Re. Sea Clear II. It will run on my Mac Powerbook Pro using the Parallels emulator, but I cannot find a version that will run in Mac OS. For free charting software, you can try Stentec an outfit in the NL who do some simulation software but of late have been very up on producing windows GPS driven charts. From what I can tell Parallels 4 for intel based Macs will run all charting software designed for Windows. If you have an Intel based Mac, you can always run windows in the “Bootcamp” mode which simply turns your Mac into a PC until you restart back to the Mac OS. The Parallels 4 app, however, will run in a coherence mode so you have you two desk tops right there and can go from a Mac app to a Windows program without making any changes or restarts. Unfortunately, for the moment at least, it would seem that the majority of charting and GPS programs are Windows only, however; I have more than a few clients in aviation who use the widows option on their Intel Macs and they fly away and keep coming back. So check out Stentec and Seaclear II. If anyone finds chart software for Mac, I’d appreciate hearing about it. I know that Stentec has some coastal trip planning programs which run on Macs, so they may be a good resource.
I am always happy to answer Mac tech questions if I can, so do not hesitate to be in touch.
Texino
texino@gmail.com