Expensive and tired old technology?

[Sea Simon]

I've just placed my order for the Sailproof 10" - primarily based on advice from this thread (thanks in particular to Graham W)...

So if anyone is interested in the SP10 just ping me - though I'm not planning on using it in anger until mid-April.

How is the new sailproof 10" doing, and what software are you using please?
The "pogo pin" charging also appeals.

How's your 8" performing GW/AB?

[AndyB]

I am very pleased with my Sailproof 8. It is clear to see throughout the cockpit and easy to read on a sunny day. A great addition to my e-ink display.  I now have the many readouts from wind, depth, speed etc on the e-ink display and charting from the sailproof.

So a happy boy just need some weather to use it in anger - just 2 day trips so far.  I have it and the e-ink display connected to USB charging ports to keep them charged up whilst the sun is out but for day sailing where there is evening power access they last all day.

I have the sailproof connected to the boat wifi to receive AIS (from the radio) and the other instruments.  I have it connected to my phone via bluetooth to get the internet though only for the longer passages and for next day planning whilst at anchor/berth. I could get a sim card but do not want the added expense.

For sailing I use Navionics - it displays AIS, depth and SOG and tracks your progress. I also use Solentmet when in the Solent and graphs from the e-ink device to try and predict how the weather is progressing but would like to add a barometer at some point

For planning I use PredictWind ( free version - still very accurate), Imray Tides and Navionics. Planning using tide streams is difficult and done the old fashioned way - by hand. I also reference BBC weather ( not very good), Met office (much better).

I also have Imray Navigator ( came with the paper charts) , AquaMap ( don't use), Sail Expert ( doesn't work at the moment but has potential as a replacement for the e-ink device - redundancy options)

In the evening on the boat I use Chrome to respond to emails etc and the e-ink device to read books.

So happy with my purchase and would recommend it. Please see my previous post for more details.

[Sea Simon]

Thanks AB, very helpful.

Q. Do you charge with pogo pins or USB>DC jack? These facilities  are attractive to me.
I fret about open/unplugged usb ports and find them vulnerable, and relatively not durable/fragile.
I have had to replace usb ports on two newish, but heavily used Hudl tabs.

Q. Is the upgraded faster 8" worth the quite considerable  premium? Can't  see that I need it on a slow moving sailboat? But see below...

I'm considering a modernisation/upgrade, as when recently VERY badly lost in VERY thick fog (<20m vis),  cliffs with rocky shore _luckily close to home, and relatively well known to me, neither my trusty old Garmin GPS72, nor well used 8" Samsung tab were fixing/re-drawing quickly  enough for my liking, and at times were conflicting. Stressy!
I see Garmin did a 72H model, with increased sensitivity  and plotting rate, so maybe this is a known issue?
Garmin has only my waypoints and nav marks, samsung UKHO raster charts.

However.
The most frightening  part of the experience was being passed closeby at speed by several large expensive RHIBS, all glued to their large expensive plotters...apparently completely oblivious to the fact that I (and a similarly lost pal, in a similar smallish boat, about 300m behind me) would not appear on their plotters. Incidentally, this pal also had gps issues, so maybe ther was a local glitch?
...and then  passed by a substantial FV who sounded like he was watching TV!

So - also now considering active AIS!
But £££ for v occasional need

[AndyB]

I have the SP08s for £585 plus shipping and tax. It works well for me. Can't say if the upgrade of £135 plus more tax is worth it.  I didn't buy it 

The unit comes with a DC jack with a USB-A on the end of it and in addition a power supply (240v) with a DC jack. That is their recommended way of charging. The unit easily lasts a day so you do not need to charge on the boat. So no need to worry about USB ports failing for charging. I have not used the USB ports. If you have it in portrait mode then the DC jack can be underneath the unit.

I have not suffered from GPS loss probably as I have GPS signal from the unit, the radio and the specialist GlobalSat device. All can supply but I use the GlobalSat. It is mounted just under the top of the coach roof. The  GPS device should be as close to the sky as possible but if you are near to land then most use phone masts as well. So it maybe local. Did you try your phone?

I suspect an active AIS would not have made much difference as the RIBS probably didn't have an AIS decoder since it is a special purchase and someone doing high speed in a foggy environment probably finds safety a bit boring.
Provided the manual for the SPO8s/x ....

[Willie The Rut Lander]

Hi Simon
I'm just back from a week away on my BRe. The SP10 is very good but I am very sure I don't get the most from it and I do have a couple of gripes. The main Apps I use are Navionics, Windy (backed up by PredictWind and others on my phone), plus I have Reed's Almanac, which is good to have in both water and windproof formats. I mount it on a removable Scanstrut bracket (bolted through the bulkhead), which I give 7/10 as it is a little vulnerable. I also have a retaining line attached to the canvas pockets in case the SP10 is knocked out the Scanstrut. The  Scanstrut suction bracket is not strong enough to support the weight of the SP10 on a vertical surface but I have kept it for unforeseen situations. You probably have more mounting options on your BC23. My biggest gripe - I need access to power as, frustratingly, I cannot get the battery to last a whole day at sea despite downloading relevant charts from Navionics. So I need easy and dry access to the USB cable emerging from the cabin.
Navionics works well and is 'always-on' and shows just a little degradation in bright light. The screen works well when wet - far better than an iPhone. Navionics is also useful for measuring wind shifts (by comparing current heading to course sailed) as I don't have a masthead wind indicator.
I suspect the SP10 makes decision-making faster/better compared to the SP8 as it's easier to see detail but that is a personal view.
Maybe I need to start looking at GRIB files (someone mentioned them in this thread I think), of which I know nothing?
I'm glad I bought it but, as I had no cash tied up in anything similar, it was a fairly easy decision.
I hope that's useful.
Willie

[Sea Simon]

Thank you for this info Willie, very helpful.

ATM, I'm baulking at almost £900 for the Sailproof 10, delivered,  and with vat added to their "headline prices" tbh...particularly  as I rarely stray too far from S Cornwall.

Ask me again after the next fog Bank encounter! 

[AndyB]

I went for a day sail yesterday - apart from losing the wind in the middle of the day it was a good sail in the Solent. Sunny hardly a cloud  F3/F4 slight sea.

The SP08S worked well - had it set @ 75% brightness which was easy to see even with the sprayhood down. This meant it used 7% of its battery every hour. I had Navioincs running and tracking on.  If you look at Sailproof FAQs it gives you figures at different levels of brightness. Worth a read.

I also use the app 'FullImmersive'. This removes the status bar and navigation bar and provides a fullscreen for the charting programme - looks a lot better and gives lot more screen. Well worth the pain of using it. I have not purchased it. Just run it ,when it asks you to look at an ad or buy it I just shut it down and it works anyway in manual mode. Keyboard use requires a visit to the notification bar to enable it. I'll probably buy after some usage.

I compared the sp08 to the sp10. Speed wise it is basically the same but the sp10 is faster. the sp08 has sensors but the sp10 does not bizarrely ( apart from GPS). SP10 is  a lot heavier (1.1Kgs) than the sp08 (0.7kgs)  as you would expect from a screen which is a lot bigger so you would need a decent mount.  Difficult choice to make - I think it depends on whether you need that larger screen.

I like PredictWind because of PWG/PWE option which is a combination of GRIB files especially for coastal waters PWE for Europe and PWG for global. Windy tends to use individual  GRIB files. Comparing the 2 there does not seem that different until you get 4-5 days out. I get the feeling that automatic routing using GRIB files is only for those willing to purchase the premium section which is very expensive.

Simon, when I said to Sailproof Brexit had meant a large increase in duty they said that it was lower than Europe taxes so we were better off

[Willie The Rut Lander]

Andy - Useful tips - thanks and now I know what GRIB is! :-)
Simon - I sailed from Helford to Falmouth last Thursday, during Falmouth Week - so rather busy plus it was in a pea-souper. I was very pleased to have Navionics; just need AIS next but that's not going to happen!

[AndyB]

Simon,
Thought this picture might help. The screen on the right is the 8inch Sailproof with 800*1200 pixels.
The screen on the left is a 10 inch Samsung tab  5 se with 2560*1600 pixels. 

The idea is to give you a difference in physical size. Please be aware of the surround on the SP08 is larger than the Samsung and this will be repeated on the SP10.

Be careful of comparing the content and colour density. The Samsung having a much more dense display displays far more both in colour and content - the SP10 will be the same as the SP08 as it is the same screen. The displays have different brightness as the SP08 is so much more - 1000 NITS as opposed to Samsung's 450 NITS. I could get the brightness to be the same the adjusters are not fine enough.

Navionics is on the same zoom level but the SP05 has 'full immersive' on so the whole screen is used.

Hope this helps.

[Sea Simon]

Thank you again Andy. Very helpful.

I'm  still not decided...

As well as the not insignificant "investment", I'm also still not entirely  comfortable about mountings/positioning (due to the weight of the larger unit, my RAM suction mount appears to not be man enough?).
Perhaps have the smaller unit, in the RAM, on the bulkhead, but on a lanyard at the helm for pilotage duties?
My cockpit is unusually long, perhaps 8ft, and I'm probably not going to be able to use a bulkhead mounted screen unless so large that it gets in the way when sailing.

Meanwhile,
My trusty old Garmin GPS72 has again provided Sterling service this past regatta week here, finding  small racing marks in big seas/limited viz....but in open waters and skys, and generally  not surrounded by angry rocks/cliffs!
I'm  not abandoning it yet.

[AndyB]

Simon,
Before I went for a tablet I used a phone ( Android) with Navionics loaded.  It worked surprisingly well. The phone was not my normal one but a previous model I used.

It had its own GPS, SOG but not depth etc.

I had it mounted on my left forearm with a 'running mount' which was splash proof. I had a battery to charge it up later on during the day ( rarely had to do this) and the screen went dark until I tapped it - it was a Samsung.

I still have the setup and the original garmin GPS device ( no map).

I used this for about 10 years and thought very hard before I moved to a tablet.

[Graham W]

Someone has just come out with an E-ink navigation tablet, with all sorts of advantages https://www.maptattoo.com.  However, a major problem is that it only runs on proprietary software for this reason: "We had to develop our own software as the E-Ink screen needs to be piloted precisely in order to minimize refresh rates and keep an optimal user experience."  It has GPS functionality but no Navionics (or similar) and as far as I can tell, no integration with NMEA data.  Also, only North American charts are available at the moment.  The UK and France are coming soon.

[AndyB]

Always being interested in E-ink technology for boats I have been looking for a chartplotter type device for some years - it needed to be colour, e-ink and waterproof. We sailors tend to have slow moving boats so the refresh speed is not so important.

I gave up waiting for one and went for the sailproof which despite being very good is not as clear as the waterproof kindle that supplies the NMEA data and more.

This is a step in the right direction but is still not colour which I believe is important for showing details on the map hence the move from grayscale plotters to colour ones.

From my reading it is a Linux based  system but does not say which type. OpenCPN works on an ARM cpu. MemoryMap has a Linux option as well.  Windows systems could also be used using a sub-system called Wine.

So plenty to go on. However the grayscale a big no no for me. Maybe the next version will be colour if they get past the raising of money for production models.

[Graham W]

So far, I’ve only used my Sailproof 10” for any length of time on board a friend’s 1999-built yacht in Greece.
The good:
* Definite sunlight-readability even in the hottest and sunniest conditions.  Apple products don’t like direct sunlight and can stop working when too hot. 
* Navionics works well on it as a plotter, while GPS functions like autorouting, tracking and ETA can be very helpful, especially when the yacht’s old-style nav station is down below.  I’d say that it’s almost essential at the helm when trying to inch into tricky and unknown anchorages.
* Savvy Navvy is not so successful because it is slower to respond and its charts lack the contrast of Navionics.  It’s good for forward planning though.  Greek charts for Memory Map are not available so that app was not tested.
* The inbuilt GPS is fast and extremely accurate as it picks up Galileo satellite signals
* The tablet is definitely robust and suitably waterproof (and heavy). 
* It can be used anywhere, unlike a typical wired and fixed navigation system and (data connection permitting) can also be used for looking up stuff like the weather on the internet, sending emails, banking, listening to BBC Sounds, etc.
* The touch screen functionality is good
* I’m sure that the yacht’s elderly Raymarine instruments could easily be made to interface with the tablet by installing a cheap Seatalk 1 wifi multiplexer, allowing wind and depth data to be displayed on the tablet. Possibly also providing a close-hauled wind indicator, which the yacht didn’t have.
* The Navionics charts are very much better than the charts on the old Raymarine plotter and are kept up-to-date over the air.

Not so good
* Tethering to an iPhone drops the mobile connection at random intervals but this also seems to be a problem with the iPad.  Using a cheap dedicated data SIM may be the way to go with this.  Not a problem if you’ve already downloaded the relevant charts and don’t want to change app settings like contour lines.
* Long battery life at full brightness can only be achieved if the tablet screen is switched off at intervals while Navionics continues to track in the background.  If left on all the time, battery life is only a few hours (I didn’t measure how many but it may only be four or five).  I think that a spare battery and the ability to do USB charging on board is a must.  Opening the USB port for charging is a bit fiddly
* Turning the Android screen back on after a rest is a bit convoluted compared to Apple.  Android 11 is a bit clunky generally compared to iPadOS.

Overall, a success and much cheaper and less complicated than buying an expensive Raymarine repeater for the yacht’s helm.  I look forward to using the Sailproof on my own boat next season in the UK, integrated with my Tacktick instrument data.  Particularly using Memory Map raster charts and chartlets. 

The Android 11 system is not my favourite but I can live with it.  If I was in a hurry, I still found myself referring to Navionics on my elderly iPhone on occasion.  If money was no object following a lottery win, I might be tempted to get a very expensive Apple iPad with decent sunlight readability (only the topmost model has this) and an armoured and waterproof case.  As its battery isn’t swappable, unlike on the Sailproof, I would have to find a way of USB charging it on the go.  Waterproof wireless charging will come to tablets eventually.

I think a large and clear screen is important if it is positioned at a distance from the helm.  If it is closer than the front end of a BR20 cockpit (or right in front of the helm on a yacht), then an 8” version with its longer battery life may be more suitable than the 10”.

[Willie The Rut Lander]

Graham
I think you have articulated all the pros and cons of the SP10 spot-on; no wonder you're a demi-god! You've also convinced me that I made the correct decision buying the 10" rather than the 8", for the reasons you mention.
I do have a cheap SIM-only deal with Giff Gaff which means the signal is perhaps more reliable that using iPhone Hotspot, plus my iPhone battery isn't killed - two important safety points.
The future is definitely in tablets (rather than proprietary hardware) given their versatility and access to an array of low-cost Apps for Nav, Weather etc.