from:

a) latitude

b) longitude

c) predicted depth

d) predicted tide rate

e) predicted tide direction

f) course over ground

g) speed over ground

h) distance to next waypoint

i) velocity made good to next waypoint

j) predicted time to next waypoint

k) distance to end of route

l) predicted time to end of route (you will not believe how long people will spend looking at this particular entry, particularly at 3 in the morning)

m) current waypoint number

5) Route screen used to create, modify, select, delete a route, with action button to select next active waypoint and setting option to specify distance to waypoint that counts as reaching it

6) Waypoints screen should allow a database of waypoints to be managed i.e. added, modified, deleted, with configuration options including latitude, longitude, name

7) When entering latitude / longitude it could be ok to use the standard keyboard but it would be nice to pre-select that its in number mode not character.

8) Actually, do what most software developers do and "borrow". Go buy a yacht racing GPS unit, see what functionality it offers and how its interface works, then try to make it better.

Navionics Charts V3.0

Oh, the excitment, its another full point release of the Navionics iPhone Mediterranian charts going up to V3. And that is a number full of geeky significance, as it is usually the third release that finally an application hits its stride.

But, oh no! What is this? Are there the waypoint editors? Is there SOG or VMG?

Alas no, none of those features can be found: all can see that is new is the little padlock on the bottom left of the screen that can be used to lock the screen, so it updates but has battery friendly lower screen brightness.

I am underwelmed, and really must post my ideas on to add lots of lovely new features while at the same time cleaning up a user interface.

Another time...

Navionics Charts V2.2.1

There's been another update to the Navionics charting software from V2.1 to V2.2. Just as had got round to updating my iPhone there was another to V2.2.1

Traditionally versions of the form a.b.1 are a bug fix of the a.b release, so hopefully only need to do a single post.

So whats new.....er... ah.... I'll find it in a moment .... yes - there it is!!

There is a new button to upload routes to Facebook: hmm... that would be very useful if I ever needed to upload a route to Facebook. But I don't so to be honest thats not such a big deal.

Not entirely sure where Navionics are going with their updates. I mean there's so much that should be done with waypoints and working out COG etc for sailors and racers, but it seems like they have someone else in mind.

Someone who has a motor yacht, potters around the Med, spot of fishing, likes to brag about their exploits to their mates, posting pics and routes on Facebook and probably is impressed rather than put off by the latest scandal from Italian PM Berlusconi.

I guess the rest of us will have to keep waiting......

Aegean Mini Pilot: Pigadhi

Its the final day of the sailing blogs review group writing challenge, and its also the last of these mini pilots from the Greek Aegean. For those wanting more, you could check out the cruising wiki site here though it seems a bit out of date and the Orei page doesn't mention the magnificent marble bull.

The final port of call was the fishing village of Pigadhi on the mainland and an easy sail to the Sunsail base. Maybe because of that it seems all geared up for the many flotillas that find it a conveniently easy short day sail (as in this write up in the Daily Telegraph travel section).

As you turn into the bay in which it nestles as in the Navionics chart picture above, you can check where you are going the right way with two convenient landmarks.

Firstly there is a rectangular tower on the top of the hill to the left: this commemorates the local legend that Pigadhi is where Achilles left to fight the Trojan war. Secondly on the headland to the right there is what is known as Toad Rock:

Hmmm.. could be a bunny rabbit as well.

Pigadhi itself is a small fishing village, basic rather than pretty. Maybe because of the regular visits from the flots it didn't feel like it had to make much of an effort.

Yes a local did rush out to help with our lines, but there was a clear quid pro quo in that he just happened to be the owner of a taverna, and a taverna with a big Sunsail! flag, and with menu order forms conveniently labelled with boat name (useful for the larger flots).

And the food wasn't that great, either in range on the menu or quality when it turned up.

It was a winding down, tomorrow's the last day sort of place.

Summary

Harbour fees: none

Rating: *****

Best bit: er..... hmmm.... let me get back to you on that one.

Aegean Mini Pilot: Skopelos Town

Skopelos is a movie star sort of town. Actually it really is, being yet another of the places that was used as sets by the (in)famous Mamma Mia!

It really is very pretty, where the paint salesman asks whether you want your house painted in white or, er, white. And the pretty, white, houses are stacked up a hill, with lots of little alley ways between them.

And to make it even prettier there are churches. Lots of churches. In fact there are meant to be 123 churches and chapels in Skopelos!

Anyhow some pilot stuff. The port is very well protected against wind from every direction, with hills on most side, down which Katabatic winds come pouring down. But only for a short time, as always in Greece it quietened down in the evening.

There is a long quay side which gives plenty of room for a full flotilla plus the odd boat like us to get in with plenty of space for others. There are also protected anchorages where a big Oyster 65 decided to keep well away from us plebs: they even had staff in uniform with a tender to woosh the guests in for dinner.

And thats a very good idea - the dinner bit I mean - as there are lots of lovely bars and tavernas in this really amazingly pretty town:

The only down side for me was at this point my sea urchin embedded foot was beginning to say Oi! You! Stop walking, swallow a bucket of paracetemol and go to bed!

Fab town though.

Summary

Harbour fees: there were some! For our 423 it was maybe all of 2 Euros

Rating: *****

Best bit: The view from the bar we found (see pic above)

Aegean Mini Pilot: Steni Vala

We weren't sure how far we'd get and at one point almost stopped at Patitiri, but it looked too busy and not that attractive so pushed on to Steni Vala and we were so glad we had.

Steni Vala is a lovely little harbour half way up Alonissos with almost nothing there. In the Navionics chart above all you can see is that there is a submarine cable marked. It's almost as if its their secret hideaway and they want to keep it like that.

To be fair there really isn't that much there: a concrete quay side with mooring rings, a couple of tavernas, a few bars, a couple of shops, and thats it.

Oh, not quite: there are a couple of paths out, like the one below that takes you over a headland to a beach with crystal clear water.

And the tavernas and bars were just right: great food, friendly staff, so we had lovely fried battered cougettes, more sea food and chips and then headed off for a night cap beer under the stars at the bar at the far end.

I'm guessing it might get a bit packed if more than a few boats head in there. There were only a few while we were there, including a Sunsail cat with four young Italian couples who wore swimwear all the time - so "ciao" to them.

Three words of warning:

1) There are rocks close to the quay that mean the depth guage can be misleading. We parked so that the rudder was just over this lump that we bounced on once or twice and had to move out a few metres. But the water is very clear so you can look under the hull to see them

2) The water maybe lovely clear but there are sea urchins there too!

3) The bars mix a mean gin and tonic.

Steni Vala was our favourite stop anywhere, even with sea urchins.

Just look at this water....

Summary

Harbour fees: none

Rating: *****

Best bit: Steni Vala was the best bit

Aegean Mini Pilot: Koukounaries

After Orei we next stopped at Koukounaries on the south coast of Skiathos. It's main claim to fame is is apparently "one of the top ten beaches of the world", so you'd have thought it would be a good place to stop.

Alas we were not that impressed. Firstly there was the problem of where to park - check out the chart extract above from Navionics. The harbour was tiny and of the limited space about half was taken up by fishing boats, while the rest during the day is taken up by day tripper tourist boats.

As they leave in the evening there was a rather inelegant rush to get one of the two or three berths along side the quay. We decided not to join the scrum and anchored off the south side with shore line wrapped round a lamp post.

It was rather exposed especially to the south and alas that was not only where the wind was coming from but also a mysterious tsumani like short burst of swell (probably from one of those fast ferry cats passing by way out to sea).

It felt very dramatic as the yacht bounced up and down and waves crashed onto the rocks but a quick check of the depth guage showed we went from an even 2m under the keel to ranging between 1.8 and 2.2 m.

Not knowing when it might hit us again we decided laying the kedge as well would be a good idea:

After all the day trippers had gone home the bay quietened down considerably and it was time to check out the famous beach.

While we had our faithful Nemo to hand, but of course to one who will happily jump into piranha or sea urchin infested waters there was clearly a better way to get to shore.

The water was lovely and clear and it was noticable how much warmer it got the closer in we swam.

But when we got there it was just another beach, with a slightly forlorn, deserted feel to it: empty sunbeds, closed stalls and sun shades angled at random.

So it was back to the boat for dinner on board while the sun set and the stars came out.

Summary

Harbour fees: none

Rating: *****

Best bit: the peace and quiet in the evening after the day trippers have gone

Aegean Mini Pilot: Orei

First of a series of reviews of the places visited in the Sunsail bareboat sailing trip, which I'm calling a mini Pilot as aspire to a Pilot Book level of detail but alas only have a time to type a few paragraphs. But hopefully they will be of use to someone nethertheless.

Anyhow starting off with the chart above, thanks to the Navionics iPhone app. As you can see there is good shelter when winds come from most directions apart from the south-west, and when we were trying to get in there was a thunder and lightening (very very frightening) coming from the - you guessed it - the south west. Our first two goes at mooring up were the stuff that is more fun to watch than execute.

However as happens most of time the clouds blew by leaving a nice sunset and we were soon walking along the quayside.

Orei isn't a particularly pretty town: more workmanlike than picture postcard. However there is a nice pedestrianised stretch of road by the water's edge with many tavernas and comfy chairs that tempt the passer by to linger over more than a few glasses.

We were promised a good (as in cheap) supermarket but think the "super" is over doing it as it wasn't much different from the stores at the other places we went to. It was however definitely cheaper than the shop by the Sunsail flotilla base, and they threw in a six-pack of water bottles free.

The supermarket can be found behind the church (the northerly one on the chart above) which is pleasant rather than amazing and there was a service just finishing as we walked by so heard some nice Greek Orthdox plain chant.

The best reason to go to Orei is the Hellenistic statue of a bull (below) which is on display in a glass and wood display just next to the church.

It is a full size marble bull full of lovely details that dates from the 4th Century BC, and was dredged up from the harbour.

Summary

Harbour fees: none

Rating: *****

Best bit: the marble bull so if that doesn't float your boat go elsewhere.

Review: Sailing with Navionics iPhone Charts

Before heading off for my Sunsail bareboat charter holiday reviewed earlier, took the time to download some Navionics charts. It was an even better deal than before, costing around US $10 for the whole of the Meditarranian.

So what was it like to use it actually on a boat?

We had effectively three different navigation tools:
1) Chart, Pilot Book and eyes
2) On deck chart plotter
3) iPhone Navionics charts Version 2.1

The chart plotter and Navionics both showed similar chart data as can be seen by the screen above. We could have put in way points to Navionics but to be honest as have mentioned before have found it a clumbersome process, so didn't bother to test that functionality.

I did switch on the "Track" function and it does work as can be seen in the screen shot above. The track is shown as a red line and then the arrow shows the direction of travel based presumably on the last few fixes.

However that only works if you keep the iPhone switched on and if the power saving mode switches it off you end up with big jumps, as in the figure below:

The 255V socket on the boat didn't seem to function unless we were connected to shore power so wasn't able to charge onboard (this wasn't a problem as could just plug it in to recharge at any restaurants we stopped at).

The chart plotter had a very useful predicted line based upon current COG (course over ground) which Navionics does not, and in general it is very helpful. However there was some debate over accuracy at one port where our COG on the chart plotter intersected the land but simple eye-balling suggested we were just fine.

I'm not sure whether that was due to there being a lot of lee-way or due to inaccuracies in the GPS (which we should never forget can have significant errors in its data).

But there was a bigger question here - why use GPS, whether chart plotter or Navionics, at all?

Because in practice we were doing day sails island hopping and we could almost always just look up and see some form of easily identifiable landmark. The pilot books in particular had a wealth of information including historical points of interest and even the names of the taverna owners.

And there is a danger of always looking down at the instruments, not least we spend our working days gazing at a screen do we really want to spend our holidays doing the same?

Having said that there was point at which the Navionics iPhone application proved its worth. There was something on the paper charts which might have been a reef or it might have been a smudge due to a retsina spill, but which was it?

Out with the iPhone, couple of drags and zooms, and yup it's a smudge!

Phew - and so we sailed on with confidence.

More Navionics Screenshots

Recently I was reading about sailing on England's east coast and it was fun to be able to pull up the charts of Felixstowe just like that using my Navionics charts on my iPhone.

I've done a bit more exploring of the V2 update but to be honest kept on wondering if it was me or the software that wasn't quite right. In the end checked out their help pages (which you can find here) and decided it wasn't me.

What I was trying to do was set the waypoints at specific lat/long points, or move existing ones set to new locations, and was not successful.

But there are definite plus points for this release, like the new tide graphics that show direction and strength:

You can move the little sniper sights circle to the time you're interested in which is fun. There is also a water height screen:

If you want the raw numbers just like in the almanac well here they are:

There's also a screen with the way points on them and heading / distance for each segment, which would be a good place to put those waypoint editing screens (hint hint):

I had terrible trouble with the way point edit function and basically decided the only option was to do it right first time, which given the imprecise touch screen is pretty unlikely.

While the tide prediction seems to have lost the implausible discontinuities of previous versions the feature to highlight areas with insufficient depth seems to have its own bugs. In the pic below there are all sorts of dangerous banks outside Felixstowe, and Navionics seem to truncate them.

Interestingly if you zoom in the fill is correct.

I did try and show off the "Track" option which shows a wiggly line of where you've been (ok, if you steer brilliantly maybe you'd get a straight line). I did this on the train to work (check out the times of the screenshots) and it was a dismal failure.

There are two problems:
1) Was very rarely able to get GPS lock in the train carriage
2) The iPhone kept switching into standby to save power

So what? you are probably thinking. Well if you use the GPS a lot and stop the going into standby then the iPhone battery will drain like there is no tomorrow. So the only way of really doing the track is to be plugged into a power, such as by the nav station, which of course would be useful place to see it.

But of course the nav station is below deck, and so there would be some attenuation of the GPS signal, maybe not as much as in a train but certainly some.

Hence what you want is outdoor electrics, which you don't often do on a sail boat but might on some form of gin palace.

Together with the inability of the depth colour feature to take account of tides makes me wonder if the target market is motor yachts in the Med.

Co-incidently Navionics is an Italian company!



Note: newer Navionics iPhone post here and previous post here

Quick review: Navionics iPhone Charts V2

Quick update as just downloaded the latest version of the Navionics iPhone charts application. The ongoing laptop problems mean probably didn't downloaded as soon as possible (sorry to those Googling for reviews of it)

It's a full point update, to V2.0 no less. There is an argument you should never buy release 1 of any software so now is a good time to look again at it.

And the initial impressions are good - we have waypoints (hurrah, pic above), there is the ability to track the ship's position on the screen, you can also select cruising speed and fuel consumption (see below)

Fuel consumption sounds like Navionics are aiming more at the motor boat market than sailing.

I've been trying to do things like enter way points directly as lat/longs which is pretty crucial, and move them around having created a route, but all have managed to do is create a lot of new way points. Maybe because of that there is a very useful "undo" feature - kudos to Navionics for that as undo is not as easy to implement as it is to use!

I've also been trying to find the "all new" tide display tools, but that seems to need the full charts rather than the free ones, and those files are so large that it requires the laptop to be ready to download from the Apple store.

More later when had a chance to download the software for the full charts. I might (gasp) even have to see if can find a User Guide (the horror, the horror)


Note: update with more screenshots here.

Review: Navionics iPhone Charts V1.6 (again)

I got all excited over the weekend when iTunes downloaded an update to my Navionics chart application but on examination not sure what has changed - indeed it is labelled V1.6 just as the old one ones (probably part of ongoing laptop malaise which you don't want to know about).

However no harm in showing it again as have only just worked out how to get screenshots without using a camera. Ok, call me slow, but holding down the Menu and Off buttons at once doesn't seem to be the most intuitive of interfaces.

The first two pictures show the feature which tints locations for which there isn't sufficient depth blue. In this case they are around Cowes, with the picture above depth set to 2m and below to 5m.

But, and its big but, it uses depth of water given by chart datum, not taking into account tides.

Given the extreme tidal ranges we get - for example 6m on the Thames in central London - that is rather a significant flaw. And in theory Navionics software should know about tides.

However the tidal flow rate algorithm it uses appears to be bug ridden, so I for one wouldn't trust it. The figure below shows the prediction for a point off Portland Bill, near Weymouth Harbour (ignore that Plymouth text). Note the rather strange discontinuities.



I'm still hoping it will be updated at some point to full iNavX style functionality, but looks like will have to continue being patient.

Update! Version 2 software first impressions and screenshots.

Older posts on Navionics were as follows:
- Review: Navionics iPhone Charts V1.6
- Review: Navionics iPhone Charts Update
- Review: Navionics Charts