Aweigh App

[NotDeadYet]

While I've been away, the pretty useful Aweigh app seems to have morphed into, variously, the Norfolk Broads Direct app, the Visit the Broads app, the Richardsons Boating Holidays app, and perhaps others?  A couple of these are rather hefty sizewise, what with all the extra stuff packed in with the useful bits. Commercial reasons, I guess.

[floydraser]

Cynical suspicious me can't fathom out what it is with the modern obsession with apps; are they trying to get us to buy phones with more memory and processing power or trying to sell us more gigabytes a month? There are incentives to get us to have certain apps, competitions exclusive to apps and tricks to make us think the only way is app!

I have recently got a travel money card from the Post Office and trying to find the information on how to go on without a smartphone took ages. I have a smartphone but I refuse to put any kind of payment system on it. 

Or are we just a different generation? What if they think that their market is mainly youngsters with their whole lives revolving around a smartphone?

[YnysMon]

I don’t think this is the case. If I log into the Aweigh App from home it tells me what high water is on the River Nene. That has nothing to do with the Broads. 

[ExSurveyor]

Helen, It is just picking up on the nearest river. If you click on the location bar it opens up a list of broads location.

I assume it will work on all locations but is marketed as a Broads app.

Edit,

It doesn't appear to load info outside of the Broads.

[YnysMon]

It always did give ‘extra’ touristy info under the explore tab.

[Vaughan]

 

This is the map that was issued free by Richardsons each time I hired a boat from them a few years ago.  Exactly the same map was available in Lathams and other Broads shops and I assume it still is.

I was taught how to read an Ordnance Survey map when I was at prep school and even the British Army couldn't later teach me to read one any better.

I cannot see how you would need any more information than this map, to cruise the Broads and know exactly where you were :

 

With this on my boat I have no need whatever of any APP - even if if I could find a phone signal to download the thing.

[dom]

55 minutes ago, floydraser said:

Cynical suspicious me can't fathom out what it is with the modern obsession with apps; are they trying to get us to buy phones with more memory and processing power or trying to sell us more gigabytes a month?

It's generally about brand loyalty. If a company can get you to install their app, it means you're continually exposed to their brand and marketing, rather than resorting to Googling where competitors can place ads, or draw you away with offers, etc

They rarely confer any significant advantage and tend to just exploit the laziness of younger generations. It's particularly prevalent in the fast fashion sector, especially with female oriented brands.

[floydraser]

14 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

 

 

 

 

I demand to know more about "Slippery Bottoms"! 

 

[Vaughan]

I have seen a few of those, round Womack Island . . . . 

[grendel]

2 hours ago, floydraser said:

Or are we just a different generation? What if they think that their market is mainly youngsters with their whole lives revolving around a smartphone?

yes, i still dont / wont have a smart phone, yes its caused issues both at work and with service providers- at work now every meeting we are supposed to log in via qr code to confirm our attendance and ask questions via some app, I just sit there and stick my hand up when I want to ask a question, with our service providers, they want me to use an app to log into microsoft to access the data I need, so I forced them to reconsider that everyone had to use the app. it seems that those in IT make the assumption that everyone has a smart phone, my parents are struggling as the banks etc want them to use certain apps to access things- my dad steadfastly refuses and insists on going in the branch to do business- even if it involves getting the branch manager out of his office to verify his identity.

[RS2021]

2 hours ago, Vaughan said:

This is the map that was issued free by Richardsons each time I hired a boat from them a few years ago.  Exactly the same map was available in Lathams and other Broads shops and I assume it still is.

But if all you have to do is download the app, think of all the pennies that are saved in printing costs...

I'm happy to embrace new technologies, but there is something special about a paper map. I can waste many hours looking at them.

 

[grendel]

I am still using an old jarrolds map, the rivers havent changed much

[Heron]

Perhaps they are not as deep as they used to be?

[grendel]

true, but it doesnt show the depth anyway

[marshman]

Hamiltons Book with the maps does!!!

[dom]

Just don't buy the Nicholson's guide to the Broads. I was gobsmacked at the number of errors and inaccuracies in it.

[YnysMon]

5 hours ago, Vaughan said:

 

This is the map that was issued free by Richardsons each time I hired a boat from them a few years ago.  Exactly the same map was available in Lathams and other Broads shops and I assume it still is.

I was taught how to read an Ordnance Survey map when I was at prep school and even the British Army couldn't later teach me to read one any better.

I cannot see how you would need any more information than this map, to cruise the Broads and know exactly where you were :

 

With this on my boat I have no need whatever of any APP - even if if I could find a phone signal to download the thing.

I used to be glued to my Broads map. Nowadays I rarely need to refer to it. I find the Aweigh App invaluable. It’s great to be able to check what the tide is doing wherever you are in real time. 
Also, I use it to check my speed. Those are the two essentials for me.

[Wussername]

10 minutes ago, YnysMon said:

I used to be glued to my Broads map. Nowadays I rarely need to refer to it. I find the Aweigh App invaluable. It’s great to be able to check what the tide is doing wherever you are in real time. 

I never look at a map. I seem to know where I am, where I'm going and where I've been. I cannot remember the last time I looked at one.

Now the tide is a different matter entirely. It is complete mystery to me, spring tides, neap tides, low water, slack water, wind over tide, high pressure over Dogger Bank. 

I look at the river Yare and I can see if it is on the ebb, or the flood which has no bearing whatsoever on the board at Reedham or that bloke on the forum or indeed anybody else for that matter.

 

[YnysMon]

1 minute ago, Wussername said:

I never look at a map. I seem to know where I am, where I'm going and where I've been. I cannot remember the last time I looked at one.

Now the tide is a different matter entirely. It is complete mystery to me, spring tides, neap tides, low water, slack water, wind over tide, high pressure over Dogger Bank. 

I look at the river Yare and I can see if it is on the ebb, or the flood which has no bearing whatsoever on the board at Reedham or that bloke on the forum or indeed anybody else for that matter.

 

Indeed, whatever any tide table is telling you on the lower rivers, eyeballing the river is the best bet. I never get over the fun of seeing the river flow out to sea for a hour or so after low water whilst the boat is already rising against the quay heading. 

[marshman]

The trouble with the Aweigh App and tides is that it has one fundamental flaw - tides at sea act according to reasonable expectations with around 6 hrs of flood and ebb. The one twelfth rule also work relatively as it should.

However Broadland tides are very different and many factors can throw the calculations totally out. When passage planning I have always worked on the basis that the flood lasts for around 5 hrs whilst the ebb in comparison is often nearer seven - subject to Broadland variations connected with many other seemingly irrelevant factors! 

It did have its uses on the speed equation but i rarely used it, seemingly to get fairly accurate with common sense eyeballing - if you were going much faster than a brisk walking pace, it was probably too fast!!!!

[grendel]

for position I use the gps on my tablet with OS mapping on a downloaded map, and for speed I use a gps tool, neither of these need an internet connection to work so my tablet does not need to be connected to wifi, aweigh needs an internet connection, and i dont think its ever been correct for the tides at great yarmouth for me, and nothing has ever seemed to get the direction of tides on the new cut.

[Mouldy]

I’m not sure why there is so much ‘knocking’ of the Aweigh app.  For anyone who is new, or relatively new to Broads boating, it offers a great deal of information.  Not only maps, tides and speeds, but moorings, electric posts and a great deal more for free.

Despite being a long time visitor, I still use the speedo and although the tide times may not be entirely accurate, they do give a guide as to high and low water at a given point and the potential tide direction.

As for mobile data use, it’s negligible in real terms.  When my last contract with EE expired, I managed to secure a SIM only deal with unlimited data, minutes and texts for £13 per month on a two year contract, which I’m very happy with.  It gives plenty of scope to ‘hotspot’ for streaming music and TV, when I’m on the boat without worrying about exceeding my monthly allowances.

We also have the Project Troll app for ‘live’ bridge heights, which could be developed into a really useful resource with some funding, although progress seems to have stalled at the moment, with heights for just five bridges available.

It’s easy to forget that we are not all born and raised in the area, with a wealth of local knowledge to fall back on.  We all use technology everyday in our lives, in some form or other, whether it’s the tablet or PC we view the Forum on, the sat-nav we have in our cars, the mobile phone we have in our pockets or even the chip and pin we use daily without a thought to the tech behind it.  What is the big deal with using an app?

Aren’t we lucky that we have the freedom in this country to make the choice between using it and not?

[Vaughan]

8 minutes ago, Mouldy said:

Aren’t we lucky that we have the freedom in this country to make the choice between using it and not?

That sounds a bit like a debate going on in the National Trust and several other charities at the moment,  about the freedom to roam our "whites only" countryside!

I suppose I just lament that skills that we learned at school just don't seem to be taught any more, because the kids can just download something instead.  There is great pleasure in being able to read the detail of a map, almost like being able to read a book.

When I was truck driving it was long before GPS and I drove all over France relying solely on Michelin maps, in two different scales.  They even tell a truck driver the height under road bridges.

I will always choose a good map and have never had a GPS in a car.  But then I am an old git nowadays . . . 

[Smoggy]

14 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

I will always choose a good map and have never had a GPS in a car.

One of the benefits of satnav on a connected device is traffic issues even on a route you know well, the machine re-routes when you are not expecting it means there's a problem come up on the roads that the radio hasn't mentioned yet.

[Mouldy]

14 minutes ago, Vaughan said:

That sounds a bit like a debate going on in the National Trust and several other charities at the moment,  about the freedom to roam our "whites only" countryside!

I suppose I just lament that skills that we learned at school just don't seem to be taught any more, because the kids can just download something instead.  There is great pleasure in being able to read the detail of a map, almost like being able to read a book.

When I was truck driving it was long before GPS and I drove all over France relying solely on Michelin maps, in two different scales.  They even tell a truck driver the height under road bridges.

I will always choose a good map and have never had a GPS in a car.  But then I am an old git nowadays . . . 

Don’t get me wrong, I can read a map.  I passed my HGV in 1978 when I was twenty one and there were no sat-nav’s to help then.  Reading a map was an essential skill, multi dropping in towns and cities required planning and the ability to balance your A to Z on the steering wheel, whilst negotiating traffic.

I mourn some things from the old days, but maybe children of today are taught things that are relevant to our current and future lifestyle.  Computing was in it’s infancy back in the sixties and early seventies when I was at school.

Where I do feel sorry for youngsters of today is our inability to embrace change.  We still refer to miles per gallon, but buy our fuel in litres?  How many schools now teach imperial measurements.  We all buy pre packed commodities in metric quantities.  Isn’t it about time we ditched feet, inches, pints, gallons etc and adopted the system that is taught in schools for the benefit of the next generations?  My son is 35 and even he wasn’t taught imperial measurements.