Two of VNS's features, Chart Coloring and Shaded Relief, make charts more visually interesting and help with readability. Chart Coloring lets you select the chart color scheme you prefer, such as S-57 or Explorer chart colors. Shaded Relief displays lightly shaded land or sea features, which helps convey a visual sense of the topography. Nobeltec's 3D bathymetric displays were also very impressive and can even be printed at high resolution (see photo).

JEPPESEN MARINEA 3D Bathy screenshot showing the Key West Main Ship Channel approach from the south.

VNS engineers were thinking ahead when they integrated a warning screen if you begin to open too many chart windows. We admit we were guilty, opening new chart windows and not closing others. The window alert is a great feature, preventing poor performance-or worse-before a problem arises. In fact, the only time we were able to crash VNS was when we had seven windows, the PlanBook, and the linked Tides & Currents Pro program open while manipulating a 3D Bathy chart. Quite impressive!

WAYPOINTS AND ROUTES

Any application as established as Nobeltec VNS includes extensive waypoint and route features, including unlimited route and waypoint placement, distance and bearing displays, an integrated ETA calculator, and extremely flexible boundaries and alarms. Some of these advanced features we'll cover in more detail in the upcoming review of Nobeltec Admiral.

We had no trouble creating and working with waypoints and routes in VNS. The interface was exceptionally clean. Like Coastal Explorer or Chart Navigator Pro, VNS displays the range and bearing line along the route, just as you would write it in pencil on a paper chart. Furthermore, you can customize this display in VNS to show range and bearing data selectively or on all routes. Routes also can be customized to include arrows for direction of travel. The Instant Waypoint feature creates a quick simple route from the boat's current position to a destination mark, keeping you vigilant on your cross track error.

However, importing and exporting waypoints and routes was not as impressive. Nobeltec applications do not support the three main standard formats for exchanging data: tab-delimited, CSV or GPX. Instead, Jeppesen has chosen a "standalone" approach, only supporting its own system, ironically called Open Navigation Format, or ONF. In other words, users can exchange information between Nobeltec devices but cannot easily import or export their waypoints.

This is a real problem for boaters with existing waypoint data who consider switching to Nobeltec. Likewise, a flotilla or club cruise captain is unable to share waypoint files with other non-Nobeltec participants. When we spoke with Jeppesen about this limitation, they acknowledged that using a chartplotter as an envoy was the only way to import existing waypoints (for us, that's more than 3,000 waypoints!)-a tricky and cumbersome work-around.

The flip side of that equation is that a Nobeltec system is designed to work well with external sensors and gear-and to be extensible. You may begin by connecting a GPS or autopilot, and eventually grow to integrate advanced features such as radar overlays, multiple monitors, or video cameras. Both VNS and Admiral support nearly all NMEA-compatible external devices, including a depth sounder, fluxgate compass, wind and speed indicators, radar, DSC-equipped radio, bathymetric recorder, and AIS target tracking.