Tiki Navigator is a particularly straightforward charting program with a clean, colorful interface. All sorts of help facilities, like those shown, are available but only show when you need them. The program just displays BSB raster charts, but that’s the format NOAA makes available for free download (inexpensive DVD compilations are also available), and Tiki presents them clearly and seamlessly. The latest $148 5.1 Pro version also does a good job of plotting AIS targets, if you have a receiver or transponder attached, and introduces an unusual feature called Buddy Tracking. If your friends (and you) have always-on cellular data connections, as discussed in my July column “Connected Cruising,” Tiki Navigator Pro along with GpsGate (right) can plot them whether they’re 50 miles down the ICW or on the other side of the ocean.
Tiki Navigator
(011) 47 66 78 48 21
This article originally appeared in the September 2007 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
