Mobile device navigation

[Graham W]

I've just had a notification that my UK subscription for Navionics+, which I use on my elderly iPad and sometimes my iPhone, has come up for renewal for £35.  I don't use most of its features and the one I really want (other than daily chart updates), is synchronisation with my old Garmin GPS/fishfinder, which is not available.  If I want to update the Navionics-based charts on that, I have to use an app called Active Captain, the annual subscription details for which seem to be shrouded in secrecy, so I suspect £££.   This is grotesque as Garmin owns Navionics and the latter can be synchronised with virtually every other plotter brand on the market.

As I don't see why I should pay twice for the same information, I've been looking at alternatives.  I like the look of C-MAP, which like Navionics has the hard-edged contours that you need when looking at a less than perfect screen.  Savvy Navvy is pretty and says that it is trying to be the Google Maps of marine navigation, taking into account wind and tides when calculating potential routes.  However, its chart contours are too soft and don't show well on my iPad.  I couldn't seem to get into iNavX without spending large sums of money and it appears to be focused more on the Americas.

Does anybody have a personal app preference that they recommend, including any that I may have missed?  I did a forum search for the above apps and Navionics was mentioned by far the most.  One person mentioned C-MAP, one uses iNavX and no-one mentioned Savvy Navvy at all.  Note to their marketing department - drop the jokey app name!

[Sea Simon]

Don't forget to look at UKHO Admiralty Raster charts.

Visit my harbour gives you a bit of a free "feel" for these. Eg.
https://www.visitmyharbour.com/harbours/solent/hamble-marinas/chart/4AB4297C95841/hamble-and-approaches-chart

Personally, I far prefer this format to Navionics, and these raster charts seem to be widely available at very competitive prices.
The fully functional versions give zoom and seamless integration from one chart to the next.

I long ago gave up on the "integrated suite of instruments", approach because one bit or another always seem to be obsolete come repair time?
Eg. I'm looking at a boat at the moment on which there is a Nexus wireless wind system, integrated with plotter, fish finder, DSC etc...
The Nexus is obsolete, and a 2nd hand mast head fitting alone (no display) will cost £500!

Havenever tried savvy navvy, perhaps because a navvy, in my book, is a chap digging at the bottom of a hole, probably on a railway or canal?
Discount codes are available if you "dig about".... on 'tinternet

[Nick Orchard]

I haven't yet found the 'one-and-only' navigation app, and probably never will. Anyway, I quite like having more than one source of chart data as it can be a useful cross-check. I've been running Navionics+ on my B&G plotter for 6 years and I do like it, but as you say Graham, they are rather coy on their website about their pricing structure. Updates for the plotter version seem to be vastly more expensive than the phone/tablet versions. (Although they do let you view their charts online for free). However, it really can't be beaten for the detail of its bathymetric data, although UKHO comes close. If you like exploring up rivers and small inlets then check out the difference between Navionics and C-Map (or others) for the upper reaches of the River Dart, or the Avon at Bantham. Navionics is the only chart I know that will get you into Bantham. Garmin bought Navionics a while back so Navico, who own B&G, Lowrance etc, have bought C-Map so that they don't have to promote a competitor's product. I got a free copy with my B&G Vulcan but it was awful, so I paid for Navionics. I think they're steadily improving it but it's still not as good as Navionics.

My preferred alternative to Navionics is MemoryMap, which offers an annual subscription to all 850 odd UKHO charts for about £25 a year.  I like it because:
    I can also use OS maps on it when ashore.
    One licence covers you for desktop PC, laptop, tablet and phones etc with syncing between them.
    It's a doddle to plot a course and follow it, and it records your track.
    It's got a simple toggle between the map and a data page, and the data display can be configured how you want it. A particularly neat trick is that you can have different data pages if you hold the phone vertically or horizontally.
    I like the UKHO raster charts as you don't need to zoom in to check for hidden detail.
    You can transfer charts onto devices for off-line use.
    I've been using it for yonks so it's what I know

What's not so good about MM:
   Transferring charts to devices is a bit of a game I'd prefer not to play.
   It doesn't automatically change charts as you scroll or zoom, you have to select them manually

I also occasionally use Aquamap on my phone/iPad. £13.49 per year gets you the UK south coast, or I think about £20 gets you the whole UK. You can download chunks of your paid for area onto your phone as you need them. I like Aquamap's display which is very clear, and it also allows you to overlay satellite images with variable transparency, which is handy for checking out how well the chart lines up with reality. It also has a good anchor alarm which I use in preference to keeping my plotter switched on all night. (I usually forget to turn it off in the morning so get a fright just as I'm leaving the anchorage and the Klaxon goes off - happens every time!)

Just had a quick look at Savvy Navvy but can't say I was tempted by it. Interested to hear if anyone's got anything else they'd recommend.
   

[Sea Simon]

Thanks NO, useful.

I tend to use free Navionics from EOceanic site, pilotage info also pretty good.
Some free UKHO Admiralty raster on Visit my Harbour is usable, but the largest scale zoom seems to be blocked? Maybe this is what you're not seeing?

My UKHO Admiralty sub is via London Chart Plotters, Marine Navigator App, on a Samsung tough tablet that lives on the boat. This sub is locked to that one tablet, which is a bit of a pita. Not sure what happens when that goes fro a swim!
Positive seems to be that chart changes, by scrollling or zooming right in, are seamless. This also allows tracking, plotting etc.

The sub which you mentioned via Memory Map seems better in the multi-device respect, but not so good for practical nav in the cockpit?

If the navionics bathymetric data really is better, I wonder where they get their data from?
Afaik, UKHO and MCA produce the majority of it...some added by MOD? Maybe? I used to see some of that in a previous life; you'd be amazed what HMS Echo/Enterprise have mapped...together with Remus AUVs for littoral and submarine warfare.

There used to be available on the web a series of very detailed 3D fly-thrus (developed from multibeam sonar surveys) of several W country ports. Plymouth was amazing, just like someone had pumped all the water out!
Can't find them now. Military Security maybe?

If you dig about you can still sometimes find stuff like attached...which is probably more hydrographic detail of the lower reaches of Fowey Harbour than you'll ever need?

[Graham W]

Thanks Nick for two completely new (to me) sources of navigation information.  I've had Memory Map forever but until recently hardly ever used it because the purchase of charts seemed less than intuitive.

I persevered with it more recently because of the excellent West Coast of Scotland chartlets produced by Antares.  Thanks to your post, I find that hundreds of UKHO charts are available for very little money - there's almost too much to explore.

I'm less enthused about what I've seen of Aquamap.  The oligopolists seem to have better detail, curse them.  And Savvy Navvy appears to be more suited to soft-hued bedtime reading than real time navigation.

So I'll probably have to swallow my principles and hand money over to Garmin/Navionics, again.   Simon asked where the Navionics bathymetric data comes from.  I think it's from yottie depth sounders automatically (and possibly unknowingly) reporting back to Garmin through their Active Captain app.  With maybe some AI joining up any missing contour lines.  I'm sure that the Russians are very grateful.

[Graham W]

Bob Bradfield, who produces the marvellous Antares chartlets on Memory Map (at approximately 10x the scale of UKHO charts), writes as follows:
"It may interest you to know that I have started on a new series of charts specifically for shoal draught boats, drawing c. 0.5m or less. Hitherto I have tended to stop at chart datum but realise that for much of the lunar cycle there are large areas of water suitable for the anchoring of such boats, often offering more shelter than is available to deeper draught boats."

Here's a link to the Antares website http://www.antarescharts.co.uk/.

I can't wait to see the new series!

[Graham W]

Here for comparison purposes are screen shots of four different chart apps covering roughly the same area of the Medway Estuary.

The first is Navionics, which as you can probably see has plenty of clear detail and lots of functionality, curse them.  Second is C-MAP, which isn't bad and has the same colour scheme but perhaps less detail than the third, an HMSO raster map on Memory-Map.  Lastly Savvy Navvy, pretty to look at and handy for planning in advance using their wind and tidal atlas algorithms.  Not so easy to follow in real time when waves and the weather are causing distractions.

[Graham W]

Here are the same four apps zoomed in to show more detail.  In the same order as before - Navionics, C-MAP, HMSO raster and Savvy Navvy.

Navionics has its additional sonar imagery switched on as an option and shows quite a bit more detail than the next two.  C-MAP seems to zoom in more clearly than the HMSO raster, which has gone a bit fuzzy around the edges.  I've noticed that Savvy Navvy takes much longer to fire up on my ancient iPad than the other three, presumably because of the complicated wind and tide algorithms that it has to load.

[Graham W]

The first attachment on this one is another view from Navionics, showing a different way of looking at relief shading (one of several).  Navionics looks to be the only app that shows tidal channels running off the mud flats.  How accurate or useful these are is anyone's guess.

The second chart is from one of my favourite Memory-Map packages, Antares charts of the West Coast of Scotland.  Although it looks like an HMSO chart, these charts are produced privately and at about ten times the scale.  This particular chart is of part of a secret anchorage amongst small islands off the NE coast of Barra in the Outer Hebrides.

[Graham W]

If you're considering swapping over from the Apple ecosystem to Android, or vice versa, there is a potentially significant hidden cost.  Expenditure on apps in one system may count for little in the other, so you may have to buy them all over again.   More technology bunkers and oligopolistic practices.

If you can get your timing right (and it may be a big if), it might not be quite so bad with navigation apps like Navionics that charge an annual subscription.  And perhaps others that make money from in-app purchases may also present a loophole if you can somehow link back to the purchases in your existing account.  In particular Memory-Map, recently upgraded to Memory-Map for All, seems to be cross-platform and able to link to previous add-on purchases (such as Antares and UKHO charts) whatever platform you are on.  You may have to jump through a few hoops to achieve this but it should be worth it.  Bless!

[Graham W]

If you struggle to get the most out of the Navionics app on your mobile device, you might want to ask Santa for this book, which I think is due for publication this month https://www.bookharbour.com/navionics-boating-app-english-user-manual.  It's been translated from the German and I look forward to discovering which "translation errors" have slipped through the drafting process.

[Justin_G]

re the comment about "swapping over from the Apple ecosystem to Android" I use Navionics on both an Android tablet and an iPhone - both running off the same subscription. No need to pay twice.

[AndyB]

I have looked at all the tablet/phone charting apart from memory maps and AngelNav. I am waiting for AngelNav to come out on Android and take a look at that. I particularly like the creation of course to steer which mimics the paper method.

Having looked at and tried out Imray, Savvy, Navionics, OpenCpn, AFTrack-SE I have concluded that the first decision is whether you go Raster or Vector. The Solent where I sail there is a great number of raster maps of different scale which on paper makes a lot of sense but not on screen. If your area does not have so many raster maps all overlapping each other with different scale then raster would be a good option. If you are iPad (IOS) based then take a good look at AngelNav ( cheap subscription) and Imray which makes the best of merging the raster maps. I got Imray free when I updated my paper maps.  Vector maps give you this ability to zoom in and out and provide detail as you zoom in ( which you must remember to do!). Navionics was the best at doing this.

In the Solent I found that Navionics was far better for depth - which for a keel like the B26 is very important as it is not a swing keel. Navionics also benefited from users putting in their depth soundings. Savvy very little depth detail ( look at Newton Creek on the Isle of Wight to make a comparison).

I had Navionics without the subscription for many years but went back to subscription so I could display AIS on the map. The data came from the radio through NMEA0183 feed to Navionics.  I also quite like the way it shades depth depending on your keel but I am not sure that is part of the 'active subscription'

Have a look at https://www.navionics.com/gbr/apps/navionics-boating at the bottom and you will see what you get if you pay.

I have stayed with Navionics because of the depth detail, the way it removes detail as you pan out ( you just have to remember to zoom in to get the detail) and the speed of operation. It works well on a tablet as does Savvy but Savvy I think needs a few more years of sailing development as opposed to powerboat development. If you like raster and of the apple community then pick Imray ( it does work on Android but does not have AIS on Android) or AngelNav but you will need subscription for both of them.

Be warned Navionics only allows 2 mobile devices to be registered and then you have to pay another subscription. I have normally used 3!

[Graham W]

I have concluded that the first decision is whether you go Raster or Vector.

Away from the Solent, I think that it's a good idea to have both.  On my Android tablet I have Navionics for vector and Memory-Map for All for raster.  Especially as the latter hosts the brilliant Antares large scale raster chartlets covering the West Coast of Scotland.  Memory-Map also makes better and more extensive use of NMEA data.

Savvy Navvy (vector) looks pretty and is an interesting idea but I shan't be renewing my subscription.

[Graham W]

Carrying on with the NMEA theme, here's a question for true techies, asked out of curiosity rather than an intention to do anything about it.

The idea of using a tablet rather than an expensive fishfinder/plotter is a good one, with one disdadvantage if you have a networked instrument system like my elderly Tacktick.  Which is that although (through NMEA 183 and a multiplexer) the tablet can receive data like wind speed and depth from the Tacktick system, the tablet is unable to output position data like SOG and waypoints the other way around.  When I had my old Garmin hooked up, it could do that.  It's not a problem really, as the tablet is able to do all that sort of data display all by itself, using its built-in GPS.

The Sailproof has numerous ports, including R232 and ethernet.  It looks to me that if the tablet ran Windows rather than Android, it might be possible to set up a system with two-way traffic using a cable from one of those ports connected into an electronic gizmo made by someone like Quark or Digital Yacht.  Is there any such system that would run under Android or are they still catching up with Microsoft?  There's no chance of anything like that with an iPad as they only have one USB port and nothing else.  Ignore for the moment the danger of using open ports on a wet open boat like the BR20!