In this update I thought I would share some of the ways we get our info onboard, like weather and navigation.
When we did the refit we decided to try and make the boat simple and easy to work. This applies to all the modifications we have done or plan to. With the electronics we run a 16nm radar (Furuno) and have a iPad for navigation. We also carry paper charts of all local areas we plan to visit or may have to in case of emergency. There are four independent GPS's onboard with the iPad and iPhone having internal GPS's that work very well. We run the iPhone 4 and 64GB iPad with 3G as these have the GPS function. On both of them we also run the two main chart apps iNavX and also Navionics. I have to say I prefer the Navionics user interface more than the iNavX but iNavX has better functionality and allows me to overlay the AIS we receive via the Standard Horizon VHF we have installed. They hang a little sometimes just for a few seconds but it annoys me as you need instant information sometimes entering unknown areas. I use mine for transits a lot and verifying where we are not ever relying fully on it. Other cool features are the anchor alarm and also the google overlays you can do as below. We also run the boats NMEA data to a wi-fi router from Digi wireless serial server that works great. Once you connect the iPad to the network, which is all very easy to set up you get all your AIS information from the Standard VHF displayed on the screen. We in turn keep the iPad in a waterproof case from aqua pac in the cockpit and she's there on the ready when we need her. It worked great on the way down as we had a ship on the port side disappear as we were entering a squall but the iPad allowed us to monitor him all the way through it.
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