MacGregorSailors.com

Hey Guys:

I need a quick answer if anybody has one. At the Palm Beach Boat Show today I got a "Show Special" offer of $200 for "Navigate!" a software program by Fair Tide Technologies, Inc. of Nantucket, MA. You can see a demo at www.cheapcharts.com
The program runs on any simple 486 or better PC desktop or laptop and can be uploaded and downloaded to a GPS. Much of the program is redundent to a GPS but a big color screen and a mouse is handy. ( I have both a Garmin GPSMAP 180 and an etrex but no detail chips.) The NOAA charts cover both US coasts, Great Lakes, Bahamas and Caribbean and you get them all at once with no codes or anything to unlock at no additional cost. The guy is offering me free annual updates and waiving the usual $50 update cost.

Do you think I should go for this or not?

I'd say pass unless you have a extremely old computer that won't run windows. The chart data looks like extremely old vector charts and the application is pretty sad.

There are better choices.

For raster charts (bit maps) such as Maptec and softchart you can find many programs and charts for under $200. The one I use is Memory Map, www.memory-map.com, I bought a very complete set of 20 charts for the entire puget sound area for $80 from www.marineplanner.com. At the marine planner web site you'll find links to other raster applications as well. Fugawi is another good choice particularly if you have a palm or pocket PC you also want to use, www.fugawi.com.

In the vector chart (database) world, up to now the choices have been quite pricey such as the Nobeltec solution, www.nobeltec.com.

Now there is another choice, you buy one of the ENC chart viewers, such as Fugawi ENC $198, and get all the charts you want FREE from NOAA. http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/enc/index.htm I think you'll be much happier with these vector charts than the ones in the program you linked to. They have a much more complete and usable data display. You can download the Fugawi viewer product http://www.fugawi.com/viewenc/viewenc.html and the charts for your area to take look before you buy.

Personally I still prefer the look of the raster charts as they still contain more info than even the best vector chart, but there are some appealing advantages to the vector world.

I just grabbed the full Puget Sound set from NOAA, they zip up your choices into a single file for downloading (mine was 12 Mb). If you want it all, you can get every chart they have in a nice neat ready to go 192 Mb file. I'm actually impressed. Many of the files have been recently updated and have more data in them than when I first looked at them a year ago.

To bad Canada still hasn't seen the light. They now have their charts out in ENC vector format for some area's but they want $359 for the Vancouver Island inside passage set which is what I want.

Here is the link to many more ENC chart software apps, http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/enc/resource.htm.

The one from Global Navigation is quite interesting. They have a full ENC format ready product for the Pocket PC. It uses native ENC charts rather than making raster versions for the handheld like Fugawi does. This saves a ton of chart storage space on the handheld plus gives you the vector chart advantages of always right side up letters, readable size fonts at zoomed out views, and the ability to selectivly de-clutter the screen. All important things on the small format screen but also great for the laptop sceen as well. I downloaded the app and will look at it tomorrow.

Thanks Duane - you just saved me $200. At least for the time being.
Jack

The same software, and the same guy selling it, that was $299 marked down to "Show Special" of $249 and only $200 "for me" at the Palm Beach Boat Show early in the month was only $99 at the Dania Beach Flea Market last week.