Before reading on, please stop for a moment to take this week’s survey so we can share the results with the Cruising Compass family.
Do you have a staysail stay or cutter stay and a staysail on your boat?
Thanks to all readers who replied to last week’s survey on using satellite imagery for navigation. 54% of readers who replied do use the satellite photo images. The most popular imaage source, almost unanimously, is Google Earth. For viewing and navigating with satellite images, 44% use a laptop, 38% use an Apple iPad, 11% use an Android tablet and 4% use a chartplotter interface. Comments include:
I use Google Earth to set waypoints and routes. Then create a .kmz file and load that data onto my chart plotter. Google Earth has an add on layer that shows NOAA charts.
I use Bing, utilized by Navionics.
I use Google, MS Bing and Veturefarther.com
Google earth as an additional reference for coastal passage planning, but not navigation. Also, useful for quick approximate rhumb line courses and distances across open water.
Google Earth with the geotaged photos gives you a good idea what you’ll encounter. Some photos are in the wrong spot. I like the dive spot feature.
