Introduction to Navionics (Boating)

This text is the first in a series of five on electronic navigation applications. It shows you how to perform the most important navigation tasks, i.e. how to:

1. obtain electronic charts.
2. read chart symbols.
3. measure distances and angles.
4. learn about currents and tides.
5. evaluate speed and course over ground.
6. plan and execute routes.
7. exchange planned routes.
8. record the actual route taken.

This first text covers the Navionics (Boating) application. The other texts cover OpenCPN, Savyy Navy, C-MAP and SEAIQ respectively. The first part of this text covers generalities applicable to all navigation applications. The second part deals specifically with the use of Navionics.

General information on navigation applications

A navigation application is a software that interprets and displays electronic charts for navigation. You need an electronic device to be able to use it. Common options are a smartphone, a tablet computer (iPad, etc.) or a computer on board a sailboat (Raymarine, etc.). On used sailboats, the use of a tablet is common practice. Below, the empahasis is on tablers, cell phones and devices that are not connected to the sailboat’s instruments.

A GPS is required…

To display a sailboat’s position and speed, the application must be installed on a device with a GPS. A touch screen is also required to interact with the map. These requirements are met with the vast majority of modern smartphones. However, integrated GPS is sometimes lacking on certain tablet models (notably regular iPads).

If you’re looking to install an application on a dedicated device, you’ll need to pay close attention to the presence of built-in GPS. With some manufacturers (e.g. Apple), you have to buy tablets with cellular functions to get GPS. Otherwise, no position or speed data!

… but no cellular data!

An electronic navigation application does not require a cellular connection to navigate. You can navigate on the high seas without cellular reception, or in “airplane” mode in countries with high roaming fees. As long as the GPS is activated, you’ll be able to use your charts, display speed and display position. However, there’s a caveat: to update electronic charts, you’ll need some kind of internet connection, whether cellular or wi-fi.

The application evaluates your device’s speed

By default, portable electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets are disconnected from a sailboat’s instruments. Thus, the application displays the position, speed and movement… of your electronic device. This distinction can become important if you’re walking on your boat at the time you’re reading your speed (do the exercise on land or dockside!). It also means that the application can only display speed and course over ground. Your app ignores your heading, and can’t isolate drift.

It is possible to connect navigation applications to a wi-fi network broadcasting your yacht’s NMEA data, but this requires additional steps. Of course, the most important exception concerns chartplotters (Raymarine, etc.) which may be connected to the sailboat’s NMEA network.

It’s wise to have redundancy

Portable electronic devices can be lost, dropped in the water, run out of batteries or break. I’ve sometimes dropped a device in the water, or been unable to charge it because it was too exposed to the rain.

In fact, it’s a safe practice to have a second device with an application installed, up to date, and with charged batteries. Similarly, it’s good practice to bring more than one charging cable, and an external battery to recharge it.

It’s wise to bring your own device

If you’re sailing on someone else’s boat, the capabilities and status of the chartplotter will be unknown until you’re on board. Chartplotters are subject to repairs and electrical tinkering by others. Based on my experience, it’s not uncommon to see broken screens, blown breakers or out-of-date maps. If navigation depends on a chartplotter on someone else’s ship, it’s a good idea to bring your tablet or phone.

Chart data comes from the government

Whatever is your favorite application, if you’re viewing a chart on Canadian territory, the data displayed by most electronic applications comes from the Canadian Hydrographic Service. Private companies operating these applications pay usage fees in exchange for access to the Hydrographic Service’s chart data.

In this sense, regardless of the application provider, you’ll get essentially the same cartographic information. There may be differences in color or certain symbols, but the charts will show the same depths, buoys, etc. The only differences are in the way they are displayed and updated.

To use an analogy, you might prefer Coke to Pepsi, but it’s all the same: water, sugar and carbon dioxide. The differences are just a few ingredients!

I take the trouble to write “most” applications rather than all, as some may rely on third-party services. If this is the case, it’s best not to use the app to navigate Canadian waters, as the data on the charts is probably outdated, erroneous, or both!

You still need paper charts

The United States, France, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia recognize that electronic applications are acceptable substitutes for paper charts. In fact, neighboring countries (particularly in the Caribbean) are following the lead of the great maritime powers. In Canada, however, this is not the case for recreational boaters.

For pleasure craft, the Navigation Safety Regulations specify that paper charts of an appropriate scale must still be carried on board, unless you are familiar with the body of water on which you are sailing. It’s important to understand that if you’re sailing repeatedly in known waters, you don’t need charts. But if you’re traveling in new waters, Canadian pleasure crafts must have paper charts.

I believe that this regulatory obligation should change, in particular to keep pace with the practice of the vast majority of boaters, and to allow electronic applications. However, this is not yet the case, and if we want to comply with the law, we need paper on board (and more generally, nautical publications). To follow the evolution of e-navigation in Canada, visit the Canadian Coast Guard’s e-navigation portal. In particular, the page detailing the government’s roadmap clearly illustrates the challenges involved in the transition to electronic navigation.

Navionics (Boating)

Navionics is an application that displays professional nautical charts to boaters via a subscription system. The application is available on both the Apple store and the Google store, and works on the vast majority of modern electronic devices. Essentially, by paying a subscription fee for a given region of the world, Navionics provides charts that are continually updated (provided you’re connected to the internet). There is a 90-day trial period during which data can be accessed free of charge, allowing you to evaluate the application. After that, you have to pay the subscription fee.

This is the application I use to execute my passage plans (and I work with another application for planning). The application is not without its faults, the most important being the handling of currents in the St. Lawrence. I leave it to personal preference to establish the superiority of one application over another. The other texts cover others!

Purchasing electronic charts

To obtain electronic charts from Navionics, you need to download the application, create an account and accept the user license. Go to the main menu, then select the “Subscriptions” section. You can then select the region of interest and provide your payment details.

Navionics will then activate an automatic annual payment for chart use. In 2025, the subscription price for charts of the USA and Canada is 80 canadian dollars. If you want charts of the Caribbean, you’ll have to pay an additional subscription fee, and so on for each region of the world you’re interested in.

Once you have a subscription, you can pinch your fingers on the touch screen to target a navigation region of interest. As long as the device is connected to the Internet, the graphic objects making up this navigation region will be downloaded automatically by the application. A small blue download strip can then be seen at the top of the application.

You can also download charts in advance. This option is particularly useful if you intend to navigate without an Internet connection. Simply select the area of interest using the touchscreen, then download the chart. The selected area is then ready for use without an internet connection.

Reading symbols on the map

Navionics does not present all symbols in accordance with international conventions (recorded in Chart #1). It is therefore important to be able to interpret them. In this respect, the navigation crosshair – the cross in the center of the screen – is the essential tool for reading the meaning of symbols.

The crosshairs appear as soon as you move the map with a single finger. The center of the crosshairs is the target point for which information will be displayed. At the top of the crosshairs is a brief description of the target point. To the left of the crosshairs is the weather information menu (a cloud and sun icon). To the right is the detailed information menu (the question mark).

To obtain information on a particular symbol, move the chart so that the crosshairs are on the symbol. You can then obtain summary information at the top of the crosshair, but for detailed information, you need to click on the detailed information menu button (the question mark).

The application will then display all mapped objects located at the geographical point targeted by the crosshair. There is usually more than one. Select the one you’re interested in to get the associated information.

The images accompanying this section of the text show that the reticle is targeted on buoy H93, near St-Jean-Port-Joli. Clicking on the detailed information menu reveals that the electronic chart contains four objects at this point: the buoy, the level lines, the name of the channel and the depth zone.

You can then place your finger on the object of interest to find the recorded information. On the left, we see detailed information on buoy H93, a green-framed buoy with a green flashing light that lights up every four seconds (G FL 4S). We can also see its number (ATL 1874), which corresponds to its official designation in the Atlantic Lights, Buoys and Fog Signals Book (image below).

sAlthough the information presented by the application is fairly complete, it omits some information. In particular, the application fails to mention that buoy H93 is only present during the summer season.

Once you’ve understood how to move the crosshairs, you can find virtually all the information on each of the symbols.

Measuring distances and angles

Angles and distances are measured using the compass instrument at the bottom right of the screen. Pressing the key reveals two pins connected by a line. One pin is purple and the other is red. The distance measured is that between the two pins (the line). The angle measured is that which the line makes with north. A pop-up window displaying the distance and angle also appears.

In the image on the left below, we can see a distance between the position of a ship (the red arrowhead) and the port of Gros-Cacouna. The distance displayed is 1 nautical mile(1.0 NM). This distance is displayed because the pins coincide with the ship’s position and the port. By moving the pins to any point of interest, you will be able to establish any desired distance.

Bearings are measured in degrees true, following the usual convention of measuring from north. The bearing displayed always assumes that the last pin moved is the destination (regardless of color). In the image on the left below, the bearing displayed is 263 degrees, meaning that the route between the port of Gros-Cacouna and the ship is 263 degrees true.

If you wish to see the reverse direction, simply move the red pin and the application will display the reverse bearing, i.e. 083 degrees true. The interpretation is that the ship must follow a course of 083 degrees true to enter the port of Gros-Cacouna (note: this corresponds approximately to the alignment shown on the chart). By moving the pins to any point of interest, we can find the bearings of interest.

Learn about currents and tides

Tides

Note: this section is a reproduction of the section of the text on determining a tide window. It illustrates how to find tide information for St-Jean-Port-Joli. You can, of course, do the same for other tide stations.

The Navionics application doesn’t invent anything. It simply reports the tide station information available on the marees.gc.ca website. The information is displayed directly on the map.

The application automatically displays the tide stations. These are small black rectangles, sometimes with a red gauge (as in the image), sometimes with a blue gauge (unillustrated). Red is a visual indication that the tide is ebbing. Blue is a visual indication that the tide is rising. To obtain the tide, we need to choose the gauge closest to the location we’re interested in. This is done by placing the crosshairs on the tide station, then tapping on the detailed information menu.

The image below (left) shows the tide cycle window when the gauge has been correctly clicked. It is compressed at the bottom of the screen. Navionics displays the actual water level (chart zero tide level) directly on the screen as long as you are in the tides pop-up menu. So you can see the predicted water level according to the tidal cycle.

Choosing the right date is as simple as using the contextual menu at the bottom left of the screen (see image below). By moving the wheels, you can identify the date you’re interested in, and the application will load the tide data for the day of interest.

To interpret the tide data, move the cursor at the bottom of the tide window. You can then find the time of low tide, high tide, or the water level at any time of the day.

Please note that the times presented in Navionics are necessarily those of your electronic device’s time zone. In the images in this text, the tablet is in the Caribbean time zone (!), so the time is ahead of schedule. Therefore, in the images below, you need to add an hour to find the Quebec time. If your tablet or cell phone is on Quebec time, no adaptation is necessary.

Currents

The method for assessing currents is similar to that for assessing tides. Identify a “current station” on the water, place the crosshairs there, and click on the detailed information menu to obtain the current status. These can be obtained in real time, in a similar way to the tides, but you can’t choose a date and determine the direction and magnitude of the current at the station indicated. The images below illustrate the essentials of the method.

A comparison of the currents displayed by Navionics with those of the St. Lawrence Global Observatory shows a problem, however. Manual calculations from the Current Atlas coincide with those of the Observatory, but not with those of Navionics. In other words, Navionics is displaying the wrong current information on the St. Lawrence River!

Evaluating speed and course on the ground

As long as the electronic application’s GPS is activated, the evaluation of speed over ground (SOG) and course over ground ( COG) is automatically displayed on screen. The ship is represented by a red arrowhead, and the course over ground is the red line extending from the arrowhead.

In a nutshell, the course over ground is the direction in which the ship is heading, taking into account the effect of winds and currents, as opposed to the direction in which the ship is pointing (the course). Similarly, speed over ground is speed over land, not speed over water (as displayed by a log). If you are unfamiliar with these concepts, I encourage you to take a navigation course.

The Navionics application automatically displays speed over ground at the top center of the window. In the image on the right, the speed displayed is 20.9 knots (Kts: knots), a speed hardly achievable with a pleasure sailboat! This means that the ship is travelling at 20.9 nautical miles per hour in relation to land.

In the same image, the course over the background is indicated by the red arrow and is approximately south-west (225 degrees true).

Planning and executing routes

Route planning is carried out via the “Route” menu in the bottom right-hand corner of the application window. Both manual and automatic options are available.

The manual option lets the user place thewaypoints that make up the route. Once in manual mode, simply press and hold a geographic point on the map to add it to the current route. Points are added one after the other. Below, I illustrate a route on the background between Tadoussac and Le Bic.

A notable shortcoming of electronic maps is that they hide navigation objects at low resolution (when you cover a large distance with the screen). It is therefore good practice to go back to the route drawn at high resolution (by “zooming in”) to check that the route does not pass through objects that are not hidden at low resolution. In the example route below, an examination at high resolution suggests that we may be passing too close to the Alcide Rock cardinal buoy.

You can modify the route by adding an intermediate waypoint. Simply long-click on a road segment, then move the selected point to the desired location. Navionics will then understand that a new point has been created at the point where you released it.

Navionics also offers the option of automatic route planning. This should be used with great caution, as it lets the computer determine where to go without necessarily taking into account any safety considerations that may apply. In particular, an automatic route will not take into account any navigation warnings in force. It is an essential practice to review an automatically created route for hazards before using it.

Exchange previously planned routes

Navionics allows you to download routes produced by other applications. Similarly, you can export routes produced on Navionics. The exchange format is .gpx, an open standard. This is a convenient way of sharing a route from one person to another, without that person using the same navigation application as you.

To export a route, go to the route archive menu by clicking on “route”, then “route archive”, then choose the selection menu in the top right-hand corner. Then select the route you wish to export, and click on the share button. Finally, select the “export to .gpx format” option. The images below summarize how to do this.

Navionics offers the option to “share a route with a friend”. This option will require your friend to install Navionics on his or her device in order to access the route. It’s more a way of forcing the use of the application than of sharing a route! On the other hand, exporting in .gpx format will be supported by most other navigation applications.

To load a .gpx route into Navionics, simply click on the route once it has been downloaded. Navionics will then open automatically. If you have more than one navigation application installed on your device, it’s possible that another application will open instead of Navionics. In this case, you need to tell your operating system which application to use to open the .gpx files.

Recording the actual route taken

To save the actual route (often called the “track”), use the start button at the bottom of the screen. This saves the history of the ship’s actual position and displays it on the map. This is very useful for retracing your route on badly marked stretches of water.

As soon as you activate the track, the Navionics screen will display a pop-up bar containing elapsed time, average speed over ground and distance covered. This bar is displayed at the top of the screen.

In the image on the left below, you can see the contextual bar at the start of activation (everything is at zero). Note that the “start” button has been replaced by the “stop” button (bottom center), implicitly signifying that the application is in tracking mode.

In the center image below, we can see the route taken by the ship (its track) and the navigation statistics after 43 minutes, 49 seconds of navigation. The average speed is 14.3 knots (over ground) and the distance covered is 6.0 nautical miles. In the image, the track is a straight line because the ship went in a straight line, but it must be understood that if the ship had changed course, the track would have incorporated this turn.

Conclusion

Navionics is an e-navigation application that can be used for most common navigation tasks. Its biggest shortcoming is the poorly calculated currents on the St. Lawrence River (and perhaps elsewhere).

The few options for configuring the display are also worth mentioning. It is not possible, for example, to remove certain information from the map. It is, however, possible to change the units displayed, as well as to change the map colors to night or day. There are some advanced options which are not covered in this text. The most important is connecting the application to the yacht’s AIS. Please refer to the manufacturer’s instructions.

All in all, it’s a handy pocket application. To assess the state of navigation while remaining in the cockpit, just take a quick look at your phone.