Thanks for all the responses so far. It’s been a help. Yesterday I decided to install
Open CPN and some of the free Brazilian raster
charts on my
laptop to see how it runs and looks. I wasn’t exactly thrilled. I realize that raster charts are basically just scans of paper charts, so I can’t fault
Open CPN for the way they looked on the
screen. What I didn’t like was that I had to keep zooming out to then zoom in on the next area covered by a different chart. If I were planning a
route from, say, Ubatuba to Rio, I would not be able to seamlessly view the
route without all the zooming in and out. The Brazilian charts are pretty good, but it’s certainly easier to have a paper one open on the chart table to view rather than viewing it in Open CPN.
Then I went to the
Navionics site to check out their charts for
Brazil. I thought they were very good- a lot of detail and easy to zoom in and out of over a massive area (from Tierra del Fuego to the Caribbean). I don’t know how accurate they are for
Brazil, but they seem to provide a lot of detail. I currently use
Garmin G2 Vision charts and I’ve found them to be extremely accurate for the Brazilian coast so far.
Well, I’ve drawn a few conclusions based on this and the input from this thread:
If I want to use Open CPN I need a device with Windows/Ubuntu or Mac OS. I will have to hunt down digital charts for the areas I want to
cruise (and they may not be the best charts). Personally, I wouldn’t use Open CPN with the Brazilian charts for navigating on the Brazilian coast- I’d stick to the paper ones and my
Garmin charts. When I leave Brazil, the charts may be better and Open CPN a better tool.
If I want to use
Navionics I have to buy the chart chip (USD 199 for the
South America to
Caribbean chip). It’s not a fortune and the charts seem very good (to be verified in use, of course). To use Navionics I need an Android (or similar OS) tablet.
The tablets people have been suggesting seem to be in the USD 400 range- much more than I thought I would spend. As I mentioned, I’m going to use the tablet as a backup system and only at the nav table inside. I have a Garmin
chartplotter mounted outside under the hard
dodger. The tablet would be more for route planning and having a second charting program going on at the same time. I like the idea of being able to compare both. Also, I currently only use a
GPS and paper charts at the nav table and would like to have a chartplotting
screen at the table as well (in addition to the paper chart open on the table). I thought a tablet might be an inexpensive solution for this (but it seems not so inexpensive when it’s all said and done). I also like the idea of a tablet for getting
internet,
weather, emails and even working on board (with Word files), saving me from having to lug my laptop around. The reason I don’t want an
iPad is because I would like to be able to
work from the tablet when I need to and all my
work is done in Word.
Please correct me if my conclusions are wrong. I’d still love to find a
cheap solution for my needs (like for around USD150), but I think I may be dreaming…