5 Cool iPhone Apps for Sailors!
We’re always keeping an eye on the latest and greatest in sailing technology. One of the newest and most helpful pieces of technology we’ve found may already be in your pocket… the iPhone! The iPhone has quickly become a favorite tool for many SF Bay sailors. After searching through the app store, it’s easy to see why. We found 5 apps that are particularly useful for sailors. Leave a comment if you know of any we left out! A special thanks to Bruce Powell, OCSC Instructor, for the great advice!
1) Aye Tides
AyeTides displays tides and currents for locations around the world. AyeTides is tuned for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is a stand-alone application and does not require internet access to function. Have tides and currents at your fingertips at all times! An easy way to plan ahead or be helpful as crew.
2) MotionX GPS
MotionX GPS was designed by sailor/inventor/entrepreneur Philippe Kahn and was used by Kahn during his record setting Transpacific Run. The app has a virtual compass for navigation and a stopwatch to record time, distance, speed and average pace. It lets you email your tracks and waypoints with your photos so they can be viewed on Google Earth and Google Maps. It’s also available in MotionX GPS Lite.
3) Wind Meter
Having problems with the instruments on your boat? Now you can use your iPhone to measure wind speed. Wind Meter works by measuring the volume of the wind on your iPhone microphone and converts it into a wind speed reading. To use, simply point the microphone into the wind and push Get Wind! Wait a few seconds and push Got Wind! The final reading is the average of the period. We’ve gotten mixed reviews about this app, but at $.99 it’s worth a try.
4) Weather Channel App
Get the latest weather updates from the meteorologists at the Weather Channel. The new 2.0 version has animated future radar, video and severe weather centers. Great addition to an sailors iPhone.
5) SailMaster
At a fraction of the cost of stand-alone tactical systems, the SailMaster app provides all the information needed to optimize sailing and racing performance, including:
Boat Speed, Waypoints/Course, Lift/Header, Digital Compass, Count Down Timer, Angle of Heel, Tidal Info and Course Plotting.
20 comments
My personal favorite is called Navionics… GPS, tracking, tides, currents, and a full chart.
Hello. You may find SailBlaster of interest. . .
The Wind Meter App is reallly cool but I understand it works only on 3G iPhones
You Droid users might like BC Racer in the Android Market. VMG, SOG, etc…
[...] OCSC Sailing blog [...]
These are very cool apps. We added a blog on our site with a link to your site, for any one interested in checking these out. Personally I guess I realy need to get an iphone now that their are so many cool apps!
Here’s an app for new sailors studying to get certification
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sailingquiz/id366540848?mt=8
iDrifter:
iDrifter serves the continuous monitoring of the position (anchorfix) for anchoring yachts. he program displays graphically the current drift of the yacht relating to the anchor
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idrifter/id377014936?mt=8
Compucourse is an exellant sailng tool–someone should design a app based on the compucourse
I don’t know about Android. I use Sailboat Race Starter on iPhone and it works great…includes a sync function for the countdown too.
a new one hit the app store recently. It’s called SailorAid and it’s pretty nice. worth taking a look at. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sailoraid/id456531378?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
iYachtRace:
Is a great new app to help Race Officers set geometric courses. It’s new to iTunes and worth checking out:http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iyachtrace/id453236524?mt=8
There is also a cool and easy-to-ready app called Marine Instrument Display (MID) for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marine-instrument-display/id457903555
[...] of the things which make the iPhone so cool to use. Buy cool iPhone, and get best deals on iPad. Last week my friend had freaked me out by calling so late at night. She had just returned from her s… One of the most unique things about iPhone was the apps. The applications were made by the third [...]
How about YachtWeather. It provides key information giving temperature, wind direction and speed, wave height, wave length, wave period, storm risk, precipitation risk, humidity, pressure, etc. And best of all its FREE!
This one looks just like the real thing. Sweet sailing with tutorials included!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/little-sailor/id430948592?mt=8
You left out iNavX which I’ve used on my iPhone and iPad with NOAA charts.
Two new sailing apps are Compass Eye (which was named Gizmodo’s App of the Day a few months back) and Boat Beacon (just announced last week). Compass Eye will turn your iPhone into a compass that doesn’t change its reading when the boat rocks and enables sailors to take compass bearings. Boat Beacon provides an easy way for your family to keep an eye on your location. It also shows the location of boats heading toward you.
Here’s a free Android app for tactical sailing during a regatta. It has a start race timer, many readout screens similar to TackTick device, it can record your track in GPX format which you can then email to yourself or someone else. Very useful and its completely free.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rs.pstech.sailing.beta
I made a small sailors app that can do travel, distance and speeds calculations. Also distances to horizon and visibility of a lighthouse can be calculated.
Learned all these calculations when attending sailorschool but decided to make an app that can handle it as soon as i started developing on my own
My app is in App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marine-tool/id587744217?mt=8
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