navCenter - Graphic Views
Compass (Head Up)
This compass is always presented in 'Head Up' mode where the compass pointer is fixed and the dial rotates to indicate the boat's heading.
On the compass gauge the boat's Course Over the Ground (COG) is indicated by the orange boat and the Bearing To Waypoint (BTW) is indicated by the yellow ellipse. Thus, at a glance, it is clear to see how the boat's course needs to by adjusted in order to make the waypoint.
The boat's heading is displayed in the bow of the central pointer and the boat's speed in the stern.
The button in the centre of the pointer toggles the compass between True and Magnetic values. When displaying True values the gauge and the button are hilighted.
The boat's Course Over the Ground (COG) is displayed digitally in the top left corner and Bearing To Waypoint (BTW) is shown digitally in the top right hand corner. Tapping on these buttons toggles the graphic display of COG and BTW.
Speed Over the Ground (SOG) is displayed in the bottom left corner and Distance To Waypoint (DTW) is shown displayed in the bottom right hand corner.
Click the screenshots to switch between a Light and Dark mode view.
Compass Standard
The first screenshot shows the compass in 'Head Up' mode where the compass pointer is fixed and the dial rotates to indicate the boat's heading. The second screenshot shows the compass in 'North Up' mode where the dial is fixed and the needle rotates to indicate the boat's heading.
On the compass gauge the boat's Course Over the Ground (COG) is indicated by the orange boat and the Bearing To Waypoint (BTW) is indicated by the yellow ellipse. Thus, at a glance, it is clear to see how the boat's course needs to by adjusted in order to make the waypoint.
The button in the bottom left corner toggles the compass between 'Head Up' and 'North Up' modes and the button in the bottom right corner switches between true and magnetic values.
Click on any screenshot on this page to switch between a Light and Dark mode view.
The boat's Course Over the Ground (COG) is displayed digitally in the top left corner and Bearing To Waypoint (BTW) is shown digitally in the top right hand corner. Tapping on these buttons will switch off the graphic display of COG and BTM as shown in the third screenshot.
When in 'Head Up' mode the boat's heading is displayed in the bow of the central pointer and the boat's speed in the stern. In 'North Up' mode the boat's heading is displayed directly on the gauge.
Compass (Watch)
The Watch compass was specifically designed to be used on the Apple Watch. However it has proved to be such a useful view that many people use it on their larger devices. It is shown here combined with a set of engine related data.
Tapping the compass icon, below the heading, switches the compass between Magnetic and True.
The four corner circles contain additional navigation date. Tapping any of these circles displays a popup view with additional data.
Shown her in Light mode the button top right has been pressed causing a summary of waypoint information to be displayed. In Dark mode the top left button has been tapped.
The popup view is dismissed by tapping it.
Apparent Wind Gauge
This view presents the apparent wind direction and speed in a graphical format that will be familiar to many people.
Clicking or tapping on the screenshot will toggle the view between Light and Dark mode.
Pilot Control
The Pilot Control is shown here combined on a page with a compass. Combining Views in this way provides a great deal of information and control on a single page. More information on the Pilot control here.
Clicking or tapping on the screenshot will toggle the View between Light and Dark mode.
The Pilot is in Auto mode with a locked heading of 95°. The 'Lock Pilot' button is used to directly disable the control buttons. The Pilot control buttons will otherwise be automatically disabled after a user defined number of seconds. This process is implemented to help prevent unintentional course changes.
The circular -1 and +1 buttons change the Pilot locked heading by 1 degree to port or starboard respectively. While the rounded rectangle -10 and +10 buttons change the Pilot locked heading by 10 degrees to port or starboard respectively.
The triangular buttons instruct the Pilot to tack through port or starboard by the Tack Angle setting on the SeaTalk1™ system.
Windsail View
The Windsail View brings together the essential information needed by crew and navigators who wish to monitor the boat’s sailing angles to windward in order to make the best progress towards a waypoint or mark. This View is particularly useful for a short handed crew as the information needed to decide at which point to tack is all on one screen.
The view is able to present a lot of information and so is directly configurable so that it can display only the information required at that moment. The first view shown is displaying the base level information of the View.On the right hand side of the view is a column of digital data:
- COG - Course Over the Ground
- Waypoint data
- waypoint name
- Bearing to waypoint
- Distance to waypoint
- Time to arrive at waypoint
- Cross track error
- SOG - Speed Over the Ground in knots
In the centre of the view is the outline of a boat serving as a pointer to the encircling compass rose indicating the boat's heading. The heading is also shown digitally in the pointer's bow. The boat's speed is shown on the pointers's stern.
On the right of the compass rose are two inward pointing arrows The longer arrow in light blue indicates the direction of the apparent wind as felt on the boat. The shorter blue arrow indicates the true or water wind computed by taking into acount the contribution of the boat's heading and speed through the water in creating the apparent wind.
Tapping the rightward pointing arrow on the left of the view brings the left sidebar into view. Tapping the leftward pointing arrow will close the sidebar.
The first box, outlined in light blue shows the the apparent wind speed, direction of arrival on the boat and direction relative to north.
The second box, outlined in blue, shows the the true wind speed, direction of arrival on the boat and direction relative to north.
Tapping this box will toggle the display between True or Water wind and Ground wind.
True/Water wind refers to the wind that would be experienced by a boat making no headway through the water but subject to wind generated by the effect of any current. Thus the boat's closest angle to the apparent wind will tend to be the same on both tacks.
Ground Wind refers to the wind that would be experienced by a boat making no headway through the water and not subject to wind generated by the effect of any current; such as when tied to a buoy (or on the hard). Thus the boat's closest angle to the apparent wind will tend to be different on port/starboard tacks.
Tapping the button at the top right of the compass rose displays icons for the boat's Course Over the Ground (orange boat) and Bearing To Waypoint (yellow ellipse).
As the ellipse is almost directly over the boat we can see that the boat is currently making the desired course despite being 1.7Nm to port of its original track as indicated in the right sidebar.
Tapping the button at the top left of the compass rose displays icons for the boat's leeway plus Drift and Set caused by water current.
Tapping the central blue button will toggle its display between Set (direction of movement) and Drift (speed of movement).
Tapping the button at the botom left of the compass rose displays icons for the boat's best possible angles to the apparent wind on port and starboard tacks.
The area beween the two laylines is shaded to indicate that this is the "No Sail" area.
Currently the Layline angles are a user entered value; a long press on the Laylines button (bottom left) will bring up a settings screen. Code is under development to monitor and record actual sailing angles achieved to the apparent wind and allow users to update their assumed values to ones that their boat is actually capable of in the field.
This will lead to bragging rights for some; but not for me I suspect. Nevertheless it will be very useful information for all navigators.
The accuracy and reliability of Windsail's predictions are entirely dependant on the information provided by the boat's instruments. In particular the boat's speed through the water and the wind instruments must be working efficiently and be properly calibrated as per the manufacturer's instructions.
With everything switched on the Windsail display can become rather complex and we have found, that on a smaller device, it is best presented full screen and in landscape mode. All the above screenshots were taken using an iPhone 7.
In working our way to windward we found that the most helpful approach has often been to hide the left sidebar and the drift and Set information until it is needed. This makes the screen much easier on the eye and still retains all the information we require. It then only takes a single tap to bring either into the View when required and another tap to dismiss them again.
When running navCenter on a larger device there are far more options for constructing a suitable page. The image below is from an iPad 10.7 inch.
