Navigation Software for Mac

[paldrich]

I have been using MacENC for years and have found it to be a very good program for Mac's. I have a Powerbook laptop that I use below, running MacENC for more complex navigational challenges, and I use my iPhone 6 Plus topside running Navionics charts for a handy reference in the cockpit. MacENC will run with both vector and digital charts.
Hope that helps.
P

[aguenther]

I urgently would recommend MacENC. I use this programm since years. It is easy to use, reliable and works flawless on a Mac. You can't get anything better.

Arwed

[Dave Lochner]

Another vote for MacENC.

Free US charts, either raster or vector charts from NOAA.

Lifetime free upgrades and ability to install on multiple computers. Run it on the iMac at home and Macbook Pro on the boat.

[CShawn]

VirtualBox is free and I have been using it for years. If you have a USB GPS unit just make sure you attach the USB port to your virtual machine.

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

[pexor]

I have used Navionics for iPad for three years and sailed 12,000 nautical miles. Malacca Strait, South Cina Sea to North Philipines, the Baltic Sea, The North Sea, The English Channel , and canals and rivers of Grmany and Holland. The Carribean and crossing the Atlantic to Azores, and down the Pacific West coast from Vancouver to San Francisco.
This program is perfect in details and performance no more paper charts for this delivery skipper.

[Fog Bank]

Originally Posted by Tacky

INavX as others have said. Note on iPad it must be a cellular device to provide GPS radio.

Anyone with a wifi only iPad can use the Bad Elf GPS dongle in lieu of an internal GPS capability. We use the one below.

Bad Elf GPS for Lightning Connector

[CarinaPDX]

I used MacENC years ago, and was in contact with the dev at that time to fix some things in the early vector implementation. He was great to work with, and I personally like the program a lot. Also I have used OCPN which has become very full-featured and has the advantage of displaying the old worldwide Cmap charts floating around the internet (great as fallback). I have only briefly tried Polar Navy but did like what I saw. You can't lose with any of these.

WINE does work for most Windows applications, depending on what APIs they call. I avoid like the plague Windows programs but do keep a Windows instance as a virtual machine (without network access) to run those few Windows-only apps. Boot Camp is more efficient so if you wanted Windows for games then the extra speed would be worth rebooting into Windows. Otherwise the virtual machine approach is more convenient. But best to use Mac applications as they almost always have better GUI design, if not every possible (unnecessary) feature.

Greg

[SF Bay Dude]

Thank you all. I will be headed in the MacENC direction. I've also downloaded and played around on openCPN as well.

[jhstacy]

Polarview by Polar Navy is a great app that runs just fine on my Macbook Air
but I had to add a small USB GPS module

[iggybr]

Try "Bad Elf"! go to Bad-Elf.com. they manufacture a satelite antennae dongle exclusively for apple products and have navigation apps for road, air and marine.

[antoniofhowe]

Does anyone know if MacENC ever goes on sale?

[aguenther]

It never was for sale since almost 10 years.But its worth its price.

[Dave Lochner]

I've never heard of it going on sale, however, they have never charged me for an upgrade and I've always been able to install in on new computers. In the long run it is a bargain. I paid about $100 ten years ago and not a cent since.

[exMaggieDrum]

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I have a Mac at home and an old PC laptop on board (from last boat) running XT (yikes!). It would be good to use the Mac on the boat - except - I haven't found an app that will interface with Sailmail/Pactor modem on a Mac to an SSB.

May be I could install Windows in another partition with Boot Camp. I had it once but deleted after running out of disk space on my Mac.