Yannick Chevalier is a versatile seafarer. He uses his Sun Odyssey 40 DS yacht for several activities including daily outings, cruising and tuna fishing. With MaxSea, he enjoys noting his vessel's position, recording his routes, and carefully marking the location of his tuna fishing hot spots.
"For me, it is essential to know instantaneously the precise location of the boat.
My home port is Cape Breton, in the South West of France. For tuna fishing, one generally needs to navigate a fairly long distance. Before getting MaxSea, I spent a lot of my time at the chart table. This time was taken away from being watchful of hazards or making the necessary on route adjustments. I bought MaxSea in 2001, at the Paris Boat Show. What I most appreciated was knowing the exact and instantaneous position of the boat, which is extremely important for accurate navigation and safety. I am now more confident when I leave port.
I began using MaxSea on a daily basis.
I became familiar with the software very quickly. Even for someone who is not very computer literate, I found MaxSea to be easy to learn and to use. Its interface reproduces each tool and manual procedure used by every seafarer to perform navigation. It works the way that I have always worked before I had a computer on board.
Because I often sail alone, MaxSea is really the second man on board.
I am used to preparing my routes at home with my computer. Then, I load my files onto my on-board laptop which is linked to my auto-pilot. It is very simple. I have more time to safely perform other tasks while underway. I also trust the charts which are scanned from the official charts of the local national hydrographic services. I constantly use the MaxSea tides module to anticipate my arrival time into ports instantaneously without the need to perform manual calculations, thus avoiding the risks of mistakes.
A lively memory…
When I go fishing, I record the points where I have good catches. Over time I have collected some reliable data consisting of dates and places where the tuna is likely to found. It's fun to relive my outings and journeys with my friends by using MaxSea's automatic route recording and built-in navigation logbook. Many of them have been convinced to get MaxSea. I consider it to be the "thorough bred" of the navigation software. I still do not have the weather or routing modules, but I am anxious to install them very soon."