Do you have an app you use for navigating which we don't know about. Or a tip for inching through reefs? What is your feeling about boat navigation. Pop a comment below, we would love to hear from you. Jamie and Liz (and Millie)

Wow, this was so well done. Not just the wealth of information but all the graphic overlays. Bravo and thank you.

I don’t understand any of that but it just shows the amount of information and the amount of things that go on in the background to keep you guys safe and going in the right direction. I’m blown away. x

Splendid. This informative video on modern navigation aids illustrates why your channel is my favorite. Anyone who wants to take to the sea in a sailboat should watch your channel. They will learn how to sail, how to repair the various components on a sailboat, how to navigate, and your little travelogues tell them what cultural values are important should you visit the Indian Ocean. I'm happy you got so much pleasure out of the Anambas. Peace and fair winds.

This is one of the reason I like your channel so much. Chock full of good information, clear concise.

Watch " The Maggie " cabin boy throws stones, explains " If it splashes there's water if it rattles there's rocks " !

Good video. I single hand and never trust maps, or electronics to much. Maps as they are normally 200 year old. Most electronics maps are paper maps any way. If I entering a unknown reef area. I anchor my yacht in deep water and get into the tinny with fenders or anything that will float attached to lines and weights and mark the route. Once happy I motor through this channel mark waypoints and pick up fender along the way. Good idea about the drone.

You guys do a good job finding underserved niches!

Again, really intelligent and helpful. Thank you.

I just found out that the "Maps" app in iOS or Mac is using satellite imagery from ESRI (at least for the two spots I checked in Thailand i.e. Samui and Koh Chang) which is sometimes better than Google imagery. Good to have both ESRI and Google imagery on board.

Very nice tricks! Thank you!

Thamk you! Nice job again ! I cannot wait to see you two I gotta buy you dinner and drinks! Up grading to a 38ft !

Good useful info. Top notch as usual from the Esper crew. Thanks!

Great video guys, much appreciated!

Thank you for a very thorough coverage of the topic.

A ton of great info! Good work!

An absolute corker, brilliant info! cheers. Steve

Nice to get this information all in one place. Thanks!

This a fantastic video. Thank you so much sharing these apps and your experience using them :)

again loved your vid. I really enjoy the remote locations you go to but I also appreciate the technical side of doing that and the tech you give on boat living. you have both going for you. Very nice. happy sailing and be safe out there

I havent gotten around to use this much, but i'd like to say that at our maritime academy (first semester), we also have iSailor on apps. It's fantastic, and much easier than paper charts (which we are also being trained in - though the paper charts have the advantage that the waypoints dont get deleted accidentally.. :P ) Edit: I'm gonna explain briefly about the degrees, minutes and seconds to those who might not know why. The Earth is split into a very large 'net' of lines going from pole to pole, and lines going across the equator (These are called latitude and longtitude). The earth is more or less a circle, which means 360 degrees (around the latitude - east/west. The longtitude goes from pole to pole, and measures 180 degrees north / south). So the earth is split into 360 degrees. It has been split further into minutes and seconds to make it more accurate; 60 minutes equal 1 degree, and 60 seconds equal 1 minute. So it's basically a more fine-tuned (or smaller area) definition of a point on earth. Sea charts are - to my knowledge - always in degrees, minutes and seconds (so when you mark a dot on your paper chart, you can ''read'' the position directly at the sides and top/bottom of the map where the degrees, minutes, and seconds are located). Bonus info: On longtitudes (not latitudes), a sea mile (~1.852km) equals one minute. Decimals are usually 1/10th. Which means 0.1 degree in decimals equals 6' (minutes, 6/60).

Great help thanks for sharing

I'm now using Timezero software on my navigation PC, which links to my Furuno chartplotter up by the wheel (over N2K) This also allows the digital Radar overlay (over ethernet). All the charts are basically cmap but they also have satellite imagery in the chart purchases. I also run openCPN on the nav PC as an alternate (downloading CAP files), then open CPN on my android tablet along with Navionics. The plan is to get a Garmin InReach as the last backup. It has to be said Timezero is just amazing, with weather routing and weather overlay (and Active Captain crowd sourced information) along with the Furuno DRS4D-NXT radar which has doppler that colours oncoming targets red (including squalls) makes the stuff we used in the '90s quite prehistoric. I think I have enough electronic charts on board now to count as backup! But... an old ex-admiral once said to me, "Paper charts still have the advantage over electronic charts in a war, notably if a paper chart gets shot at it will still work"

Nice list of apps. Even useful for land-only navigators. Thanks!

Great vid, very useful 👍

As always, well put together and informative. Degrees, minutes and seconds, for me the biggest take away, will be checking the apps on our boat at the weekend.

thx this was rely a good help fore me im was just going too ask you about this 5555 :) big thx greatings Bjorn

using the drone (in good weather) to spot the course ahead is perfect! Very useful information again! thanks ;-)

Very well put together. Many thanks and best from HKG

Very good video excellent information easy explanation for difficult things thank you for sharing.

Fantastic informative vids 👌 must be challenging sailing into these regions Singlehanding 🙄

very informative. Thank you

Got to agree even for weekend saililing always use a lead line if I am anchoring over night, then there's now guessing even for scope of anchor. Thanks for the video

Great overview.!

Loved this video, I have a little handheld Garmin GPS unit with just the world map on it. However it will tell my exact location (3m accurate). So when all power fails you know exactly where you are on your paper charts.

Lots of good info and some new apps for me to track down. Some people mount remote cameras up the mast so you can see what's going on up front of the boat from the helm. Some of these can even do FLIR (forward looking infrared) so they can be used at night. With Navionics, it takes sounder information from boaters that have their sounders connected to a source that Navionics can read and updates the downloaded charts for everyone. Up here in Canada in the 30,000 Islands cruising grounds, there are rocks under the surface everywhere and the charts while half decent for the heavily covered channels are less useful when gunk holing. One of the beautiful things with Navionics is that because this is such a heavily travelled area by local cottagers who have loads of local knowledge, you get the benefit of their travels as long as they have depth information connected (most recent systems can put depth on the same bus as your nav signals and I'm putting a RS-422 - wifi bridge in so I can do it with my old pre 2K system as well. One thing you didn't mention (and perhaps part of the challenge you had with Navionics in the Anambas is to make sure that your nav system is using the same chart datum as the charts themselves. WG84 seems to be the more recent standard but there are thousands of charts out there with pre-WG84 datums and some are wildly off if your system is setup to read one and you are using another. In Canada many of our charts are NAD27 which luckily is pretty close but I've seen instances where there are deviations and you can get bit rather badly. One thing for all of us to watch though is that Navionics was recently bought by Garmin so I'm worried they'll jack the prices and restrict the usability towards Garmin devices. One of the huge plus's for the Navionics on phones/iPads was the price... $20 for a region is awesome.

From zero to ten, this was a 12. Thank you for this very important information.

I love you guys.

Good video. I don’t trust charts or electronics. For various reasons. I sail single handed I only trust my own eyes. So I anchor in 5 metres of water get into my tinny. With fenders or any thing that will float with weights attached at turning points. Once I’m happy with the track I return to boat and travel along the track and pick up my fenders. So far I’ve had no problems. The drone is a very good idea I will have to buy one.

I can imagine if people starts using a drone as lookout: that will surely change the scenery and the noiselevel of a beautiful anchorage...all of this modern technology is always on a "need to use" level. Use a well established nav system and depth sounder, your eyes and first and foremost good seamanship: which means do not enter a poorly charted area in bad weather or during the night. Wait until daylight and proper weather.

I've been using Navionics on my ipad for a few years now as my boats chart plotter is too small to see with my aging eyes lol. I've found it very useful sailing the east coast of aus, as well as Indonesia and a small aborted trip from the Seychelles back to Oz ( another story not for here lol). As my chart plotter ( which runs c maps ) has the older NMEA 0183 standard I've found it difficult to find a compatible AIS system. Recently I downloaded isailor which I know will overlay AIS via wifi from the vesper marine system, yes at an extra cost, about A$15 . Was good to see you using the same vesper unit which I've just ordered. In conclusion My main nav system looks like being my ipad with isailor. cheers

Great video as usual. Very informative and something I will be having another look at when I finally get a boat of my own. I'd love to get your opinion on my idea of putting a camera on the mast with a fish eye lins that would give me a forward view hopefully above the fog and can be remotely aimed more downward for close work around hazards like Coral?

Incredibly well-presented and very worthwhile information. I see a few posts about using spreader mounted or externally mounted cameras. Have you come across IR night vision cameras in your travels and if so any thoughts?

Great stuff, especially WRT the satnav apps! I know you've covered this before, but how do you get your weather and wind info?

Whilst not using apps for navigation etc. I do use Lat Long for position plotting as a Radio Ham. I am used to Deg, Min, Sec from my sailing and RAF days but as you say most modern apps use decimal Deg and it confuses me sometimes so I feel sorry for modern sailors and understand their confusion.

I use navionics , as i find it quite intuitive to use. One issue i find is, as it downloads areas as needed, ie at the planning stage, for some reason it has failed to download an area, something i dont realise until im out of phone coverage. I use open cpn as a backup (open source great for those on a budget) and have it pre loaded on all my laptops and devices , as i have worldwide raster charts preloaded , oh also have a garmin handheld.. I cant overlay my radar as it is an older but reliable furuno, but i constanly compare the gps with it. Crewing for Millie seems like a pretty good gig..

Ya I'm with her! Just show/tell me what I'm looking at but your the man lol technically

Many many Thanks for that Topic - highly appreciated! Did you ever tried SASPLanet? Very good Satelite imagery there. Fair Winds!

Hi enjoy your videos, I use Transas iSailor App on both an iPad and Android and agree with findings. I am a ships Pilot in the UK and sail my 33ft boat around the coast. I have used the isailor both on ships and my boat and find it very accurate and the ais data through the cellular net work is updated very quickly a lot quicker than other web systems. Onething to bear in mind when recommending an iPad is that its only the ones with cellular capability has a built in gps receiver the others will give a position but only by cross referencing wifi towers so may work when you on terra ferma but not offshore I can vouch for the iPad gps but would not be confident with the gps on a cheap android. My experience is the isailor is much smoother on an iPad compared to android. Also on an iphone the sailor is only displayed in portrait mode not switching to landscape as per the iPad. I also connect my iPad to my tv with a hdmi and have a 22 inch plotter in the cabin which is fantastic for plotting routes together (imagine the cost of a 22 inch plotter). My boat has the main plotter at the wheel and nothing down below which is where the iPad comes into its own. Finally the main plotter uses quite a bit of power so if spending a night at anchor its reassuring to set the anchor alarm on the phone or iPad which is very loud or just to take a reassuring glance at when turned in with the main plotter switched off. In a nutshell the sailor is a great plotter without being over complicated and just works and does not feel like an app.

great vid... im going to Fiji pretty soon to do some fishing..which app do u think would be good to use for that area ??

Thank you for this - a very useful resume. Is your gifted iPad cellular (ie with built in GPS receiver) and do you use that for planning routes and then synch with the plotter or do you do it the other way round? I watched this video twice 😂 I was reflecting on the Anambas issue with the charts and Navionics suddenly correcting them on your prompt (maybe), for them to do that quickly it must have been a chart datum error.

Brilliant video. I think mention has to be made of chart datums(? is that the correct plural?). Most user errors come from not being aware of them, not knowing how to find out the chart datum, and not setting their gps unit to the corresponding datum. This causes a load of nightmares, but if you choose to use electronic nav it's something you have to get on top of. Could be a good subject for another (great?)video.

Have you thought about mounting a camera on the mast

I don't have a drone, but I've been wondering whether hauling a GoPro up in the mast and watching the live video could be useful for navigating reefs.

For more on Navigation and Cartography : americanadmiraltybooks.blogspot.com/p/navigation.html

Hi J & L - in terms of navigating safely through reefs, have you considered monitoring from a forward facing wide angle camera mounted in an all weather enclosure and to the top of your mast? Just a thought. Thanks for the video, interesting topic. Peace and fair winds, Bobby. PS - you said you were heading north next. Any plans to make it to Samui? I ask, as I will be on Koh Samui for the next couple of months.

Great thanks for this i have been asking about this. Id like to watch in real time as you go, ... And what about a camera up on the mast? Would that get a better view? Good one

Excellent video! I own a Garmin 92sv in the price range 1200 dollars plus the cost of cards. But in the coming season, I'm looking forward to using my 5 year old iPad with iSailor installed. Like you, I'm both excited and impressed with the quality and speed of the app and this set cost me about a tenth of my Garmin. I can realy see my iPad becoming my primary device. What additional packages have you purchased in iSailor?

What about a deep sounder? I believe this is one of the most reliable tools in reef piloting in uncharted water.

Have you had any surprises with Navionics? I was reading about the Tanda Mailika (sp?) catamaran smash onto a reef. They were using Navionics at some higher zoom, and it did not show a reef, which they ran into and sank the boat. Have you had any dramas like that? Thanks for the videos. Always very informative. Cheers - David (edit - Not crashing onto a reef obviously, but any close calls due to not seeing enough detail)

just a response to glare on your chart plotter a mate of mine makes a suround that cuts the glare and makes seeing the screen a lot easier company is berley pro mostly made and fitted to kyaks that are totally exposed to the sun

I know some one who sailed in the solent with an AA map, true story

Always feel cat more liable to be a full on grounding in a reef encounter ? Whereas keel boat would hopefully stop short when a sensible approach speed is used in uncertain depths. Confused sea states when obstructions are not easily seen have you ever used or possess a lead line ?

Thank you for the info ! Have you tried INavX ? Very good app. Fair wind !

Would love to know what your thoughts are for the best anchor dragging app is?

How much do you rely on the cellular phone system for general internet usage? It would likely be a little expensive for vid uploads, but what about for general voip, mapping, email etc? Many thanks.

Am trying to guess your sailing costs...and as for navigation,I can't work a compass even ,lolo

Does the Navionics Satellite view not allow for a similar function to overlaying google satellite images onto OpenCPN? ie. To spot those nasty Coral heads etc?

Over my head , ha ha sorry xx

Instead of having satellite imagery on your phone, cut sails/engine as you get near to possible anchor or reef spot and send up the drone. Get overhead pic and use that image which will be much more recent and better image I am sure. Hmm I do not view Ovital not being on G Playstore as being a problem. Imho that is great news :D I refuse to give google my cell number (had enough issues with them selling my yahoo email) or any other data if I can avoid it. If an app is not on my providers limited app store, or not available as download from sites web page, I simple do with out. Sadly a far too often occurence. Also the all-in-one OfflineMaps, I noticed it had USGS as you scrolled down. That might have some really good US govt satellite images too. ESRI - intn'l supplier of GIS. From its website: ArcGIS, worlds most powerful mapping and spatial analytics software. From you it sounds like its really good. Anyway AWESOME video and thank you for sharing the info.

What is the tower in the background of the video? And sometimes a "Disney castle" appears in the upper left hand corner. What's that?

I searched for the all in one Offline Maps and it did not show up on Apples App store. Is it still available? Has the named been changed ? I do want to use it

Am still measuring my string guys ...💝😹😹

OK, i have tried to leave you a message on FB, but your page does not allow for messages, i also looked on youtube but no luck, so i have no other alternative than to leave it here. I do not agree that paper charts are not important, below will explain why they are so important and why the ability to read them correctly is so important. I am a commercial skipper, i operate vessels for a living and have done for many years, whilst i understand some areas are not charted and are harder to navigate, I also understand that all information on electronic navigational devices is from surveying and geodesy, the same information is contained on charts, a datum is a reference system or an approximation of the Earth's surface against which positional measurements are made for computing locations. Horizontal datums are used for describing a point on the Earth's surface, in latitude and longitude or another coordinate system., Paper charts can be obtained in many different datums making sure you have the correct chart with the correct datum is paramount, being localisation is extremely important when it comes to charts, keeping in mind that all gps are in WGS 84, with Greenwich as the meridian which in itself is 100m out, so adjustments continually need to be made every year, this in it's self can lead to issues, if the datum for a local area is read from example NAD83, WGS84 may be out by up to 200 metres. Paper charts are no good if you do not read the notices to mariners and update the charts for the area you are navigating, Charts are measured at LAT, understanding this helps with navigation from charts but only if reading a chart with the correct datum or the correct offset applied. Chart datums change but not on your GPS currently. You must work out weather you are in an area that is relevant to a localised datum or if it is suited to WGS84, or NAD27 CONUS, NAD 83, ED 50, AGD 66. or one of many others. In relation to people entering information on Navionics the information entered from personal navionics will only overlay on their navionics as information provided by the general public can not be used for the purpose of charts. (as above) When it comes to adding weighpoints to navionics it is easy, all you need to do is search the lat and long then add to favourites and name it then it's saved. I think you would of read many times whether on Navionics or C-Map, etc, etc, that these are a guide only and not to be relied upon for navigational purposes. With regards to using Google earth it may be helpful but you must understand that in areas of limited visibility in the water often it will not show dangerous shallow reefs. I have watched a couple of your video's, i watch many of the sailing video,s, one thing that does concern me is all of the people producing them are giving mixed signals to the general public and at some stage if someone follows this information and they run aground or worse, will they sue. Please do not take what i am saying as negative, as i love seeing people out on the water and enjoying themselves, but i have rescued and towed many people in, who's dreams go out the door from a miss understanding of the water and its dangers. the most reliable navigation systems are charts and have been for hundreds of years, yes electronics has made it easier but it has not removed the use of charts completely yet and will not in our life time. Enjoy your sailing.