visitmyharbour is it as confusing and hard to use as it seems?

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steve yates

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16 Oct 2014
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Benfleet, Essex at mo/Scottish West coast soon
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excuse me if I'm being ignorant, but I have been a member since 2014, even before I bought a boat and started sailing, and I have never used any of their charts.
It just seems too complicated, or requires internet access.

Can I use them on an ipad within something like memorymaps? or not? And if not, what use are they apart from daydreaming at your desktop?
 
mainsail1 said:
I find visit my Harbour so limited in coverage that it is close to useless.
Click to expand...
Could you explain what your needs are? Here for instance is a set of PC and Linux raster charts for the whole of the UK, Ireland and near continent including Biscay for the princely sum of £48. I agree the top level of their site is confusing but drill down and you'll find all sorts, including a full set of Android charts if that's what you need.

BTW I have no connection with VMH, not even a customer, but I have heard very good reports of their chart packages.
 
It is a bit confusing when you're trying to buy charts. You have to read each page very carefully to make sure you find teh one to buy exactly what you want to buy.
 
steve yates said:
excuse me if I'm being ignorant, but I have been a member since 2014, even before I bought a boat and started sailing, and I have never used any of their charts.
It just seems too complicated, or requires internet access.

Can I use them on an ipad within something like memorymaps? or not? And if not, what use are they apart from daydreaming at your desktop?
Click to expand...

Yes, I daydream too but I also use their website for serious stuff too. have been buying their excellent and reasonably priced admiralty raster charts for the great android app Marine Navigator for 4 years and often use their usefull port and harbour information pages. Their support is excellent if you have a question or need help. I do not use their online charts as for me, they do not give me anything extra. Overall I am a very satisfied customer of VMH.

Www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk
 
Their chartstick when used with OpenCPN is great value (and I'm sure with other apps) and I sometimes wonder if I really need paper charts, but I won't get rid of them and would always have the relevant one for my sailing area.

I don't use their website that much nowadays as I have the Shell Channel Pilot, which was a present, but before that I found it very useful.

I've also had excellent support from them and don't regret paying my original access fee.
 
Well I paid the original access fee and have looked at the site perhaps twenty times and not seen half of what you guys say is on there. I guess I just don't know where or how to find things.
 
It is a dog of a site to be sure, but as someone posted on here, there is a lot of useful stuff in there. By god it's a chore to ferret through and find it though.
It even uses flash! I think that underneath the dated hard sell site, there is a fab product and idea. Obviously many folk have gotten plenty out of it, but I wonder how many more potential customers they have let slip through from the archaic design and layout?

I now have a load of pdf's of harbours, and can see where to buy the raster charts I was after. I'm still not sure where the charts are that lifetime membership got me, but hey ho :)
 
Plum said:
Yes, I daydream too but I also use their website for serious stuff too. have been buying their excellent and reasonably priced admiralty raster charts for the great android app Marine Navigator for 4 years and often use their usefull port and harbour information pages. Their support is excellent if you have a question or need help. I do not use their online charts as for me, they do not give me anything extra. Overall I am a very satisfied customer of VMH.

Www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk
Click to expand...

+1
 
A terrible website, but a fantastic resource! I am a member and also use their charts on my Android tablet, they really are a bargain. Invest a few minutes in exploring the site...it will quickly repay itself.
 
Hoolie said:
Could you explain what your needs are? Here for instance is a set of PC and Linux raster charts for the whole of the UK, Ireland and near continent including Biscay for the princely sum of £48. I agree the top level of their site is confusing but drill down and you'll find all sorts, including a full set of Android charts if that's what you need.

BTW I have no connection with VMH, not even a customer, but I have heard very good reports of their chart packages.
Click to expand...

VMH is one option for buying Admiralty charts. But if Steve is also using Antares Charts, worth considering buying the U.K. chart set from Memory Map - which currently looks to be £45 for the lot.
 
Are the Memory Map charts compatible with OpenCPN ? VMH do state their raster charts are compatible.

Another option is to use the o-charts oesenc vector charts that are produced specifically for OpenCPN. All about the same price so relative cost is not an issue.
 
I just struggle with that the site is trying to achieve and keep meaning to email them asking the question.

The boat has a Garmin chart plotter on-board and software for the PC and I am pretty sure that their charts are unusable on that kit, but am more than happy to be told otherwise.
 
Used their android charts for a couple of years, now use chart stick with windows tablet and laptop or pc at home. just log in and take a good browse around VMH well worth the membership.
 
The VMH site is hard to navigate, but their products are good value for money and the after sales service is, in my experience, very good. I use their raster chartstick with OpenCPN running on an old XP netbook.

I do not like vector charts as, unless you are zoomed in to max detail, too much detail is missing (ask the ex-commanders of a couple of HM warships). Perhaps the current commercial vector charts are better in this regard than my CM93 ones. I don't know.

MemoryMap charts do not work with OpenCPN. MemoryMap is probably as good as Open CPN, I just prefer the latter.

The Antares charts are great for serious rock-dodgers around the west of Scotland.
 
A new satisfied customer of VMH but agree that the website overall layout is a real shambles that will deter many.One can see that the site has grown from the original harbour information but perhaps it's time to displace this as the opening page.Surely someone there can sit down and write a clear overall menu ?
 
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