As Jochen posted I too think that an automatic logbook would be great.
I know fuel/water consumption or weather changes have be typed in, as only very few boats do have electronic instruments the get these data.
But I really don't see the use of ical as a logbook.
When typing in data in ical, I'm faster at writing these data with a pen in the old paperlogbook.
If GPSNavX would have an autorecord/export logbook like PassagePlus, it would be very easy to have at the end of a day or trip a ready made logbook whih just needs to be printed.
I used to have this function on my old trusty Psion 5mx PDA, which I used to save and print logbooks on my portable inkjet printer.
See this page
http://p.pellot.free.fr/seapad/seapadgb.htm
for screenshots.
In most countries of the EU you must have a logbook with position, speed, wind, weather data. If you don't fill it out, it could very well be possible that assurances won't pay in case of incidents because you didn't do your job right.
Like PassagePlus I would like to have this automatic function in GPSNavX which would save every 15 or 30 (user preferences) minutes the position, COG, SPEED, Winddirection, Windspeed, important AIS data (BTW AIS will soon include Navtex data!), if possible Barometer data (a German dealer does sell a USB Barometer for PC, but I think reading out the data via OS X shouldn't be that big problem). This data could be saved as text, RTF or CSV data, which could be imported into a ready made formular in Excel, Word or whatever text application, where one could include crew names, data, weater, fuel, water data and other remarks.
Even tides Infos from Mr. Tides could be imported.
Here's an export of the PassagPlus Demo Logbook.
Quote:LOG EXPORTED FROM PASSAGEPLUS 16 July 2006 at 22:44
LOG NAME: Log beginning 17 Jun 06
Date,Time,Time Zone,Latitude,Longitude,Lat (Decimal),Lon (Decimal),Heading,Course Over Ground,Speed Through Water,Speed Over Ground,Tide Direction,Tide Rate,Leeway,Magnetic Variation,Comments
2006/06/17,01:02:43,+0200,0° 00.00' N,0° 00.00' E,0.0,0.0,999,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,-6.5357995533525512,Emergency (position unkwown)
2006/07/08,23:30:45,+0200,50° 19.43' N,1° 44.02' W,181165.671875,-6241.04736328125,999,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,0.0,-6.5294788664064853,Manual entry. Position uncertain. That shown is last recorded position (2006-07-08 23:23:41 +0200); might not be actual position.
I hope we will see this function GPSNavX/MacENC or that someone will write an 3rd party application which will just get data from GPSNavX via Applescript.
Thx
Manou