I just got my first smart phone and would appreciate some guidance. What apps do you like for sailing? I have a Samsung running android. A few days ago I loaded "Anchor lite". Haven't used it yet over night but it looks so slick that I was wondering what else is out there.
Jim
Samsung Galaxy III, Samsung Tab
I have a page setup on both my Phone and Tablet for sailing apps.
Tidecast (Pretty good tide app, but I'm sure there are apps that have more tide stations)
Navonics Boating HD (paid version)
SailFlow (Weather)
Spot (for our SPOT location tracker)
Radar (Weather)
Active Captain (nuff said)
Locations (by Active Captain)
Marine Traffic (AIS receiver)
Maps (Google Maps)
mAIS (Just installed, getting ready to register for our new boat) (reports our position and destination to marinetraffic.com)
ISS Detector (in case I'm on the water when the space station is in view)
Paul
The following apps I use (they are for Apple devices but should be available for android)
Adobe Acrobat - all your manuals and user guides can usually be obtained in PDF format and saved on this.
Isailor - great navigation app on par with navionics
Boat sentry - anchoring app
Anchor watch- anchoring app
MotionX-GPS - great app mainly for plotting tracks particularly walking, bike riding etc.
As Paul mentioned Navionics is very good backup for your chart plotter.
What is absolutely essential - bookmark this site - has the answer to everything 😀😀😀😀😀
Now to check out some of Paul's suggestions..........
Ken
Based on a recommendation here or some other forum, I've been using EverNote to store manual PDFs, pictures and lists. It obviously requires Internet access for the cloud storage.
Craig
I haven't dug into it in depth, but there was a weekly Active Captain email talking about electronic storage/lists/notes they use to organize things on-board. It sounded like everything you needed was to access the files and process they put together for organizing things. I think the article was out one or two weeks ago.
Navionics HD, teamed with a Bad Elf GPS via Bluetooth is superior to many chart plotters. I used this for planning a charter in Thailand, and then found that I used the iPad more than the on board chartplotter. Better accuracy and higher resolution in the charts, and the easy display of tide info was a big plus.
I also use Windfinder Pro for weather forecasting. So far it has proven pretty reliable for different locations worldwide.
Tony
This is a little divergent from topic, but I already had a copy of Rose Point's Coastal Explorer that runs on Windows. On a tip from a coworker, I just bought a HP Stream 7 Tuesday afternoon on Amazon for $84 that is a 32GB tablet with a full version of Win 8.1 on it. I had the tablet delivered at 6pm Tuesday (AZ Prime) and had my Coastal Explorer installed, activated and running downloaded NOAA charts by 9pm. It's almost identical in form factor and weight to my Kindle fire. I need to get my Bluetooth transmitter hooked backed up to the NMEA0183 output off my VHF that has GPS and AIS streams.
Craig
In addition to those apps already mentioned, I use box.com cloud storage to share files between the tablet and other computers, including choosing which files (like manuals) to save to the device. I also find BoatingCalcs useful.
Michael
Also, I like Windfinder for wind forecasts, Fleetmon to see ais targets, and Boat Logger Pro as a ships log.
The helmsman of the boat I race on has a "starting app". It allows you to enter the position of the pin and the committee boat when you sail by them prior to the start. You then run it when the start sequence begins. It tells you how long until the start and how log it will take you to get to the line at your current speed. It helps, but you still have to think about what you are doing and your position to other boats.
Sorry I don't know the name of it.
Hi Def Radar, AyeTides, Windfinder, SailFlow. I also have a web page that post real time data from a local research bouy, http://po.msrc.sunysb.edu/GSB/B1RT.html
Very helpful if you have something like this close to your marina.
I have posted this before but this is a website showing AIS info for almost anywhere in the world. Just click an area on the map and it will show almost real time info on the ships and boats with AIS on the map.
Interesting website but don't use it for navigation.
Mike
http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-118/centery:33/zoom:9