Panbo

The Marine Technology Hub

Category: Charts

Lessons of Vestas Volvo wreck, but what about the C-Map Grounding Alarm & similar? 44

Charts / When things go wrong...

Lessons of Vestas Volvo wreck, but what about the C-Map Grounding Alarm & similar?

Vestas_jibing_after_grounding_aPanbo.jpg

The fixed camera on the stern of Vestas Wind captured the worst possible unintended jibe. That’s when you’re blast reaching along at 19 knots through a tropical offshore night but then your Volvo Ocean 65 suddenly smashes its way up onto a reef shearing off the rudders and spinning 180° as waves and wind take total control. That is a frightened and nearly naked man beyond the limp main sheet and when watching the video you too may utter involuntary curses. No one was hurt, though, and the crew has been frank about the mistakes made. This has led to some useful conversations about the dangers of electronic charting, but it also reminded me of an uncommon electronic charting feature that might have prevented this shipwreck…

Navionics SonarCharts, now via SonarPhone or GPX file, plus the Lowrance autopilot 25

Fishing & Sonar / Charts

Navionics SonarCharts, now via SonarPhone or GPX file, plus the Lowrance autopilot

Navionics_Vexilar_iPad_app_aPanbo.jpgWow. Combining the Navionics Boating apps and the Vexilar SonarPhone WiFi fishfinder seems like an obvious developement now, but there are so many marine electronics integration possibilities these days that even the ripe low-hanging fruit can be surprising. Announced yesterday at ICAST (PDF here) and available for iPhone/iPad in August (and Android later), the combined Navionics SonarPhone app means that a small boater can have a fairly sophisticated plotter/fishfinder for about $200, phone or tablet not included (and note the issue of screen visibility in an open boat). I was impressed with the SonarPhone bobber-style T-Pod in April and suspect that SP200 T-Box small boat model works even better. And there’s more: The user of this system can very easily contribute their sonar logs to Navionics’ SonarChart collection, which they can access (along with chart updates) with an additional $25 Navionics+ annual subscription.

Navionics Boating app, now with free U.S. charts! 18

Fishing & Sonar / Wireless & Apps / Charts

Navionics Boating app, now with free U.S. charts!

Navionics_Boating_app_v7_w_US_Gov_chart_cPanbo.jpgThis is a significant surprise. Version 7.0 of the free Navionics Boating app released today for iPad and iPhone includes the ability to download and use NOAA vector charts, as seen above. Meanwhile, if you already own a Navionics Marine app for iOS, there’s a 7.0 update available which adds “Gov Charts” and the same feature will soon come to Android versions of both the Boating and Marine apps. Navigators who already use Navionics charts on a tablet or phone may find it useful to have NOAA data for comparison, but the big news is that any U.S. boater can now enjoy a Navionics level charting app completely free…

Raymarine LightHouse II, the chart goodness 11

Navigation / Charts

Raymarine LightHouse II, the chart goodness

Raymarine_LightHouse_II_chart_choices_cPanbo.jpg

A demo look at the new LightHouse Charts got me excited last fall and I feel more so now that I’ve cruised around with them. U.S. boaters who own Raymarine a-, c-, e-, or gS-Series multifunction displays will find that both types of reprocessed free NOAA charts install fairly easily, look good, and zoom/pan quickly. And though no LightHouse charts for waters beyond the U.S. have been announced, Raymarine clearly has the ability to produce them or permit third party cartographers like NV-Chart to do it themselves. Finally, Raymarine’s U.S. plotter models should hopefully cost a little less with free charts and Navionics has perhaps been motivated to up its game. (Whatever the motivation, significant new Navionics features are right around the corner.)

Raymarine LightHouse II, the paper chart lives on 21

Navigation / Charts

Raymarine LightHouse II, the paper chart lives on

Raymarine_LightHouse_II_w_NOAA_raster_chart_cPanbo.jpgIsn’t it interesting that just after we learned that NOAA will no longer print traditional paper charts, Raymarine announced that all its current plotters will soon be able to use the digitized ‘raster’ equivalent of those same NOAA charts? The “completely redesigned LightHouse II” software that will make this entirely free new feature happen is due out in December, but I got on the water with a beta version last week. I was impressed with how well the raster charts looked and how well they panned and zoomed, even in beta, and there’s much more to like about LightHouse II…

NV-Charts app, plus MyNOAACharts & PDFs 25

Charts

NV-Charts app, plus MyNOAACharts & PDFs

NV-Charts_paper_and_app_cPanbo.jpgNOAA’s Office of Coast Survey has been making news. We were just discussing changes to the Magenta Line on ICW charts when a reader (thanks, Collin) caught the announcement that OCS will stop printing traditional paper charts next April, which even got on NPR national radio. Charts lithographically printed on heavy paper are a beautiful technology and it hurts a bit to see them go, but I’m not it makes much practical difference. Personally I haven’t purchased one in long time (nor do I ever thrown them away) and I guess the mandatory carriage commercial vessels will do fine with print-on-demand charts and/or slowly proliferating ECDIS systems. At any rate, it seems like a good time to discuss how nicely the NV-Charts paper/digital package has evolved and also new ways that NOAA is distributing its cartography…

NOAA erases the Magenta Line, will crowdsourcing step up? 8

Charts / The Trade

NOAA erases the Magenta Line, will crowdsourcing step up?

NOAA_Inside_Route__3_1913_cPanbo.jpgWhen Peter Swanson called to say he’d just become PassageMaker’s new editor-in-chief (which he’ll be great at, I think), the conversation soon turned to our strong mutual interests in cruising, electronics and charts. That’s how I finally learned that NOAA has started to remove the magenta chart lines that guide many users of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and that they may never be replaced. Peter wrote about the issue in August, and NOAA recently put up a notably well-crafted Federal Register article that seeks more comments from the public. That’s where I learned that the brightly colored “recommended route lines” began on a 1913 chart series called the Inside Route Pilot — fascinating sample above, full size here — and that they haven’t been comprehensively updated since the 1930’s, when taxpayers spent a lot of money expanding the ICW (and creating jobs)…

Improved current data? Let the IHO know you care. 7

Navigation / Charts / Weather

Improved current data? Let the IHO know you care.

IHO_Surface_Current_Survey_page_cPanbo.jpgMaybe you too have an opinion about how predicted currents should be overlaid on electronic charts?  Well, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) is developing an S-100 specification for “the delivery and presentation of navigationally significant surface currents” and right now they’re running a online survey of all interested parties. What waters do you care about (coastal for me)? What prediction frequency would you like? Are you willing to pay? How should the data look? And more…

Onboard R/V Falkor, the Google “See Inside” way 6

What's on board... / Charts

Onboard R/V Falkor, the Google “See Inside” way

Google_Inside_RV_Falcor_helm_cPanbo.jpgI was blown away, partially due to the timing. Just after writing about how apps can make fascinating historical cartogrphy easily accessible, I learned about a fascinating advance in 21st century mapping. I’d guess that most every Panbo reader has marveled at the seamless panoramic photography found in Google Street Maps; well, now it’s possible to use very similar technology to tour inside a ship, and the vessel Google chose for the first demonstration is a corker…

Historical cartography, a Skipper app first? 3

Charts

Historical cartography, a Skipper app first?

Skipper w historical topo basemap.jpgI was testing the new marine navigation app Skipper when I realized that historic topos were among the many “base maps” it can display along with regular NOAA raster charts. Skipper has some interesting features (to be covered soon), but I’ve been waiting a long time for this historic angle. Haven’t marine electronics and software become so powerful that they can help us with more than just the ‘work’ of operating a boat? As in my hopeful 2005 comment that “one day PC/plotter memory will be so abundant that historical charts will be included in navigation packages just for the fun of it!” Of course I didn’t realize then that tablet computers with wireless broadband Internet connections would come along, and aren’t they dandy for accessing the ever growing cloud of cartography?