Many people are being woo 'ed by the cheap Navionics (and Garmin I believe) apps for iPhones and iPads. I have been experimenting with using an Ipad as my principal chart plotter and have concluded that the concept is a non-starter.

I have been cruising the east coast of South America over the last three years from top to bottom (and back). The C-Map coverage on my chart plotter for many of the places I have been to has been non-existent. The Navionics cartography was infinitely more comprehensive. So I decided to experiment with using an iPad in a waterproof housing as my principal chart plotter, using iNavX chart plotting software and downloading Navionics charts. I also have a Vesper XB8000 WiFi AIS transponder that streams AIS data as well as all the boat 's NMEA 0183 or 200 data to the chart. In theory this gives you almost everything a dedicated chart plotter provides, but for a fraction of the cost (and you have all the other functionality of the iPad to boot). However, I have found that it is unusable as a principal chart plotter because:

1.In bright sunlight, the chart can barely be seen
2.In hot climes, just at the point when you need it most, the screen blanks out with a message saying it is too hot, and cannot be rebooted for at least 10 minutes
3.When the screen gets wet from rain or spray, the touch screen doesn 't work - it has to be wiped dry every time you want to do anything like zoom in or out.
4.During the day, even when plugged in to a charger, the draw from the software and the brightest setting causes the battery to slowly drain.

Whilst the arrangement is great as a standby that you can use, for instance, at the helm when conning in or out of anchorages, it is sadly not fit for purpose as a principal chart plotter. So back to the drawing board and the cheque book!

Tim Barker, S/Y Mina2

We decided to head off for a sail earlier this week when we heard the Azores high was settling back in over Ireland! As we were leaving our inlet, the GPS (no differential) started dropping in and out of the chartplotter. Alex tried to jiggle wires thinking it was a bad connection. We were waiting for our back up GPS to launch when it suddenly came back into action with differential, about a half hour into it. When we looked at satellite acquisition, there were five satellites out of commission. We had heard that the aging satellite system was going to cause problems with GPS this year, and this is the third time we 've had a problem. I 'll post photos of the anomalies we experienced in Scotland in July as well.

But I LOVE your navigation by camera. Point and shoot naavigation. I just picked up a new Samsung android and the Navionics charts are pretty cool as a backup on there, as long as the gps works.

I still love paper charts.

Vice Commodore, OCC