Contents Version 2.8 improvements... 3 Boat Setup... 4 Forecast Setup (Weather Source Setup)... 7 Route calculation and Parameters... 12 Nautical Charts... 24 Using public and private charts... 24 Chargement des cartes SHOM à partir du catalogue Avalon... 29 Navigation and Route Monitoring... 32 Weather... 35 Advanced Functions... 36 Using your own VPP (Polar) file... 36 Using an external weather grib file... 36 Error Messages... 37
Version 2.8 improvements Added SHOM nautical maps via in-app purchases (Distribution Agreement SHOM 9/2016) Support mbtiles chart format. The mbtile format is the open charting format used by the NOAA organization). This enables any Avalon user to load his own mbtiles maps as private maps in Avalon. Added 3 streams sources : Worldwide Oceanic, Mediterranean and Baltic currents New screen to select preferred weather sources : Winds, Streams, Waves and other weather Display Wind and Stream coverage areas on the compute route screen. Of course, Avalon will download the necessary subset of this area. Improved cruise summary screen to show a visual synthetic view of the cruise : Point of Sail, Sea and Wind profile. Enables different waypoint size for every waypoint. This will allow differentiating a regatta buoy from a cruise passing point (to cross a cape for example). Correct display heading of AIS targets. Colored differentiation of route segments calculated with wind extension from segments calculated with real forecasts,
Boat Setup Before calculating your first passage, you must select your boat and the sail sets that you have on board. To do this, you should enter the «Boat setup» menu from the main page
You need to be connected to the Internet to complete this step. You can then select your boat by boat category or by shipyard.
Tick the sail sets that you use. You can also see the VPP (Velocity Prediction Program aka Polars ) of your boat. The VPP represent the theoretical speed of the boat as a function of the TWS (True Wind Speed) and TWA (True Wind Angle ie the angle between the heading of the boat and the direction of the wind). Validate and come back to main menu.
Forecast Setup (Weather Source Setup) Avalon has now 9 automatic wind sources and 4 stream sources. Automatic means that, once the start and end points are defined, (and optionally one or several waypoints), Avalon will get from our server the required weather data it needs without having to define a sailing area and to download manually a grib file. On top, it is still possible to load manually into Avalon an external grib file (grib1 or grib2 format). To select those, you need to go to the forecast setup menu.
Click on the Wind icon and select your favorite source among: NOAA GFS 0.25 degree NOAA GFS 1 degree Meteo France Arpege 0.1 degree Meteo France Arome 0.0.25 degree NAM (North American Mesoscale) CONUS (Connected US) 0.15 degree NAM Central America and Caribean 0.1 degree NAM Puerto Rico 0.05 degree NAM Hawai 0.05 degree NAM Guam 0.05 degree
Then we do the same to choose amongst the 4 sources of stream.
Route calculation and Parameters Enter in the «Compute route» menu. Long click to fix the start point. Then long click on the arrival point. The arrival zone is defined by a circle whose radius is defined in nautical miles. The size of the radius can be changed in the parameters menu.
To launch the route calculation, click on route (top right of the screen) and then compute route. You may also click Reset to create a new route.
You arrive to the route parameters menu. Below is the explanation of those parameters: Iteration time: Time between heading changes. It can be necessary to decrease this value in a narrow bay for example to enable quick tacks. During a long cruise, it is better to fix this value at 30 or 60 minutes. Compute time limit: In case of time out error message, you need to increase this value to give your device enough time to complete route. Target zone size: Radius of the arrival circle in miles. Waypoint zone size: Radius of the waypoint(s) circle(s) in miles. Estimated duration: You should fix a value that is higher than the planned duration of your passage. This value fixes the quantity of wind, currents and weather data that will be downloaded to the tablet. We are using a very efficient data compression algorithm: One wind point (TWS, TWD and Gust) cost only 2.7 bytes, to save iridium phone cost on offshore cruises. Wind max speed: Maximum wind speed (Gust) acceptable for the boat and the crew. Start at my position: To easily recalculate the route when you are at sea. Motoring speed: The nominal speed of your engine. Use engine if speed below: The speed is the VMC (Velocity Made to Course) to the arrival or next waypoint. Polar efficiency: decrease this value if your boat is not at 100% of its theoretical performance (used sails, crew experience, and difficult weather conditions). Use streams: Integrate stream in route calculations and in the route display. We have 5 days of stream data with a 1 hour step. Use waves: Eliminate routes with wave (combination of wind and swell waves) above value defined below.
Wave max height: Maximum acceptable waves. The route summary will then give you more information above waves, for swell, wind waves and combined: Height, period and wave angles versus boat. Download weather: to download additional weather data (info other than winds) Force wind refresh: Forces Avalon to reload the winds, because Avalon will not reload weather data if there are no new winds available, to save data transfer. Show details: Display route summary just after route calculation. Starting date: beware to have enough wind forecast available for route calculations. The «more complex» parameters are set in «advanced settings» menu. Below is the meaning of those parameters: Start: to enter a precise starting position (lat and lon). End: to enter a precise arrival position (lat and lon). Manual winds: to enter fixed winds. Wind Speed (TWS) Wind direction (TWD) Search angle: Increasing this angle can avoid waypoints but will slow down calculation time. Angle step: 5 or 10 degrees are good values, but it can be necessary to decrease this value in a narrow passage, together with a decrease of iteration time to enable quick tacks. Minimum TWA: to force Avalon to avoid routes that are too much closed hauled. Warning: fixing a high minimum TWA may prevent Avalon to find a route. Precision: The longest is the passage; the higher should be the required precision. This value is automatically set but advanced users can try different values. 10
Wind extension: Avalon enables to calculate a route up to 500 hours. As we only have 240 of wind forecast, Avalon will use the latest value of the wind forecast to calculate a route. However, beware that wind forecast becomes less and less reliable as we extend its horizon. To use this facility, please switch on this option. Tacking time: Estimated time lost when tacking. Warning: This value should not exceed 10 or 20% of Iteration Time defined above. Sail change time: Estimated time lost when changing sails. Warning: This value should not exceed 10 or 20% of Iteration Time defined above. Best Start Parameters: When Avalon will calculate best starting time, it will calculate by default 6 possibilities with 1 hour interval. You can change those default values with search interval and step value. Calculating best staring time requires heavy machine resources. We recommend using this option on 24 hours passages only. Once your parameters are defined, click on compute route. Winds, streams and additional weather data are then downloaded from or server. If you have no internet connection, Avalon will use previously loaded data to calculate the route. Color of route points means: If inside wind forecast period: Motoring : Black Port: magenta Starboard: red If outside wind forecast period (e.g. using wind extension): Motoring: white Port: cyan Starboard : yellow The yellow line represents the last isochronal, i.e. the points that the boat can reach at the same time she reaches the arrival.
You can select the information to display: Weather information, wind and streams are synchronized with route points. They are displayed around the selected route point with values you will get when you will be at the selected route point. You can also use to slide bar at the top of the screen to move between the route points.
You can also display the synchronized weather forecast, i.e. the weather that you will get when you will reach the point. Or the stream
If you have the raster map (tested with SHOM) covering your navigation area, you can display your route on this chart and then monitor your real route using the Board book menu (see following chapter on Board book ). This example represents straight line navigation. There aver almost no islands or capes to avoid. If we wish to go from Saint-Malo to Swansea, we would not head directly to Swansea but we would head first to west of Cornwall before heading to Swansea. Back to my previous route I move my arrival point from the Scilly Islands to Swansea.
And I add a waypoint at West of Cornwall ( point then add waypoint ). I could also add a stopover. To move a waypoint: long click on the number and whe the flag goes slightly up, you can slide the waypoint. Another method is to select the waypoint and then click where you want to place it. I compute the route again ( route then compute route )
«route» then «show details» wil give me a detailed summary of the passage. I am then able to assess if cruise conditions will be nice or tough for the crew: wind, point of sails, waves
I can export my route to third party navigation systems using GPX or KML format ( route then show details then export to GPX ).
Nautical Charts Using public and private charts Avalon technical choice is to load the necessary maps in the permanent memory of the device. Main advantage is that you still have all your maps, even in case of a current supply shortage supply. This is a must when you are at sea. There is another option which is to load the maps in the memory cache of the device. We rejected this solution as no application really controls what happens in the cache and you may lose your maps at any time. Avalon handles 2 map types: public and private maps. Public maps are available free of charge to everybody. You just need to enter in the Chart setup menu: To install a map on your device, you need to select a region. You will then see icons representing every available map.
You can then use the map: Online, when you are at home with a good network and you are planning your next passage. But if you plan to use the map at sea, you need to load the chart on your device by clicking Offline. The card is then downloaded on the device (please allow for a few minutes as raster charts are heavy). Once loaded you may use the Visible option. This option will allow you to display or not a chart. This is also useful when different maps are overlapping. This is also useful when you have many maps on the device and you only want to display the maps in use during the passage. To uninstall a map, just unclick Offline.
The management of the nautical maps is the same for the private charts, except that the map needs to be loaded first on the device. To do it you need to receive your map on your email on the device. In this example, we will load a map of Saint-Malo approaches. Avalon accepts.kap,.7z,.zip and mbtiles formats. Once is file is downloaded on the device, you can go to the Nautical charts menu and click load private chart". Then select the file you have loaded.
Avalon will then ask for the name of the map, so that it is easier for you to identify the loaded maps in the library. Formatting and loading process starts. Be patient as it can last for several minutes. There is a small progression bar in the bottom of the window. Once the process is completed, you are back to the main menu. Just check that the map is offline enabled. It means that he map is in the resilient memory and can be used at any time, even without network.
Now the chart is visible on the route. Assuming it is tagged as "offline" and "visible" in the chart configuration menu. Please ensure that the "Display chart" option is activated in the "markers" menu of the compute route screen. You can zoom down to a given level. This zoom level depends on the map scale. If you zoom too much, the chart will be replaced by the Google map.
Chargement des cartes SHOM à partir du catalogue Avalon Since version 2.8, Avalon offers to buy SHOM maps as «in-app» purchases within the application. There are 3 available packs: One chart pack Two charts pack Four charts pack You can guy several times the same pack but you need to download all the maps of the first pack before being able to buy another pack of the same type.
Once the pack is bought, you can go to the cartography menu and then to Avalon chart packs to see the list of charts available and download the charts you have bought.
Avalon will indicate the numbers of charts you are entitled to download. Pick up the chart(s) you need and click on download. Beware that the downloaded chart will debit immediately your remaining number of charts. This action cannot be recovered. If you have bought your charts directly from the SHOM, you can load them as private charts (see chapter before).
Navigation and Route Monitoring For the tablets with built-in GPS (i.e. most of the android devices), the board book menu allows to monitor your real route when at sea. You can also compare your real route o the planned route. Display position of boats with AIS transceivers Latitude and longitude of the position Speed Over Ground Course Over Ground VMC (Velocity Made to Course) Heading to the next waypoint or arrival Distance to next waypoint or arrival
There is a simulation mode that you can activate on the left panel The Navigation screen enables you to record your real route. You can fix the recording frequency in seconds. The line of sight duration sets the size of the line at the front of the boat to give you a forecasted position in 10mn, 30mn, Ih or 2h.
To display the position, speed and destination of AIS equipped boats, you must connect your mobile device to the WIFI router of the boat. You should then fill in the IP address and the port thru which AIS and NMEA data will be sent. (NMEA messages will be added in a future version). If you need to get AIS boats position on several tablets or phones, you need to use the UDP connection.
Weather This menu provides global weather information: Weather Isobares Isobeaufort (lines of same beaufort value) Precipitation Cloud coverage Temperature Atmospheric Pressure The display shows the evolution of the weather synchronized with the progression of the boat.
Advanced Functions Using your own VPP (Polar) file Some skippers prefer to use their own boat polar data (boat speed related to True Wind Speed and True Wind Angle) To achieve this, you only need to receive the polar file (.pol format) in your mail box and open it with Avalon ("open with" command"). Using an external weather grib file Avalon provides weather data from NOAA (GFS 0.25 degrees model) and from Meteo France Arpege and Arome models. We have optimized tile size to decrease downloading cost when you are at sea or abroad. Volume of data has been extremely optimized as one "wind point" (lat, lon and time) only takes 2.6 characters for TWS, TWD and Gust. However, it can be necessary to load external grib files for example if you need the grib file to load on another navigation system or if you prefer other sources than NOAA GFS, Arome and Arpege. In this case, you need to receive the grib file in your mail and open this file with Avalon ("open with") Supported grib files are:.grb.grb2.gz.gz2 Remark on weather grib file granularity: Avalon uses wind data that are available every 3 hours with a 0.25 degree granularity. But when Avalon calculates the route, this data is extrapolated by second and for every 1/10000 of degree. Generally, high granularity gribs are not needed. They can even give a misleading feeling of accuracy. However, high granularity gribs are useful when the grib provider has integrated additional elements such as coastal effects, land/sea breeze, etc.
Error Messages Route computed The route has been properly calculated. If it does not display immediately on the screen, this is because you have selected «show details» in the route parameters. Timed Out! Compute time was over «compute time limit» in the route parameters. You should increase this value. Travel duration seems too short! Estimated duration (in the route parameters is too short. This figure determines the length of the wind period to be downloaded. You should increase this value in the route parameters, assuming that the weather source that the you have selected is compatible with your planned cruise. Wind too high! Avalon could not find any route compatible with the max speed of the wind (gust) that you have entered. If you want Avalon to compute a route, you need to increase this value (if you really want to leave the harbor of course!) Wave too high! Avalon could not find any route compatible with the max height of waves (combined swell and wind waves) that you have entered. If you want Avalon to compute a route, you need to increase this value (if you really want to leave the harbor of course!) Stream too high! In some areas with strong tidal streams (Channel Islands for exemple), le combined wind and streams conditions can prevent your boat to progress. You need to switch to a mixed motoring/sailing route or to change your departure time. You can use the «compute best start» function to choose the best timing. Wind too low! The winds are too low to find a route. You need to switch to a mixed motoring/sailing route or to change your departure time. No wind at start! Either you are at is not covered by the weather source that you have selected or your time start is not in the range of time provided by this given source. You should choose a weather source that is compatible with your planned passage. No route with twa >= twa minimum found, add one or more waypoints! Avalon could not find any route compatible with the minimum TWA (True Wind Angle) that you have fixed in the advanced parameters. You should decrease the minimum TWA value (but stay in the valid TWA values for your boat) add one or several waypoints. Earth detected between start and end, maybe should add one or more waypoints! Avalon could not find any route because there is «too much» earth between start and arrival point. You need to add at least one waypoint. If you have a high minimum TWA value, you may consider decrease this value. Explanation: Avalon determines a median heading from start to end point and it will scan possible headings 90 degrees around the median heading. If Wind conditions are not good, Avalon will not find any possible route. If there is a waypoint in between, the median heading will be the heading between start and the first waypoint and the scanning at +/- 90 degrees will enable Avalon to find a route. When waypoint 1 is reached, next median heading will be to waypoint 2 or arrival. Same with as many waypoints as required.