Navionics price increase on 25th Oct

wonkywinch

wonkywinch

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I've been using Navionics on my tablet/phone for years, paying for different regions as I chartered round the world.

My UK sub expired a couple of months ago although I had the intention of renewing sometime soon. That's been brought forward to today as I see a 14%/£5 price rise comes into effect next Wed 25th. Prices hiked on all worldwide charts. Might be worth renewing before Wed if you've lapsed and want to sign up again.
 
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Hope Garmin are not reading this !! But I was pleasantly surprised at the subscription price of the Baltic charts for Boating and Lakes app. When compared to SD card version for plotters.

I am not surprised that they are increasing price of the app version - I think it was only a matter of time once they had a good number of subscribers on board.

But if they continue price hikes - that will cause more people to stop subscribing and just stick with last download ... creating a similar situation to many who use expired SD card charts on plotters. Its a careful balance Garmin and users will arrive at ...... IMHO
 
Agree. I always have a current sub in the app but will stop if it goes up too much. Too many sounds these days.
I’m not sure the app maintains old charts if sun expires does it? Edit - yes it does, mine was expired!

I’ve also been impressed with their free webapp.Navionics.com
 
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I think they have had a good number of users for along time now. It is very much a product designed to introduce mass market to Garmin and future sales of other products, hence an attractive market price might be worth a lot more in other sales. Likely, their costs have increased because of inflation pressures that are global and they have to react.

I do agree though that at some price point it becomes less attractive, especially as there are multiple sources of similar data e.g. Memory Maps and the raster chart package for the UK. Also the fear around stuff like OpenCPN and networking is fading fast and folks are more likely to have a go at low cost digital chart solutions.
 
Risking all and putting on flak jacket .... the push by various who keep saying we need updated current charting helps keep such alive. Do not misunderstand me - I do support keeping up to date.

But we are not ships with 70ft draft ... and many of the shoal areas we can navigate are based on old surveys, information passed by users and extrapolation. Use of recent but expired charting IMHO is not the risk that some try to argue. Plus I have read some who 'warn' that Insurance could be voided by use of old charting - I would really like to have evidence of such for a yachts incident.

I base the above on many years spent correcting full world wide folios on ships as Nav Officer ... I still have my Rotring pens and gear from those days ...
 
I've been cataloguing my old friends collection of paper charts and folios (he has given up sailing). Most of them are in pristine condition but 2007 vintage, the rocks, nav marks and most hazards are shown but of course there are few off shore wind farms so they're not really safe to use - pity cos the face value of them is over £800.
 
fredrussell said:
Hmm, there’s a few places where I sail (Thames Estuary) where your charts really need to be up to date. Lots of sand bars that shift, and not always slowly!
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In my patch in Pembrokeshire, the rocks move at an epochal pace, and the Admiralty chart I bought new this year (Western Approaches to BC and StGeorges) has my area based on UK gov surveys 1965-1980. Other than a few new bouys in NtMs, nothing has changed enough in the last 40 years to concern the Admiralty, so I’m not in a rush to replace my plotter with its obsolete card.
 
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fredrussell said:
Hmm, there’s a few places where I sail (Thames Estuary) where your charts really need to be up to date. Lots of sand bars that shift, and not always slowly!
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I was a regular on ships in / out of Thames ... Shellhaven etc. (Stanford No Hope !) ... and well aware of the shifting sands - which no charting system can ever keep up with ... it ewven changes with wind influence as well as tidal.

C'mon - when in such areas - its local knowledge and careful transit if not local.
 
ghostlymoron2 said:
I've been cataloguing my old friends collection of paper charts and folios (he has given up sailing). Most of them are in pristine condition but 2007 vintage, the rocks, nav marks and most hazards are shown but of course there are few off shore wind farms so they're not really safe to use - pity cos the face value of them is over £800.
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???? Not safe because of wind farms ?? You mean those great big towers with blades that can be seen over the horizon ??
 
My paper charts are only about 10 years old and surprisingly different to my current electronic ones. Thankfully I wasn’t using the mid channel marker that’s not there any more for navigation around the TSS. In fact, I wasn’t using paper at all as it’s a faff and huge expense to keep updated 😂
 
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