A new toy for navigating.  Brookhouse Instruments makes a “box” that you attach your instruments, GPS and AIS to that makes all the data available via WiFi on your iPad!

What’s nice about this is when we’re under passage, we’re usually sitting under the dodger, not back behind the wheel where the instruments are.  Now with the iPad we can see windspeed, direction, SOG, etc as well as GPS info and AIS targets without having to run around between the helm and the cabin (where GPS and AIS reside).  Nice.

Was pretty easy to install.  You just have to wire the instruments into an easy to use bus on the outside of the box.  www.brookhouseonline.com for any of you “yachties” who are interested.  Here’s a couple pics of the iPad showing the instrument info and chartplotter.

Here's the chartplotter screen (click to enlarge). You can see Charisma (the blue triangle mid screen), the three AIS targets shown as brown boxes with boat names and the data boxes on top that show numeric data if you cursor over them.

Here's the AIS data block for the yacht "Arnamentia" when I clicked on them. The box scrolls down with more info as well.

Here's a partial screen showing the data screen. You can click on any of the boxes for more detail and in many cases a graphical depiction of the info.

We also bought a waterproof case to house the iPad in case an errant wave splashes as we’re using the device.  To use the chartplotter you have to purchase iNavX for the iPad and for charts, xTraverse.

Just nice to have redundancy.  This also gives us a back up chartplotter in the cockpit, since Charisma’s built in chartplotter is in the cabin at the nav table and not visible from the helm.