Are Smartphones good for Sailing

[KeelsonGraham]

My first thought was, that's a lot of selfies! I had a look at my trip to the med and I only had one photo offshore and that was of a cloud 60nm abeam Finisterre. ?

What was your second thought?

 

[Neil_Y]

or have they taken something away from it ?

Personally, I felt ordinary mobile phones were ok but I'm not so sure about Smartphones.

A water proof one is handy, it can just be another GPS, chart and plotter. No need for mobile signal, the torch is useful, and you can also have a compass . All good back ups for what you should carry for navigation. I've actually found Sony waterproof ones better than Garmin GPS hand helds where water leaked ino the case and the screen gave up.

 

[Neil_Y]

I agree my iPhone is waterproof but the touch screen does not work when it is wet or your fingers are wet. The same applies to touch screen instruments.

There are useful apps that allow you to switch off touch screen and designate buttons to take you to your choice of pages, I used this when racing F18's off shore (sailing through waves rather than over them) very wet!