Question about Navionics

[jack_patricia]

I'm prepping (me, mostly) to deliver our C248 down the ICW in a month or two. I've been getting acquainted with Navionics by laying out some possible daily runs, getting a sense for some potential anchorages and marina stops and, to the point of this post, the length of time for each sample run. It seems pretty clear 'they' have built in at least some of the 'wake zones' on the ICW as e.g. an assumed 20 knot speed produces many different time results depending on the specific section being considered. For those who have used Navionics, do you know what 'wake zone' speed they are folding into their route planning results? And do you agree with my assumption, that they actually have coded in those 'wake zone' areas just as they've coded in all the other features?

 

[BB marine]

I use Navionics and used it all through Florida last year. Navionics picks up all speed zones. Some are No wake and some are speed zones that are minimum wake. Most have to do with manatee speed zones. There are usually signs that indicate the type of speed zone. The Navionics app will alert you of these zones as you approach them. There is a small red circle in the upper left corner of the screen that will have a number in it that indicates the speed zone requirement. There are some areas that the decision is left up to the captain as to what speed to operate the boat at. For the most part most captains are not making a good decision and leave a bigger wake because they think 8mph in a 20' to 30' boat is a small wake but in reality it is bigger than if they are on plane. It is amazing to see, many speed zones are the roughest sections when there are inexperienced captains navigating. Bottom line good judgement is the best speed to navigate at. Don't look at your speed look at your wake when traveling through the Florida ICW. The Navionics wake notifications is a good resource I which more folks paid attention to them.

 

[fishheadbarandgrill]

I'm a long time Navionics user. I checked an old route from Daytona Beach to Titusville which has several speed zones and two bascule bridges. the route length is 40.8nm and gives a time of 7.5hrs with my cruise speed set at 6.5kts (in my boat settings). If you do the math, at 6.5kts, I should do 40.8nm in 6.5 hrs. So I'm guessing that Navionics does take into account speed zones.

 

[jack_patricia]

Thanks, guys. Haven't seen any references in the on-line Navionics youtube videos about the 'little red circle' Brian mentioned, so that's very helpful info. The C248 has a Garmin 943 xsv; it will be interesting to see what it has to offer on the navigation side of things.