Savvy Navvy
- Thread starter Danny_Labrador
- Start date
BelleSerene
Active member
It's a joke. But a promising joke.
It's supposed to do the auto passage routing that the Navionics iPad app does, but taking account of wind direction too, so it'll tack you around the place to get to your destination. It seems to have been created by people with a brilliant vision, inspiration from the Google Maps navigation feature, and a little advice from sailors - but without the understanding of a navigator.
First, there's a cute but useless 3D bird's eye visualisation of each leg of your passage. Helpful if you're walking a path in the countryside; perhaps useful for a road route where you'll recognise landmarks, or for a flight plan under VFR ('visual flight rules') where you can mentally rehearse the terrain you're going to fly over - but just silly for a sailor, because (a) you don't see the big picture from the cockpit, and (b) previewing your passage from the eye of a seagull spinning and diving over the sea at about Mach 1.5 makes you want to sit down in a stable chair for a while. Curiously, this feature was in Savvy Navvy's original beta release, before they included features that would actually make the toy useful to a sailor. Whoops.
Second, whilst Savvy Navvy takes account of the wind, which is unusual in such an app, it ignores the tide. Big whoops. So it'll give you a fancy tacking course around the sea, which assumes no tidal drift. This will end you up in the wrong place with no understanding of why you're there, and will leave you tacking for hours against a foul tide too. Apparently tidal calculation is coming (still; I have been waiting for some months) - but who on earth decided on the software-development priority of (if you'll pardon the pun) wind over tide?!
Third, it assumes that your passage starts now. Oh dear: who would want to plan tomorrow's or next week's passage based on the winds right now, or to have to wait until departure to plan his passage strategy?! So you need to wait until you're about to slip lines for the tool to be useful at all. Apparently delayed departure is coming - but who on earth decided to focus on giddying 3D visualisation before incorporating time and tide which sailors need to plan a passage?!
Much fanfare was made recently that Savvy Navvy would now route you around wind farms. Well, some wind farms, anyway: this noddy feature works for the farms off the Thames but happily routes you straight through the big no-entry one between Maas and Oostende that I sailed past this summer.
The price? It's £149 a year. Yes, each year. But if you want your passage plan to take account of those pesky things called tides, you have to... yes, pay more. Only the 'premium' version, at another £50 making it £199 annually, takes account of tidal times and flows. Those who justify spending a mere £149 a year must somehow content themselves with an automated wind strategy that won't work anyway because there's a tide running.
They're crowdfunding, and one means of funding their development is that they're offering a discounted access to full features for just £99 a year. Of course, that payment starts from now, before the useful features are available.
It's supposed to do the auto passage routing that the Navionics iPad app does, but taking account of wind direction too, so it'll tack you around the place to get to your destination. It seems to have been created by people with a brilliant vision, inspiration from the Google Maps navigation feature, and a little advice from sailors - but without the understanding of a navigator.
First, there's a cute but useless 3D bird's eye visualisation of each leg of your passage. Helpful if you're walking a path in the countryside; perhaps useful for a road route where you'll recognise landmarks, or for a flight plan under VFR ('visual flight rules') where you can mentally rehearse the terrain you're going to fly over - but just silly for a sailor, because (a) you don't see the big picture from the cockpit, and (b) previewing your passage from the eye of a seagull spinning and diving over the sea at about Mach 1.5 makes you want to sit down in a stable chair for a while. Curiously, this feature was in Savvy Navvy's original beta release, before they included features that would actually make the toy useful to a sailor. Whoops.
Second, whilst Savvy Navvy takes account of the wind, which is unusual in such an app, it ignores the tide. Big whoops. So it'll give you a fancy tacking course around the sea, which assumes no tidal drift. This will end you up in the wrong place with no understanding of why you're there, and will leave you tacking for hours against a foul tide too. Apparently tidal calculation is coming (still; I have been waiting for some months) - but who on earth decided on the software-development priority of (if you'll pardon the pun) wind over tide?!
Third, it assumes that your passage starts now. Oh dear: who would want to plan tomorrow's or next week's passage based on the winds right now, or to have to wait until departure to plan his passage strategy?! So you need to wait until you're about to slip lines for the tool to be useful at all. Apparently delayed departure is coming - but who on earth decided to focus on giddying 3D visualisation before incorporating time and tide which sailors need to plan a passage?!
Much fanfare was made recently that Savvy Navvy would now route you around wind farms. Well, some wind farms, anyway: this noddy feature works for the farms off the Thames but happily routes you straight through the big no-entry one between Maas and Oostende that I sailed past this summer.
The price? It's £149 a year. Yes, each year. But if you want your passage plan to take account of those pesky things called tides, you have to... yes, pay more. Only the 'premium' version, at another £50 making it £199 annually, takes account of tidal times and flows. Those who justify spending a mere £149 a year must somehow content themselves with an automated wind strategy that won't work anyway because there's a tide running.
They're crowdfunding, and one means of funding their development is that they're offering a discounted access to full features for just £99 a year. Of course, that payment starts from now, before the useful features are available.
Last edited:
stephen_h
Active member
Still not enough different and realistic polars
prv
Well-known member
"Offline is only available for Android at the moment and you need to be on the Explore plan."
Since the only place I really use a proper plan with CTS etc is on a substantial passage, generally out of phone signal, this is rather a fatal limitation for anyone (like me) who uses iOS.
I would hope that the "number of births" at most marinas is generally zero.
Pete
Since the only place I really use a proper plan with CTS etc is on a substantial passage, generally out of phone signal, this is rather a fatal limitation for anyone (like me) who uses iOS.
I would hope that the "number of births" at most marinas is generally zero.
Pete
DoubleEnder
Well-known member
Bump because I am interested in any more recent experience
Kerenza
Member
just tried it and cancelled, it doesn't use calculated depths yet, so pretty useless in tidal areas.
DoubleEnder
Well-known member
thanks, understood
Sandy
Well-known member
I had an interesting conversation with Savvy-Navvy on Facebook. At £65 pa for a useable version I could not understand their unique selling point. They did want me to try their product on a trial, to see if I could be converted - I declined their offer.
I rather enjoy reading charts and Reeds (I buy a copy every seven years). Having moved to NV Charts for the south coast as they are cheaper, I like the atlas format and they do an online version that is updated regularly. As for Savvy-Navvy doing course to steer how hard is that?
I rather enjoy reading charts and Reeds (I buy a copy every seven years). Having moved to NV Charts for the south coast as they are cheaper, I like the atlas format and they do an online version that is updated regularly. As for Savvy-Navvy doing course to steer how hard is that?
laika
Well-known member
I'm not familiar with this product at all but prompted by this thread I took a look at the website. Unless I'm mistaken (and do correct me if I am) the product has (incomplete, but complete enough for most of us) world wide charts. Various other products (e.g. navionics, iNavX etc.) will charge £30-ish for UK charts for a year. If you sail in 2 areas maybe the £60 version (which looks the minimum worthwhile rather than the £65 version) you're at least breaking even, although with no (apparent) AIS this seems much more a "planning" app than a "chartplotter" app so somewhat different use case. Has the "time to depart" thing in BelleSerene's post #2 been fixed? pretty useless if not.
I always calculate CTS manually but for a cross channel with tidal streams at different strengths in different areas it is a bit of a faff. Once I was confident that an app could do it as well as or better than me, I'd be happy to delegate the sums (or at least use it to cross check mine).
Maybe I will have a go at the trial....
