superdiver wrote:
I have no such electronics on my boat yet... still doing it the old fashioned way with the paper charts...
Well there's nothing wrong with that.* A lot of boaters went--- and still go---*a lot of places totally successfully with paper charts alone.* We use paper charts every time we go out and built a chart board to sit next to the helm station.* In my opinion, nothing beats paper charts for getting the big picture fast.* And the US Navy taught my wife to*read and use charts and*it *wouldn't be right to let that expensive taxpayer-funded training go*to waste,*right?**We'd*have the ancora app raggin' on us in a heartbeat if we did.
We also have a Furuno NavNet VX2 radar/plotter (we did not get the depth finder option), and an Echotec GPS plotter.* (We have a Furuno Loran-C, too,*but now that*that system's been shut off we have to figure out what to put in its place in the panel.)
I stated earlier in this discussion that in our opinion, Furuno is the only worthwhile*way to go for radar and we think it is for plotters, too, if one is looking for an integrated system.* The computer-based navigation apps have come a long way in a short time, but navigating a boat on an iPhone screen is not anything we're interested in doing.* An iPad screen would be more acceptable.
As far as laptop-based systems go, I've had enough experience with Microsoft operating systems over the years--- everything we have at work uses them--- to know that I don't want to trust my actual well-being to anything written by the Micrsoft Kids.* Why layer one computer system--- the plotter--- on top of another one and a shaky one at that?* So we've got no use for the laptop based nav applications as slick and user-friendly as they are.
If you go with Furuno I don't think you'll be disappointed.* I haven't looked at their NavNet 3D so I don't know if it's worth it or not.* Since our NavNet VX2 is relatively new we have no reason to be shopping for anything different at this time.
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-- Edited by Marin on Tuesday 15th of February 2011 08:09:22 PM