Admiral adds a nice feature for larger vessels, called GPS Position Onboard. With a GPS now providing accuracy to within 3 meters, the position of the GPS on a large boat is a factor. This feature lets you customize where the GPS is physically located onboard your vessel and shows your vessel icon scaled to its correct size. A custom–sized vessel icon is more than a cosmetic touch. It helps a user gauge the scale of a chart feature relative to their boat, particularly when trying to sense the breadth of a swash or privately–maintained channel.

With the purchase of a Nobeltec InSight Radar 2 BlackBox ($3,000) and any NMEA 0183 heading sensor, your existing radar display can be overlaid on a chart. This device converts analog radar data into digital format, allowing it to be transmitted and displayed on your PC. Combined with a split screen display (see photo), this feature helps with interpreting the radar targets.

WAYPOINTS AND ROUTESNOBELTECHDigital InSight radar data is sent to your computer via Nobeltec's Black Box, an analog-to-digital converter. Admiral's NavView can display the raw radar display (left) or, with a heading sensor, can overlay the data on a chart (right).

Any application as sophisticated as Admiral includes extensive waypoint and route features, including unlimited waypoints and routes, a Route Wizard, an integrated ETA calculator, and a Great Circle route builder.

We had no trouble creating and working with waypoints and routes in Admiral. The interface was exceptionally clean. Routes can be customized to show bearing and direction. The Instant Waypoint feature creates a quick, simple route from the boat's current position to a destination mark for monitoring cross track error (XTE).

The Route Wizard automatically creates a route when given parameters for depth, distance from land or minimum and maximum lengths for the route legs. It requires detailed vector data or 3D bathymetric data, both available on Passport Deluxe charts. The Route Wizard is an advanced feature, but is very easy to use when following the field–by–field prompts.

The ETA calculator uses a similar interface, letting the user fill in information and obtain estimates for best departure times, transit times, required speed and fuel consumption. In order to use all the features, the tide and current data for your geography must be loaded. The calculator is easy to use and provides a slew of data to help plan your transit.

For longer passages, Admiral integrates a Great Circle route builder. Simply select Edit>New>Great Circle Route and choose an origin and destination waypoint. A route is automatically created with a series of waypoints along the shortest Great Circle path, which can be named and edited like any other route. For celestial navigation, Admiral includes a built–in sight reduction tool called Star Navigator. This separate program, available under Tools>Other Tools>Star Navigator, has its own online help.

Admiral can also associate any NMEA input data–such as water temperature or depth–with a corresponding track. This additional feature is available standard with Admiral or as part of the Sailing Plus Pack for VNS. It is a nice feature for sport fishing.