Navionics charts on the iPhone

I've just discovered the Navionics chart applications on the iPhone.

These are amazing value, and the iPhone UI makes them tremendously easy to use.

Up until now, I've been using an obsolete Raymarine
RC400 hand-held chart plotter.

It's a hand-held GPS receiver, waterproof, and aimed at marine use. There's a small colour screen (about 3.5"), fairly dismal battery life, and it weighs about 430g. Mine also has an annoying habit of crashing at least once a day, presenting a screen with a hex code and an instruction to hold down the power key to reboot.

This never works; I always have to remove the battery pack from

the back and restart it that way. Apart from that annoyance, it's a smart bit of kit.

You buy Navionics Gold charts for it which are stored on Compact Flash cards.

The charts are not cheap - one for the UK costs around £180. (This is much cheaper, however, than buying the equivalent paper charts.) You also need to invest in keeping the charts updated.

Contrast this with the Navionics charts for the iPhone. The equivalent UK coverage chart is £15, downloadable from the iTunes store (just search for "Navionics").

For £15, the coverage is astounding. And there's tidal data, as you would expect, and integration with Facebook (so you can publish your track) which you might not.

Problems? Well, the iPhone isn't waterproof, and I'm not sure that using it with cold, wet, gloved fingers would be a great idea, but as a planning tool these look fantastic.