Captn. Jack is back, and lookin good
I just got the new Captn. Jack’s catalog, which seems pretty quick given that Maptech just took over the operation a few months ago. The online Captn. Jack’s is also back in business, which means I can link you right through to some of the more interesting offerings:
* The fictional Jack is indeed bundling Maptech Chartbooks with Garmin plotters, as above, including putting all the on-paper waypoints into the plotter. Just the product combinations themselves look like decent deals, the waypoints a very useful bit of frosting. (I’m hoping to try the feature out).
* The Capn software (no previous relation to Captn. Jack, and different spellings retained) has now become CAPN Integra AIS, and there’s some more detail on how Maptech plans to market it. Jack is also selling the U.S. Boating Charts DVD, which I have tried (it’s excellent), both alone and nicely bundled with Memory Map.
* Items that I hadn’t seen before, and want to know more about, include inexpensive Xenarc “High-bright” 8” and 10” monitors, a $100 Emtac Bluetooth SiRF III GPS, and the Faria WatchDog monitoring system/service (w/ WiFi/GPRS Internet service coming!).
Note that Captn. Jack’s is offering free ground shipping and a money back guarantee (though a tight one). Altogether it’s a pretty neat catalog, and probably the one most focused on marine computer navigation, though it still doesn’t thoroughly cover the products available. Isn’t it strange that Captn. Jack’s once offered almost every major ECS except the Maptech ones, and now it features Maptech’s even larger roster but is missing major products like Nobeltec, MaxSea, and RayTech?
One glaring hole in Maptechs raster chart coverage is the Far East. It was an area covered by Softcharts. Maptech purchased Softcharts (& marineplanner.com) and then closed them down. I sure wish they would bring them back including the Photonavigator series.
I looked carefully at the catalog when it arrived Saturday and promptly threw it out.
I absolutely agree its guarantee is, for a mail order company in 2006, remarkably stringent and customer-UNfriendly.
And, despite including some seemingly interesting (and seemingly new) products, the absence of technical information was very striking.
I found nothing in the book to make me want to use consider them as a source.
Aw, Richard, do you have some suggestions for better sources?