"Live" navigation charts showing ship's track

[JennysUncle]

The technology to show the ship's track in real time is readily available. For years the HAL room TV's have had a channel that shows the track, but the map is very coarse. That's OK at sea, but when cruising near a coast, or through a channel, or up a fjord, etc., it would be nice to see exactly where you are.

 

In February 2014 the Zaandam had a setup in the Crow's Nest that did exactly that, and was immensely popular. I wonder if it is still there, and if it has migrated to any other ships.

 

It was an iPad running the iSailor app, with the display duplicated on a big flat screen. The app is a marine mapping program - it displays the ship's position on a navigation chart and moves it along in real time - a GPS for ships instead of cars. (It is a cheap version of what the Captain uses, aimed at recreational sailors. I understand there are similar apps for small-plane pilots.)

 

We could zoom the screen, see the past track, etc. There were always people watching it, sometimes crowds. Of course, being in Antarctica there was a more than usual in the surroundings to wonder about, but HAL ships go to many places with interesting shorelines.

 

I'm trying to attach some examples - I took pictures to keep track of where we went.

[Heartgrove]

We had the updated TV package on our Niew Amsterdam Inner Passage Alaskan cruise this season. I believe that there were three or four "levels" of zoom on the screen for the ship's position. That made it easy to reference our position to the map from The Alaska Cruise Handbook: Mile by Mile Guide . It was handy for identifying what we were photographing.

[JennysUncle]

I've been on the Nieuw Amsterdam with the new TV system. It's better than the old one, but nothing like the iSailor capabilities.

[Heartgrove]

I've been on the Nieuw Amsterdam with the new TV system. It's better than the old one' date=' but nothing like the iSailor capabilities.[/quote']

 

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.