chartplotter software

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dam747iam

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advice needed on chartplotting software for my laptop, i would like your comments and any experience as to ease of use detail and value for money (total novice in this area) i only sail on the south coast.
thanks in advance
 
I have Maptech Marine Chart Navigator. Basically you pay something like 50 quid for the charts (UKHO), in my case Solent and Selsey bill to Portland, and you get some very useful and reasonably intuitive software. You need a GPS or GPS receiver dongle to attach to the laptop of course. USB dongles seem best and cheapest. I've looked at Seapro light and the RYA plotter and reckon that MM is the best. If you want fancy route-planning features and weather then you need to pay a lot more e.g. Sea Pro for 300 quid ish.
 
I've trialed most available and found each one to have ups and downs. Many are overloaded with stuff that most never use.
Menu's simple, hard to use, confusing - they are all out there.

Some designed more for mudplugging off-road, others with no use onshore.

Bundled with charts of varying types - raster and vector.

I firmly believe that like most things - it a person spends money on it - most are reluctant to say it's bad. They learn to work with it and then find other packages hard to use.

You really need to google chart-plotting software and look through. There are free as well as shareware up to expensive commercial shipping packages.

What do I use - I'll leave that out and just say - its free and does what it says ... no frilly bits ... just does it's job.

Honest - google and spend a bit of time reading through - study screen shots - try and get a close up of menus ... many are not intuitive.
 
I also use Maptech Marine Chart Navigator but coupled to a Garmin 152 GPS. Using Garmin protocol the software will load (and download) whole sets of waypoints and routes that have been set up graphically on the screen charts. This not only saves hours of putting them into the GPS but is a useful visual check they are all OK.
Thereafter if the computer packs up, all the data is stored independently in the GPS /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
I would second (or is third now?) using Maptech. I have used it for years and never found anything better/cheaper. I am definitely a fan of raster charts - even the latest vector charts look a bit 'strange' compared to Admiralty charts.
The latest Maptech DVDs are also much better value than the old CDs - I got the whole of western Europe (Baltic to Gib plus Canaries and Cape Verde) for £99 last year (several hundred charts, including French, German and Netherlands produced charts). The whole of the UK is similarly priced.
One thing to note - if you use the Garmin version of NMEA to link to the GPS, you can't drive your autohelm from the same GPS. I only use the Garmin protocol for uploading Routes and Waypoints (from the plotter to the GPS - old Garmin 128). I use standard NMEA for on-water navigation and can then still drive the autohlm from the GPS.
If you buy the full version of Maptech (Pro I think they call it) you get an autohelm interface from the plotter that overcomes the above problem. However, personally I would rather trust the GPS than a (Microsoft based) PC to steer the boat!
Roger
 
I'd vote Maptech too. However, I'm sticking to the old Offshore Navigator rather than Chart Navigator. Tidestreams are a key factor in all I do with my slow little boat, and the way they are displayed in Chart Navigator is very much worse than in Offshore Navigator. I seem to recall that the ability to download routes and waypoints requires the more expensive Chart Navigator Pro. My understanding is that this cannot be done within the NMEA protocol - the Garmin protocol is what I use.

In my hands this ability to do it all on the computer and then download the route to a simple handheld is crucial. I don't have a computer screen in the cockpit but I can take the handheld there, and if the computer gets a sore head I can still navigate the route.

Offshore Navigator also lets you dump out routes etc into a tab delimited file which any fule can understand. Newer programs seem to go in for fancy XML navigation objects which are more geekish than I can handle. I routinely do my route planning, merging reversing of routes etc in Excel(!) and then reload them into the navigation programme. A rare perversion.
 
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