Having just blown our year’s budget on a new smart phone we thought we would have a look into the latest and greatest boating and marine related smart phone apps that no mariner should be without.
Navionics
Price: £17.49
Industry leaders in digital marine cartography since what seems like the beginning of boating history….Ever wondered why Columbus discovered America when looking for the West Indies….well we can officially reveal for the first time ever that he had forgotten the charger for his smart phone loaded with the NNavionics app. The crafty explorer had it stashed in his gargantuan cod piece and snuck a look whilst the crew were having a nap or pissed on rum until the faithful day when the battery died and hey presto America.
Available on both iPhone and android smart phones the Navionics app gives you high quality vector-based chart where ever you are, on land or sea in the palm of your hand.
The Navionics Marine: UK and Netherlands package is what most UK boaters will be after but there are many other versions including Europe, Australasia and the Caribbean.
Mapping is based on Navionics Gold Charts which are pretty expensive to buy online and normally retail at about £180, a huge difference from the £17.49 you can buy the app for.
The app displays many useful features including tide height, current information, vessel position and heading. Tapping and holding the chart allows the user to view a context menu of chart objects within the vessel vicinity such as routes, waypoints, photos, marina info and buoys.
The tidal information is extremely useful, there are apps on the market that deal solely with tidal info but laying the tidal data over the chart is a useful tool. The tide stations are identified on the map as a diamond with a letter T. Each tidal station displays a host of useful info and tapping on them displays the up to date daily tidal curve. You can choose to view data by date or time via use of a simple time bar at the bottom of the screen. The data goes further displaying tidal flow displaying flow and speed in a similar way to that of tidal height.
The functions just keep coming with this app and include such things as route planning, photo tagging, Face Book integration and much more.
The Navionics app is great value for money and without doubt the best chart plotting application available for mobile devices.
Anchor Watch
Price: £0.69
Have you ever been worried about the position of your craft whilst you are catching up on some well earned sleep, well worry no more Anchor Watch uses the GPS on your Smartphone to monitor your boat’s position.
If the boat moves outside of the limits you have set then the app will sound an audio, popup or email alert, it also has the ability to alert you via flashing text, alarm or even call another phone. In essence this means that you no longer have to worry about your craft
dragging in a strong current or wind when you are resting, a quick look at the screen will put your fears to rest.
You can set Anchor watch to run in the background allowing you to use your Smartphone for other activities whilst anchor watch keeps an eye over your crafts position.
The maps are based on the www.openseamap.org data.
Boating Suite
Price: £2.99
Boating Suite is designed to help you manage all aspects of life onboard your boat.
The app covers management of multiple boating activities including logging your trip, tracking your fuel, maintenance and boating expenses.
The Boating Suite app contains the following features:
Log Book: Keep detailed records of each and every trip you take recording data such as engine hours, air temp, crew members and weather conditions.- Fuel Log: Keep track of all fuel purchases and track your fuel economy.
- Maintenance Log: Detailed maintenance history at your fingertips.
- Expense Log: Maintain detailed records of all boating related expenses…whether it’s engine oil or life jackets.
- To Do List: Owning a boat means you have a perpetual to-do list…this module will keep it together.
- Shopping List: Enter the stuff you need when it runs out or when it pops in your head. Now you won’t forget when you’re at the marine store.
- Reports: Get detailed usage and expense reports instantly. Select the date range and information that you want to see. It’s that simple.
- Share your trips with family and friends. All reports, logs and entries can be sent to anyone via email.
Boating Suite is perfect for the casual boater or seasoned captain to keep a log of all goings on whilst out on the boat.
Price £2.99
Wind Guru
Price: FREE
Provides Wind, weather and wave data from over 3000 locations around the world – not alot more to say about this one.
Emergency Distress Beacon
Price: FREE
Don’t want to be stuck up S**t creek without a paddle, download the Emergency Distress beacon. This app on activation sends out an email to the recipient of your choice containing your latitude and longitude coordinates……handy in case of emergency.
Ship Finder
Price: £2.99
Just in case your eyes aren’t working properly and you can’t see the 3000 tone super tanker bearing down on your position Ship finder provides near real time virtual radar AIS Maps. Showing you all the large craft in your vicinity.
Ship finder picks up AIS ship feeds used by all passenger vessels and large ships over 300 tones over its global network.
Great if you don’t want to get squished, alternatively getting squished may result in the perfect opportunity to test out your freshly downloaded Emergency Distress Beacon app.
Finally the app no boater can live without:
Boating Swimsuit
Price: Free
24 videos and loads of photos of the hottest boats of 2011 with the Boating Magazine swimsuit model draped all over them….perfect for those lonely nights at sea, at least the anchor watch app will keep an eye on your craft whilst you are distracted by the boating hotties….nice.
So there you go, our recommendations of what apps you need to have a successful day out on your boat, the only thing to do now is to try not to get your Smartphone wet…..good luck.
