Need help for Nav app for Mississippi River

[MBWhite]

Hi all,

Finally got a phone that can handle a nav app and I am trying to get something for the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers. I purchased "Marine Navigator" but it looks like it does not handle the electronic map formats available for the rivers?

In a nutshell, the inland waterways are the responsibility of the Army Corp of Engineers and not NOAA. Here is a link to the USACE electronic chart page:

Charts

Here is a link to Marine Navigator help file:

http://visitmyharbour.s3.amazonaws.c...Help-2.1.4.pdf

And basically it looks like it does not handle the formats used by USACE. Might there be a program available to convert one of the formats to a compatible one, or else can someone suggest a smartphone app that can decipher one of these formats?

Kinda hard to get lost on the river, but would be handy to see where you are at, especially at night.

Thanks for reading!

MBW

[ranger58sb]

You might have a look at whatever the Great Loopers are using. Search AGLCA (or something close to that).

-Chris

[MBWhite]

Great idea, thanks!

[GrowleyMonster]

OpenCPN should work just fine. There is an official paid build for android an an unofficial one. The paid version is the one you want if you might need support. Both seem to play the Corp of Engineers as well as NOAA raster and vector charts just fine. I use a Note 3 for navigation and it isn't particularly awkward to me. A tablet would be even better. As a bonus, OCPN also plays nice with CM93. You can use another app to create charts from Google Earth images that will work, too, though they won't of course show navaids, depths, etc.

[meridian28]

River charts show very little detail. No depth as the controlling depth is 9' for the barges.

[SetsunaSails]

Keep in mind when using charts for the river that the river itself is consistently changing. The nav bouys move sometimes and debris can show up out of nowhere. What I did was got a current paper chart for my areas I intended on using then marked the absolute deepest parts of the channel and tried to stick to that route. Keep an eye on the waters surface too if it gets shallow quick or wingdam or debris it will swirl at the surface a bit.

[J Clark H356]

Look at Navionics and INavX. You can get Navionics charts for inland Rivers for both apps.

[River Cruiser]

I use Garmin BlueChart Mobil on my iPad, older eyes need larger screen. It supports the Active Captain overlay, which I've found very valuable for anchorages. I've been on the upper Mississippi and the Illinois rivers and have anchored from Red Wing, Mn. to Chicago while cruising, only stopping at marinas for fuel, water and provisioning. The Active Captain reviews are a excellent source of information on finding a suitable anchorage or Marina for services. The cost of the chart app is saved many times over in the transient fees saved and can then be spent on fuel.