Many of the charts & tables found on this site are PDFs.

The newest versions of four products all do just about everything you need for navigation. Nobeltec’s Visual Navigation Series is our favorite, though we’re sure The CAPN Voyager and MaxSea have their supporters. The CAPN First Mate is more limited, but a good value.

A laptop loaded with one of these programs ûcan make navigation simpler. But computers ûcrash, so don't throw away your paper charts.

A couple of years ago, rating navigation programs was much easier than it is today. We were able to downrate programs that were unable to transfer waypoints to or from a GPS, and we could complain about the quality of the charts. But the software has gotten better—a lot better. Now, they're all capable of downloading coordinates, and most of their charts are clear and crisp to the eye. What truly makes evaluating these software packages difficult is their dizzying array of capabilities: cruise planning, course plotting, chart printing, GPS and autopilot interfaces, float plan preparation, log keeping, tide and current displays, weather displays (from Internet-supplied downloads), vessel equipment operation…