Coastal Explorer from Rosepoint Navigation is a robust software navigation program that is intuitive to use. Although not free, at $400 it is a reasonable alternative to expensive proprietary navigation displays. It is for PCs only (or Macs running in PC mode) and there is a 30 day free demo download if you want to try it for yourself […]
Nav/Comm
No Internet? Use a Radio! Email Access via HF Radio
Before I got involved in a cruising boat I thought of radio being a voice transmission device. You know, you talk on it, you hear other people talk on it. When pressed I had to admit, yes, I know that they used Morse Code on the radio, too. I mean I’ve seen war movies from […]
Getting Weather Reports Offshore; GRIB files and faxes
There’s a newer article on this subject, see Weather Faxes… Offshore We’re all familiar with listening to spoken weather forecasts on the VHF radio. But VHF has a line-of-sight reception and even an antenna on top of your mast can’t pick up a station more than 10 or 20 miles away. So what do you […]
GPS for your Laptop
Our wired GPS units are “older” to be kind. They came with the boat and work fine, but I don’t have data cables even if such exist. So I chose to interface my laptop to a “GPS mouse” rather than one of the onboard GPS devices. (It’s called a mouse because it looks like one) […]
AIS Receiver: a Must Have for Peace of Mind
Although AIS transmitters are great if you can afford them, an AIS receiver is worth its weight in gold – or at least the $200 which seems to be about the minimum for a new model. The ships appear as triangular objects on your navigation software, pointed in direction of travel, with the ship’s name […]
