Raymarine readies LightHouse Charts for Australia, New Zealand

The marine electronics specialist has overnight released a major update to its Lighthouse Sport operating system – a simplified version of its software platform that drives the Axiom series of multifunction displays – that adds support for regional charts.

The LightHouse Charts software can also display tides and currents in real-time, making sailing passages or fishing tides a lot easier for Raymarine Element users.

Raymarine has also taken the opportunity to improve the way the Element series of chartplotters and fishfinders animate the current arrows showing direction and strength, and the tide curves that show high and low cycles.

The software update, which bumps up to version 3.18.11 after an update in October to fix a few bugs and introduce LightHouse Charts to the European market, also improves map rendering and adds missing drying heights, or the amount of seabed exposed at the lowest astronomical tide.

The update also tweaks how the Raymarine Element series shows points of interest marked on the plotter.

Raymarine says Element users must upgrade to version 3.18.11 to take advantage of the new LightHouse Charts Australia and New Zealand region.

The software update also introduces a number of improvements, as well as fixes other bugs identified in the operating system, including how the Element’s SD card is ejected.

Raymarine Element users can download the software update here. The charts software is now available as an SD card pre-loaded with Australian charts priced from $269.