Ipad navigation (imray and Navionics) plus stand alone Radar?

[12 sail away]

Dear CF,

Just bought my first sailing boat ( 42 ft from 2000) and the delivery would take me about two weeks. On board a -fully functioning- 13 year old Raytheon RC520. As usual I always take my Ipad mini with me ... for 'security reasons' I also downloaded the Navionics and Imray apps and bought a standalone GNS 1000 GPS.... I have been looking for the right boat/budget for quite some time and also scanned the market on available plotters, functionality etc. Prior to buying my boat I was convinced that the Raymarine E7 was the plotter of choice despite the huge pricepoint....but after sailing my boat to its homeharbour and using all four (rc 520 + navionics+imray+good old paper charts...first boat...) navigation sources I am shocked by the Ipad/navionics performance speed and accuracy. Reading all the posts on tablet navigation I now am seriously doubting if Istill need the Raymarine E7 and can better spend the money on a standalone Radar like the Furuno 1623 seems to be a solid choice. Any thoughts/advice?

[4arch]

I'm struggling with similar questions. The downside I see to the Furuno standalone units is that there's no way to overlay the radar display on a chart. Not sure how critical that is, though I can certainly see situations where it would be nice to have. The upside is simplicity. The Furuno standalones seem to have a good track record for relaibility/longevity and hold their resale value well.

[jeremiason]

Two things that come to mind...

We have a IPAD with Navionics and have used it as a backup to our Raymarine E-120 for about six months. You need to purchase a waterproof case for your IPAD, but even then Murphys law suggests it may die in a saltwater environment.

Second, depending on were you sail, all electronics charts can be off as much as a 1/4 mile, especially in areas were then is no commercial traffic. For this we rely on the radar overlay feature of our chart plotter, which shows the difference between the e-chart and the actual geography or navigation markers.

For the above reasons I would not use an IPAD as a stand alone chart plotter for cruising, but for people sailing locally and on a budget it can't be beat.

[jitait]

Interesting post Tom.

Is there no Ipad application with this capability?

Technically it shouldn't be a problem, but it's not to say you can make it happen at a sensible price to the end user.