My Favorite Applications

Fugawi 3

by Carl Tenning

Tacoma Open Group For Microcomputers

Fugawi 3 is a computer navigation application that uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver connected to a personal computer to display the position of the user on a street map, a USGS topographic map, or marine chart. I use Fugawi 3 to navigate my boat. It sells for $99 US and is published by Northport Systems of Toronto, Canada. For the boat I use raster scanned National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration charts in the US and Canadian Hydrographic Service scanned charts in Canada. The scanned chart files are supplied separately on CD-ROM. Fugawi 3 and the chart files are installed on a portable computer that I take to the boat.

The GPS receiver connects to the portable computer through the serial port 9-pin connector to COM1 at 4800 Baud. The signal is an alphanumeric string of characters following a standard set up by the National Marine Electronics Association called NMEA 0183. The GPS, computer serial port, and the autopilot are connected as follows:

I navigate by plotting a course on the chart display, which is a series of line segments from one point to another. The course lines can be plotted at home before leaving on a cruise, or while aboard the boat. One way of navigating would be to just observe the position of the boat overlaid on the chart display and manually steering where you want to go. That would be the equivalent of cruising with a paper chart to find your way. But it is much easier to plot a course line and just follow the line. This can be done by just manual steering or manually setting the autopilot to follow the course line. However, Fugawi 3 also has the capability of commanding the autopilot and steering the boat automatically.

A typical display looks like this:

You will probably ask what happens if the computer or GPS should fail. How do I navigate then? Well, I still carry a set of paper charts for wherever I go. That is my backup. But I have never had a failure yet, in six years of service.