Since ancient times the Italian navy has been a reference, then we arrived in the digital age and the first electronic navigators were an entirely Italian invention, indeed for all of the eighties the production in Tuscany was the only one in the world.
Nav-Station was founded in 2001, carrying on these traditions and integrating new features that have made navigation more efficient and simple.
Today, in use, there are still many Nav-Stations that we produced 17 years ago, they are machines so robust that they are still able to satisfy the user. Nav-Station is a plotter whose features you understand in a few minutes and the same, in full knowledge, you will use them for many years. Nav-Station is not a simple marine plotter or GPS, but your instrument to navigate.
Today is the day of a new challenge for the Nav-Station: to carry on all these traditions and merge them into today's technology. Our answer is Nav-Station N9 and N12.
The interface is rigorously hybrid, the keys well mark the suggestive click to ensure that the pressure is real, while the sensitivity of the touch screen is a delight for lovers of this type of management. Everything you can do with the touchscreen can also be done with the keys and vice versa, not only, the new rotary knob further facilitates functions such as zooming or scrolling in menus.
The era of smartphones is interpreted by Nav-Station with "Mirror Control" or an app (iOS or Android) that displays the entire screen of the plotter on the device and also allows us to take control. The effects of our actions on the app will be displayed on the plotter and vice versa. This opens up a number of unexpected usage scenarios. So we can conveniently manage from any location every feature and we do not necessarily have to set up a second station on the flybridge, where instead we will take our tablet.
The Captain Cloud service helps us manage our routes and back up our data. In the past the memorization of our precious marks, was entrusted to a cartridge that we could lose or break, today this worry no longer exists. Captain Cloud synchronizes with your Nav-Station and any entry made on the plotter or in the cloud is kept stored on both platforms. If we do not have a connection during the navigation, it does not matter, when we are again covered by the WiFi service of our marina, the data will be synchronized again.
All these advanced features are accepted by the integrated WiFi module that allows us to easily communicate with other devices on board (there are more and more marine instruments with WiFi!). While for dialoguing with older onboard tools, we can use the classic NMEA2000 and 0183 interfaces.
N9 and N12 are a great investment over time. The software update is done automatically via WiFi (you only have to give your consent), so over time the plotter will be enriched with new improvements or features, without having to buy a new GPS chart.
For anglers, the N9 and N12 offer the Fish version, which incorporates a fishfinder with CHIRP technology. Undoubtedly CHIRP technology has marked an epoch-making change in the distinction of the backdrop and especially of the targets, but not all technologies with this name are the same. CHIRP is a complex technology and is not easy to calibrate to perfection, we are confident that we have done a great job!
If we are interested in keeping the engine parameters under control (pressures, temperatures, rpm, fuel and consumption), we will have a dedicated screen with the display of these values, also for each parameter we could set an acoustic alarm.
But all these advanced features wouldn't make sense if the display wasn't of quality. For the N9 and N12 we have selected a display of truly enviable clarity. No problem to visualize it from any angle, it effectively counteracts the glare of light and has a light intensity (easily adjustable) beyond the norm.
For consistency with our traditions and because we believe that the C-Map is still the best today, we have still chosen this cartography. C-Map in fact offers us some critical aspects related to security, including the official nature of the data, which other types of cartography do not allow.
Nav-Station N9 and N12 are already available in our warehouses and can be purchased from the best nautical retailers. They will be on display at METS Trade (Amsterdam) between 13 and 15 November 2018 at our stand no. 12.542.