What charting systems do you use?

[geoff3nebel]

Admiralty and Imray charts; RCC pilot books, Navionics.

[Perfect Ride]

Thank you for the input.

Here is a summary of the post so far, plus a few that I have used. Below is not yet prioritized and without regions. More input is welcome...

Paper: British Admiralty(UKHO), Imray, RCC pilot, NZ, NOAA(USA), SHOA(Chilean IHO), SHOM(FR), NV(USA).
Marine Electronics: Furuno, Ray Marine, Garman, B&G Simrad, Humminbird
Marine Electronic Maps: CMAP, Jeppesen, Garman, Navionics, Nobeltec, Lighthouse
PC/Mac (Parallel and VMwareFusion to cross platform):
- TimeZero /MaxSea (Same charts as in Furuno)
- OpenCPN
- Sea IQ (NZ)
- Expedition
- PolarNavy NS

- Navigatrix

Tablets:
- Navionics
- iNavx
- OpenCPN
- iSailor
- OvatelMap
- MotionX GPShd
- Embark
- MX Mariner for NOAA raster charts
- Plan2Nav for C-Map vector charts (probably changing to Embark)
- Transas iSailor with Transas vector charts
- Visit My Harbour
- qtVlm
- MX Mariner
= for tides: Imray Tide Planner, Aye Tides,...

[ilenart]

Originally Posted by roland stockham

Coastal digiboat SOB with Cmap charts.

Offshore paper charts, usually either oficial charts for the country I am sailing from/to or whatever I can get!
Backup. Tablet with Cmap Embark
CPN if charts are available which they are usually not.
Prints from Cmap of coastal charts and main ports.

You missed digiboat SOB that this poster mentioned. Have used this PC based system myself for the last 15 years

DigiBOAT

Ilenart

[Perfect Ride]

Thank you for the input.

Here is a summary of the post so far, plus a few that I have used. Below is not yet prioritized and without regions. More input is welcome...

Paper: British Admiralty(UKHO), Imray, RCC pilot, NZ, NOAA(USA), SHOA(Chilean IHO), SHOM(FR), NV(USA).
Marine Electronics: Furuno, Ray Marine, Garman, B&G Simrad, Humminbird
Marine Electronic Maps: CMAP, Jeppesen, Garman, Navionics, Nobeltec, Lighthouse
PC/Mac (Parallel and VMwareFusion to cross platform):
- TimeZero /MaxSea (Same charts as in Furuno)
- OpenCPN
- Sea IQ (NZ)
- Expedition
- PolarNavy NS
- DigiBOAT
- Navigatrix

Tablets:
- Navionics
- iNavx
- OpenCPN
- iSailor
- OvatelMap
- MotionX GPShd
- Embark
- MX Mariner for NOAA raster charts
- Plan2Nav for C-Map vector charts (probably changing to Embark)
- Transas iSailor with Transas vector charts
- Visit My Harbour
- qtVlm
- MX Mariner
= for tides: Imray Tide Planner, Aye Tides,...

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Perfect Ride

- TimeZero /MaxSea (Same charts as in Furuno)

- Embark
- MX Mariner for NOAA raster charts
- Plan2Nav for C-Map vector charts (probably changing to Embark)
- Transas iSailor with Transas vector charts
- MX Mariner

Maybe you want some way to flag plotters and apps that use only proprietary charts (e.g., Plan2Nav/Embark and C-Map; iSailor and Transas, etc.) vs those that allow use of several different chart types in various geographic areas (e.g., Furuno and TimeZero, MX Mariner, etc.).

For example of the latter, I responded that I use MX Mariner and NOAA raster charts... but they offer other chart types in other regions...

What are you trying to arrive at?

-Chris

[Perfect Ride]

Originally Posted by ranger42c

Maybe you want some way to flag plotters and apps that use only proprietary charts (e.g., Plan2Nav/Embark and C-Map; iSailor and Transas, etc.) vs those that allow use of several different chart types in various geographic areas (e.g., Furuno and TimeZero, MX Mariner, etc.).
What are you trying to arrive at?

Hi Brian,

Ultimately a list of best-of-class charts and electronics/applications by region. So chart type by application is valuable.From this perhaps a survey or two on related topics like more details on ranking, regions of use, cost, navigation and plotting features, etc.

I have been using a mix of many systems and charts depending on part of the world and looking to see what is new or improved that I may have missed.
Cheers.

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Perfect Ride

Hi Brian,

Ultimately a list of best-of-class charts and electronics/applications by region. So chart type by application is valuable.From this perhaps a survey or two on related topics like more details on ranking, regions of use, cost, navigation and plotting features, etc.

I have been using a mix of many systems and charts depending on part of the world and looking to see what is new or improved that I may have missed.
Cheers.

Hmmm... Some random thoughts...

Can't say that all the entries you'll see here might be "best in class". Sometimes the plotter/app viability and chart quality aren't exactly the same. IOW, some may have selected an app because they like it's features, and then they use whatever charts are available for that app.

And then there are app/chart iterations; Plan2Nav, for example uses C-Map charts... but the Embark display of those same C-Map charts is much better (for me, at least). And then Jeppesen (or whoever it is that owns all that now) seems to be phasing out Plan2Nav in favor of Embark... which seems to be aimed at growing it's own version of ActiveCaptain or similar.

For fixed plotters, it wouldn't seem economically attractive to change, from region to region. What most folks have is what most folks would leave in place, I suspect... except when it comes time for a major electronics refit.

But more to the point here, I also suspect that folks like me have only been able to tell you what they have... without being able to compare to other stuff. I responded that our plotter is a Furuno, but I can't compare it to the same generation equipment from Raymarine, Garmin, B&G, etc. In addition to that, our plotter is old, there are two (or 1½?) newer generations... that I can't compare to what we have now nor to any other brands of the same generation.

Fuzzy...

-Chris

[Perfect Ride]

Hello Chris,
You make an interesting comment that some will choose system features *over quality of charts. Is that something you have seen a lot of?
I understand time and money constraints will dictate choices. I expect that in responses, as it is a reality, no matter how fuzzy it might makes things...
Thanks for the feedback.
Cheers

[ranger58sb]

Originally Posted by Perfect Ride

Hello Chris,
You make an interesting comment that some will choose system features *over quality of charts. Is that something you have seen a lot of?

Can't tell, perfectly. But I've read glowing reports of some apps that didn't impress me, and the different charts I've seen (but not necessarily used much) seem to have their variances too... so I just guess there's some human preference (left brain/right brain?) stuff going on most of the time...

And then there are probably personal usage patterns; e.g., folks who use waypoints may value a given app's method of creating, storing, sharing, etc., and folks who want to vary the degree of info displayed at any given time may have preferences for different charts that allow that...

-Chris