SAIL Magazine highlights Rose Point's Coastal Explorer in their new gear section and they seem to like it. This product was released not so long ago.
"Coastal Explorer is a humdinger of a new PC charting program. It's remarkably fast and bug free for 1.0 software, deftly handles most raster-chart flavors as well as free NOAA vector ENCs, and has planning and underway interfaces that I find both comprehensive and comprehensible."
Interesting roundup of different navigation software packages and what to expect from them in the coming months. MotorBoating takes a look at C-Map' PC Planner, Fugawi's Marine ENC, Global Navigation Software's NavPak-Lite and NavPak-Pro, Maptech's Offshore Navigator, Maxsea's The Yacht, Raymarine�s RayTechRNS 5.0, Nautical Technologies' The Capn and Voyager Mosaic/S-57, Nobeltec's Admiral 7 and InSight Radar 2, and Transas' Navigator Plus.
"Navigation programs for PCs can do a lot more than simply paint pretty pictures of electronic charts. The programs available today can download free charts to your computer. They can be platforms for your PDAs. They can work with radar sets to warn you of collisions at sea. They can overlay charts with photographs, weather images or radar targets. And they can even draw their own bathymetric charts. To fill you in on the big picture, here�s a look at what�s coming from nine software companies this fall."
Boating World Magazine has a roundup of nine chartplotters. Some of them have been highlighted on this weblog before. They discuss the following brands and models: Navman Tracker 5110, Raymarine RC400, Garmin GPSMAP 178C, Lowrance iFinder H20, Standard Horizon CP 175 C, SI-Tex ColorMax 6, Magellan eXplorist 200, Furuno NavPilot 511 and the Eagle SeaCharter 480DF.
For those of you cruising the world's oceans, this might be interesting. Found over at the World-Cruising mailing list.
"Ooohh, what a find! Pilot charts for the whole world...free...in pdf format. Large files.-Ken"
An LCD radar roundup over at Practical-Sailor.com will help you prevent overspending on this very important piece of technology onboard.
Not sure how and if this will work with chart overlay..., but it looks pretty cool. I'm sure this will provide you with better insight into how the weather actually works so you will be better able to plan your trips.
"A version of 3D software Weatherscape XT has been developed by New Zealand firm Metra and the BBC to give viewers a realistic-looking forecast. Combining high-end gaming graphics and processing power means visuals are generated instantly, in real-time. The virtual reality technology takes constantly-updated data and translates it into 3D images. The new forecasts will be on air from early next year. "We are trying to take weather data and generate weather graphics on a 3D map that actually looks like the weather."
AIS, Automatic Identification System, has been mentioned here before. Over at the Yachting and Boating World Forums there's a discussion on whether it already is or should be adopted by the marine leisure industry. 
Someone points at AISLive where you can see it in action. Fascinating.
Peppermint: "Becoming/has become compulsory for big ships under SOLAS and ISPS codes. The idea of yotties using the transmitting element it is scary as hell to port authorities and shipping industry. Just think of the clutter. I've been using it on a bridge simulator. The info you can obtain by reading the transmitted data is interesting. It includes ships name, course, speed and loads more stuff. On a dark and stormy night in the channel it might be nice to know who's trying to run you down. Developing an AIS system for yachts, broadcasting on a different frequency to big ships, would be a useful way to monitor boats for taxation purposes."
So how about the navigation software for a Mac I mentioned the other day? Ben Ellison hinted at NavimaQ, developed by Barco Software. 
They also have a Linux navigation tool, SeaFarer/LX, which is now available for beta testing, and will be ported to OS X in a later stage. Furthermore, check out their zCapn, zNav and zNav Lite PDA solutions. (Thanks Ben!)
"NavimaQ will continue on as it is for those users running older Macs. For OS X we will be taking some of the features froml NavimaQ and adding them to SeaFarer/LX. Once that is complete we will port SeaFarer/LX to OS X. We invite all of you to look at the features planned for SeaFarer/LX, then let us know which features you would like to see added from NavimaQ and any other features you feel are important to add to SeaFarer/LX."
Some relevant news for Admiral and Visual Navigation Suite 7.0 users in Nobeltec's newsletter today.
"This free Service Pack contains several new updates and features including support for BSB 4.0 charts and the new line of IR2 radars. In addition, the new Service Pack also includes a significant new feature for boaters outside of U.S. waters called ChartGridding. This new feature takes recorded depths and land elevations from Passport Charts and uses them to create a 3D bathymetric grid. This is a real plus for globe trotting boaters!"
So when can we expect to use our phones as a chartplotter? I do not know of any electronic charts that are ready to be used on a mobile phone, but I'm sure that won't take very long.
"I've been fiddling about with Earthmate's excellent Blue Logger GPS, a smaller-than-iPod Mini-sized Bluetooth-enabled GPS unit that works like a charm with my various mobile devices (Powerbook, Nokia 6600, Pocket PC, etc). While I started out on my Pocket PC with XMap Pro, I quickly found myself finding and downloading GPS-enabled apps for my Nokia 6600. I stumbled across TomTom CityMaps over at Handango and quickly stocked up on the maps (US$4.99 apiece)."
