MaxSea Marine navigation software is the next what appears in Google searches. I have some practical experience with this nautical program which I would like to share with you.
About five years ago I had adventures voyage on JEANNEAU Prestige 36 pleasure craft from Riga on Baltic sea to Lowestoft UK East coast. It was very instructive, exciting and sometimes a little risky enterprise. I have never before sailed on this kind of boats and had a less than three days for preparation. Technically boat was in good order with small engine hours, and two independent 620 KW Volvo Penta engines gave me a confidence.
I am more concerned about the reliability of navigation. Boat was equipped with Raymarine E class GPS navigation system. We made a purchase of three C-MAP NT+ electronic cartridges to cover a sailing area with updated navigational charts and which cost about €450. By me, that was very expensive. I did not have to worry about expenses.
All money headaches were very wealthy boat owner’s business. Guys want to meet friends in England to accompany him for hunting. Why not? For me exclusive opportunity to prove my skills and for which even got compensation.
From my previous experience of navigation in unknown and even in familiar sea areas then back up entirely independent navigation tools are must-have on board. For that, I used Windows 7 running Acer laptop with MaxSea marine navigation software. Even more, I had iPhone 3 charged with Navionics app.
However, this time not on the topic, but just want to say that I had to use the iPhone as real GPS navigation for boats tool after Raymarine and laptop were out of order. And even-even more I had to execute navigation in dark Stralsund narrow approaches just gazing tiny smartphone screen to avoid grounding or violate prohibited for navigation area.
My old good Acer laptop was down not because of the computer itself, but that was AC/DC converter failure. Prestige 36 pleasure yacht was not equipped with 110-220 V output sockets, so I was forced to use lighter 12V socket. The laptop is charging by 19V, so the solution was a use of converter 12V to 220V in my case.
Regarding all I have written above and how it fit in my marine navigation software theme? I just want to say that have some experience with using marine software for laptop and that time it was MaxSea.
How good or not so good, how convenient in practice on rolling boat board it was?
Software for navigation is OK, just it needed some time to get used to it. Need find a place to fixing laptop in a way to not broke a screen and at the same time be handy to use a keyboard and mouse. I did not it properly because Raymarine was gone at sea, at rough sea so back up laptop came to fully operation mode quite unexpectedly. But it not excuses to me. I had to anticipate it some days ago on shore.
Returning to the MaxSea navigation program. I maybe something not quite understand it correctly, but as you can understand, now MaxSea and Nobeltec uses the same software- TimeZero about it read my previous post. What is the difference in both nautical software, I do not know?
Please correct me if I am not right.
As far as I am writing this post an idea is appearing for the future post. Why not share the story of my adventures and some practical information about my real more than 2000 nautical miles sea voyage on a boat with fuel autonomy about 120 n.m. I hope it could be helpful or exciting for adventure lovers.
Safe Sailing fellow boaters!
Hello, Andrejs,
I finf your article about GPS Navigation Systems very interesting inside a well built website.
I am amazed with the complexity of the MaxSea  Marine navigation software.
While I’m not, by far, your average sailor (lol), the very first image atracted me to read the rest of the post.
Computer aided sailing must be very exciteg.
Maybe I’ll join an adventure of the kind someday,
I think sharing your adventures with us is a great idea.
Cheers!
Thank you, and I am glad for your interest in marine software and other GPS navigation related themes.
Today technical side of boating and sailing is more accessible to everyone. But it is not the same sitting and sail on PC simulators in home office or be on boat in high seas, sway in the waves and to suffer from seasickness.
But you are right, this is an unbelievable adventure to feel salty sea water and roaring winds and then calm down….satisfaction guaranteed!
A site on various GPS systems and devices. The site looks the business and very professional. It goes into great detail about product information and goes through smartphone, marine, car navigation plus a whole lot more. A lot of hard work has gone into this site and i hope one day i can have my site looking as good as this. Well Done
Thanks Roy for kind words!
You know, I have so many ideas, but a hardest is create helpful content. Not, just rewrite someone’s article but, at least, inject in any post my experience. Unfortunately, experience is not endless, but I try.