DigiBOAT proudly admits its charting and navigation software will never be Microsoft Certified, believing that software on board must be designed differently than software on desktop. Their mantra is to create "a navigator's tool on a computer, rather than a Windows program that does navigation."

The three founders of this Australian company definitely have the sea-time to know what on-board software requires. Their collective experience ranges from motor to sail, dinghy racing to yacht regattas, and coastal cruising to bluewater passagemaking. In fact, during the writing of this article, DigiBOAT's technical director, Simon Blundell, one of three founding members and the sole programmer, responded to our technical questions while sailing from Burma to Phuket and then, later on, following the final race of the King's Cup Regatta.

DigiBOAT's Software-on-Board, usually called SOB and pronounced as the word "sob" rather than the acronym "es-oh-bee," was first released as freeware in 2004. Blundell designed the software after an extensive research phase, during which he did some unconventional fieldwork, including following vessels around local Australian waters in a runabout and interviewing sailors with disabilities. By following vessels of all types – including racing yachts, fishing boats, commercial ferries and recreational power boats – he hypothesized the information a helmsman would need in different situations or at different times.

This went beyond obvious navigational queries such as position, speed or depth, and included information for more intelligent navigating – such as the time to round a point, or the distance off a buoy or headland, or the relative position of a crossing vessel. From his interviews with a blind sailor, he developed Talking Pilot, a feature that narrates vessel and navigation data.

SOB now claims nearly a half-million downloads. It became commercial software in 2005, but remains a very inexpensive e-charting option. A generous three-month trial version includes free email technical support.

DigiBOAT offers four versions of SOB: LITE (free), Registered (free), Standard (about $53), and Pro (about $71). LITE is an unregistered free version with a trial period of one month. Some functions are disabled and only 20 waypoints can be displayed. Registered is the full-featured program for a three-month trial; Standard is full-featured and includes unlimited use on three computers; and Pro includes all the features while adding network support.

We reviewed the Standard version and found it to be a solid program that delivered many high-end features at a bargain price. While there is a learning curve to overcome, DigiBOAT offers superlative documentation to help its users master the program.

However, while SOB is one of only three PC-based navigation applications making use of C-Map cartography, the company's plans to steer clear of raster chart support will cause pause for many U.S. boaters.

SETTING UP

We downloaded the latest version known as "+GRIB v8.30," that now includes the ability to read GRIB weather files. In the U.S., SOB is only available as a download from DigiBOAT's website (with the option to obtain a CD-ROM via mail). SOB is sold through a few resellers in several European Union countries, Scandinavia, Singapore, India and Argentina. In keeping with DigiBOAT's international focus, the software is available in Norwegian, Dutch, French, and Italian. A German version is scheduled for early 2008 with Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Malay, Indonesian, and Taiwanese intended for late 2008.

Registering with DigiBOAT initiates an email with the link to download SOB. You then reply by emailing your PC code, which returns up to three different unlock codes for use on three computers, such as your laptop, home and office computer. As an international "online" company, all communication with DigiBOAT is by web or email. They do not maintain phone-based technical support.

The SOB download and installation was very easy. The program downloads with a C-Map worldwide background chart and 15 full-detail C-Map charts that allow you to sample the cartography before you purchase a C-Map Wide Chart Area or MegaWide Chart Area. These chart regions sell for $199 and $249 respectively. Since SOB can be used on several computers, DigiBOAT also recommends the C-Map USB Key, a $35 dongle that unlocks C-Map charts on any computer with the key inserted.

SOB can also read C-Map cartography on cartridges. This requires a C-Map USB Multimedia Reader. Unfortunately, DigiBOAT finds itself in the same boat as companies like NavSim, which are waiting for C-Map to distribute the support files for its latest USB 2.0 readers. In the interim, DigiBOAT's website requests users who already own the USB 2.0 version to email for a copy of their driver test file. You can use the USB 1.0 reader, but there is a quirk if you use your laptop's energy-saving options, which most boaters must do to conserve their battery while underway. If your PC goes to sleep, it loses the C-Map device and does not re-acquire it when the computer and application wake up. You must quit and restart SOB.

SOB's documentation is some of the best we've seen. The company philosophy is that any charting and navigation application has a learning curve. Realizing they cannot design every bit of novelty out of the interface, they work hard to get you started. SOB's installation places a folder on your C Drive called SOBvMAX. This folder contains a gold mine of resources, including New User Information, a QuickStart Card, a User Manual, release notes, hardware installation guides, and more.

The 172-page User Manual, also available through their website as a PDF, is a fantastic resource. It includes full chapters on networking and connecting NMEA devices. This document was clearly written in-house by experienced boaters, not sub-contracted to a technical writer. It doesn't simply list the buttons and knobs; it often explains when you would use them and why.

DIGIBOATDigiBOAT is optimized for touch-screen use. Menus, mousing, and keyboarding are minimized and screen real estate is maximized. F1 displays the shortcuts. With no menus and few actions that require dragging a mouse, SOB has a slightly different look-and-feel. In fact, SOB is designed for future use with a touch screen, either directly or through a wireless device. Mouse support is considered additional functionality until touch screens become more mainstream. But Blundell points out that mousing, particularly clicking on small icons or dragging-and-dropping objects, is difficult in a moving environment.

Instead, SOB focuses on a toolbar and an extensive set of shortcut keys. The toolbar contains icons for intuitive actions such as zoom in and zoom out, creating a waypoint, getting range and bearing, centering the boat, auto-panning the chart, dropping a man overboard marker, and locating ports and services.

DigiBOAT's goal is an interface that answers a variety of detailed questions with one or two finger taps (or today, mouse clicks). For example, the distance between a buoy and a headland is obtained by clicking on the dividers icon, clicking on the chart buoy icon, and clicking on the headland. A single click on the paper-clip icon brings up the ViewPanels window, which includes pertinent data such as your vessel's heading and speed, the depth, and any saved messages or notes. The Quick Navigation Box displays a condensed overview of navigation to a designated point. The Great Circle and rhumb line distances are included in this display if they differ by more than five nautical miles, a handy detail for long-distance voyagers.

SOB's minimal-mousing is more successful with some actions than others. Most notably, waypoint or route creation requires more levels of clicking than some other navigation applications. In addition, because windows are not resizable, you sometimes have to move the vertical and horizontal elevator bars to show important data.

Relying on shortcut keys is another common way to avoid mousing. Because of its "no-menu-bar" interface, SOB uses shortcuts heavily. Of course, the flip side of shortcuts is having to memorize which key triggers which function – and there is a fair bit of memorization with SOB. But to be fair, they provide a handy cheat sheet to get you started and many of their shortcuts are intuitive, such as "I" for Zoom In, "O" for Zoom Out, and "C" for Show Cursor.

SOB also has a very useful status bar at the bottom of the screen that contains lots of relevant data. You can interactively read the latitude and longitude of the cursor position on the chart; the distance of that point from your boat; and its true, magnetic and relative bearing (such as 4.4 nm 132°T [138°M] [21° Stbd]). The status bar also shows information about your current chart, such as its number, scale and depth metrics. Most important, it notes whether the chart is displayed at "real chart" scale or at "over zoom," in which case you have over-magnified the chart image and compromised accuracy.

As Americans, we found the learning curve to be a few degrees steeper than it might be for boaters from Canada, Europe or Australia. Some of SOB's feel is a bit different from what American boaters are used to finding when they fire up a piece of software. Most of the differences are metrics you can change, such as setting the program to use feet instead of meters. Some are simple word choice differences, such as "Centre" instead of the commonly-used "Go To" command. But there are also some tougher challenges. For example, to optimize (or shall we say, optimise) the chart display for your screen, you must enter your screen size in centimeters. Americans think in terms of inches. If DigiBOAT were to make a few of these easy adjustments in advance, it would help SOB break into the U.S. market.

WORKING WITH CHARTS

Today, only a few e-charting applications are developed to leverage the resources offered by chart manufacturers such as C-Map and Navionics. SOB is one of only three PC-based applications – along with BoatCruiser and MaxSea – that use C-Map cartography. (Of course, many chartplotters use C-Map cartridges.) C-Map charts have international coverage and embed additional information such as tide and current predictions, animated navigation aids, aerial photographs, and port and marina information.

In fact, SOB is currently only compatible with C-Map cartography, able to load the charts either from a C-Map CD-ROM or from C-Map cartridges. SOB is compatible with C-Map FP, NT, and MAX charts. It does not currently support C-Map MAX Pro charts. If you already own C-Map cartridges, such as those for your chartplotter, SOB can read them using a C-Map USB Multimedia Reader, which is required to un-encrypt the files.

Users of SOB should have no trouble loading and managing their C-Map charts. With a 28-page chapter in the User Manual, DigiBOAT provides more content and detail on C-Map charts than C-Map themselves. Within SOB, you can easily view a list of your C-Map assets to confirm all your files are properly installed and recognized (see photo).

DIGIBOATChecking to make sure all of your C-Map licensed chart files and cartridges are recognized is easy with About SOB>C-Map Chart Info.

Although C-Map cartography is among the best in the world, we're always surprised by the numerous inaccuracies within any of these chart catalogs, whether from C-Map, Garmin, Nobeltec or Navionics. To be fair, international chart and port coverage is a phenomenal amount of data to manage. But we often notice gross omissions or inaccuracies, such as phone numbers without area codes, inaccurate city names, humorously misplaced ports, marina icons placed well inland, entire regions with omitted nav aids and even aerial photographs with the wrong image matched to the location. As a warning, always be alert to possible inaccuracies when relying on a single source of chart information.

SOB does not support – and does not intend to support – raster charts, focusing on the "intelligence" that comes with the embedded information native to vector charts. In other words, common raster formats such as NOAA or Maptech BSBs, ARCS, and Seafarer charts are not supported. SOB also does not support user-scanned charts because the company considers the practice of scanning dated paper charts to be an unsafe navigation practice. Other proprietary formats such as MapSource (Garmin), BlueChart (Garmin), SoftChart and Navionics are also not supported. Although SOB does not currently support standard S-57 charts, such as those available free from NOAA, this project is reportedly in the works.

SOB's charts and features are largely a function of the cartography. Chart rendering is good but not exceptional. Charts easily pan and scroll, with much faster responsiveness when loaded from CD-ROM than from an external USB 1.0 Multimedia Reader. There were occasional display "artifacts." For example, moving objects results in a blurred after-image across the screen, like a fanned deck of playing cards.

Charts can be printed directly from a toolbar icon. However, we consistently experienced print artifacts in the form of solid black rectangles striping across the images.

The use of C-Map cartography does allow SOB to take advantage of the "intelligence" of vector charts and C-Map's additional assets. For example, depth areas can be custom shaded. C-Map also provides the capability to animate the color and rhythm of navigation lights. Additionally, to help you calibrate what you see in the real world with your PC display, only lights within the nominal range of your vessel show as illuminated. Unfortunately, we were unable to verify this C-Map functionality in SOB. The company says SOB supports animated lights but we were unable to get this feature functioning properly.

An Anti-Grounding function can check a defined area ahead of your boat for potential navigation hazards – at least, those that appear on the chart – every two seconds. A green look-ahead triangle displays if no obstructions are found on the chart, turning red if a potential hazard is located. You can customize the feature to match your draft and set the look-ahead distance and degree width. This feature was temporarily disabled by the company, but is scheduled to return in a future release.

To remove non-essential chart elements, such as text, tools and symbols, you can choose Declutter Mode. For example, your boat's label becomes transparent, route and range/bearing lines are simplified, and target names (but not their tracks) are hidden. For night viewing, charts can be set to gray, red or black. These settings not only alter the luminance of the chart, they adjust all other components such as borders, buttons, toolbars, and scroll bars.

DIGIBOATLooking westward over the Canaveral Barge Canal, C-Map cartography displays a perspective view in which tides and currents, bottom conditions, soundings, chart boundaries, and other chart features can be toggled.C-Map charts can also be displayed in "perspective" view, allowing an aerial view of an inlet, channel, anchorage or port (see photo). Perspective charts can only be displayed at the scale they were digitized – in other words, you can't zoom continuously between scales. But they are digitized at several scales. We did occasionally get an error message when working with perspective views or other computer-intensive displays, warning us to "Close an unresponsive program." At this point the application must be restarted, losing any unsaved waypoints and routes.

WAYPOINTS AND ROUTES

Waypoints are easy to create in SOB. The Waypoint tool icon creates the mark, which easily can be moved by mouse-clicking at the old and new locations.

Unlike some other e-charting applications, SOB has waypoint management. You can move or copy waypoints to a new file, creating separate files for grouped waypoints. Although SOB certainly gets credit for including waypoint management, the implementation is a bit cumbersome. A more intuitive "transfer" or "drag-and-drop" interface would be a welcome improvement.

DIGIBOATUsing DigiBOAT's Auto-Search Route capability is an easy, three-step process. Step 1: From the All Routes menu [F11], choose Create AutoRoutes.

DIGIBOATStep 2: Define search parameters such as search area size, grid spacing and layout, and additional data such as last known position and set and drift.

DIGIBOATStep 3: Follow the waypoints on the search route, closely adhering to cross-track error (XTE) feedback.

When SOB creates a waypoint, it becomes a "temporary waypoint," which is unsaved until you assign it to a waypoint folder. When you quit the program, SOB doesn't warn you of these unsaved items, deleting them unless you pay attention and manage your waypoints carefully.

Although SOB does not have a designated search field, you can select a waypoint from the All Waypoints form (F10), double-click, and then choose the Centre icon on the Waypoint detail form. Although a combined search and Centre form would be more efficient, the current implementation provides a useful way to move around charts.

Creating routes is not quite as easy as creating waypoints. In order to create routes beyond the current chart display, Auto-panning must be turned on. Unfortunately, Auto-panning slows the program so severely that conventional "rubber-band" route creation is not feasible. The better approach when making a large route is to rough-in a route on a small-scale chart, then zoom in and make any necessary adjustments on a more detailed chart.

One particularly nice feature is SOB's one-touch range and bearing lines. With SOB you can set multiple bearing lines, which many other programs don't do. Using this tool makes it easy to sight bearings or even create parallel line routes to maintain a safe distance from a hazard.

SOB also creates automatic search routes, like you might use during a man overboard search and rescue. Waypoints and a corresponding route (in a circular or grid pattern) are instantly created over a pre-set search area (see photos).

Many SOB files, including default waypoints, tracks, AIS data, "buddy boats" and user-created messages, are stored using an innovative file naming trick. These files begin with an exclamation point ("!"), which sorts them to the top of the alphabetical listing, making them easy to locate.

Many of these files are created automatically by SOB, such as the data files !LastTrack and !PastTrack. The LastTrack file is a backup of the track currently displayed. PastTrack is an accumulation of all PastTrack data. About five times a minute, SOB drops a dot on the chart display to create a "bread crumb" trail. Each PastTrack point records all ship's data provided by any connected instruments. Voyage Replay Mode lets you replay NMEA data from your GPS, depth sounder or other instruments. This record is great for reviewing depth profiles or water temperatures for fishing. (Or if you ever happen to find yourself in Admiralty Court!)

Waypoints can be imported and exported in SOB, but with a bit of work. SOB doesn't support GPX (GPS Exchange Format), instead working from .TXT (text files) or .CSV (Comma Separated Value files). Importing waypoints from a Garmin GPS requires a utility such as EasyGPS or GPSBabel (see links) or transfers using a C-Card multimedia reader. Unfortunately, we were unable to import the standard test CSV file (it contains more than 2,000 waypoints), which we've used throughout this series. We were exchanging files and emails with DigiBOAT to understand the issue at press time.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

SOB supports a wide range of instruments, including AIS, GPS, autopilot, ARPA radar, depth sounder, knot log, electronic compass and wind instruments. These can all be connected and either monitored or controlled from SOB. DigiBOAT has provided two excellent chapters in their User Manual on NMEA and instrument interface, including details on wiring connections and data formats. Our experience installing a GPS was painless. The Raw NMEA Data window has an Identify PORTS selection that automatically scans all COM ports, letting you select the likely port for your GPS.

In addition to the standard AIS target information, SOB also has a "buddy boat" feature. If your buddies are also transmitting – which may be rare, since most recreational boats only receive AIS data – you can simply add your buddies' MMSI numbers to the Target Friends list. Any vessel on this list will show up on the chart with a user-specified color.

SOB integrates tide and current predictions through the C-Map cartography. Click on a "T" icon on the chart, designating a tide station, and a tidal prediction window opens. Currents can be displayed as a text table, a line graph, or a 24-hour polar graph.

The newest version of SOB includes GRIB weather overlays. Data is requested by email through the SailDocs server. Choosing Request a GRIB File constructs an email with the appropriate request command string. You can choose your area, forecast horizon, and type of data, including wind, pressure, temperature, geo-potential height and precipitation.

SOB also includes features specifically designed for sailors, such as Show Shadow and Show Laylines. After entering your sailboat's maximum upwind sailing angle, a sector of the wind circle displays where your boat cannot sail. DigiBOAT warns that using this feature extensively may bog down the program, and suggests using its Show Laylines features on a more regular basis to show the closest point of sail. Alternatively, you can view the Waypoint Wind Shadow, the region in which your sailboat should remain to optimize the upwind leg to the waypoint.

One of SOB's most innovative features is its Talking Pilot for sight-impaired users. SOB works with existing built-in Windows utilities to make the display more readable or to even speak navigational data. The Talking Pilot feature uses the Windows speech system (also known as text-to-speech or TTS) to narrate selected ship data. It can repeat data of your choice at a given interval, such as announcing a countdown timer every minute for a race start or announcing your vessel's heading or speed every five minutes. You can even configure the Windows operating system to use Spoken Commands to activate Macros that are linked to SOB's features. For example, the voice command "Pan-East" can be set to click to the right of the display center.

DigiBOAT's most extensive software package, SOB Pro, adds the ability to network vessels, computers, and devices over a distance. For example, if you have NMEA instruments that are far away from your PC, you can use the network features to maintain a wireless connection. Networking also allows the use of a wireless tablet. And, you can connect your instruments to multiple computers. DigiBOAT's User Manual includes an extensive chapter on networking for Pro.

ASSESSMENT

DigiBOAT's Software-on-Board Standard version is a solid e-charting package at a bargain price. Although it has some small quirks in both design and function, it also boasts many features usually found only in much more expensive packages. Their ease-of-use claims are warranted and, more importantly, their documentation is excellent, helping users cope with the initial learning curve.

Currently SOB is one of only three PC-based charting and navigation applications that support C-Map cartography. If you like, or already own, C-Map charts, then SOB is a good low-cost choice. However, in order to keep SOB as sprightly as possible, we recommend avoiding reading charts from the external USB 1.0 Multimedia Reader.

The flip side of DigiBOAT's monogamous relationship with C-Map is that it doesn't read free NOAA or USACE raster and vector charts. If all goes as planned, you should be able to display NOAA and USACE vector charts in a future SOB release. However, recognize these would be redundant, and have fewer integrated features than C-Map offerings.

DigiBOAT states that SOB will never support raster charts such as NOAA BSBs. This is a serious impediment to American boaters considering SOB. The availability of free – and more importantly, frequently updated – raster charts of U.S. waters is too great a resource to ignore. In fact, it may be a deal-breaker for many American boaters.

Capt. Mark Doyle and Capt. Diana Doyle are authors of the Managing the Waterway cruising guide series, and their work has appeared in numerous publications. They also produce CDs and DVDs of NOAA and USACE charts.