About Zora

Zora is the Boat Operating System from iNav4U. It runs on a server on board and brings the boat's systems together in one place: charts and navigation, instruments, autopilot, radar, AIS, cameras, engines, batteries and digital switching. It keeps running with no internet connection.

Zora does much more than a chartplotter, and navigation is only one part of it. For the difference, see Zora vs Chartplotters.

Zora is the Zora frontend, the screens the crew uses, running on iNav4U OS, the operating system on the server. iNav4U OS is the common ground under every iNav4U frontend, and Zora is the one built for recreational boats.

The equipment already on board

Few boats have electronics from a single maker or a single decade. The autopilot comes from one brand, the instruments from another, and the plotter was replaced ten years after the rest. Zora is built for that boat. It reads the networks the way they are wired today: NMEA 2000, NMEA 0183 on RS-232 or RS-485, and the boat's Ethernet network. Equipment too old to connect directly reaches Zora through a converter or gateway, and the gateway list says which ones and what each carries.

Some examples from the compatibility list:

Equipment	With Zora
Raymarine Evolution	Heading hold, wind hold, and 1° / 10° trim. Works on the bus as fitted.
Raymarine SmartPilot and SPX on SeaTalk1	Heading hold, wind hold, and 1° / 10° trim, through a Raymarine E22158 converter with an install that is easy to get wrong.
Simrad AC42	Heading hold, wind hold, and trim at any angle.
Garmin Reactor	Heading hold, wind hold, and 1° / 10° trim.
Raymarine Quantum 2, wired	Image, chart overlay, transmit, range and gain, wired straight to the server with no plotter needed. The radar has no fixed address, so something on its network must hand it one.
Navico HALO — Simrad, B&G and Lowrance	Image, chart overlay, transmit, range, gain and modes, wired straight to the server with no plotter needed. Target boost cannot be set, and manual gain only applies in Custom mode.
Raymarine SeaTalk1 instruments	Read through a converter onto NMEA 2000, or through a multiplexer onto NMEA 0183. SeaTalk1 does not connect to the server directly.
Any NMEA 0183 instrument on a serial port	Standard NMEA 0183 sentences are read from the server's RS232 or RS485 port at 4800 to 230400 baud.
Garmin GPSMAP	Its data is read. With no speed transducer fitted it can send an impossible water speed, so the boat's GPS must rank first for speed. It also powers the Garmin radar network.
Victron GX devices	Batteries, chargers, inverters, solar, tanks and temperature sensors behind the GX. From Zora: the GX relays, inverter and charger mode, AC input limits, solar on and off, what the BMS allows, and generator start.

Not everything works. The compatibility list goes make by make and says so where a unit is not supported, where it works but has not been tested on a boat yet, and what is on the roadmap.

Screens at the helm

A chartplotter already at the helm can stay. Zora works alongside it and reads its data. Most Zora owners no longer replace an old chartplotter, though. They fit a Mini PC and iNav4U touchscreens instead. The touchscreens are sunlight readable and waterproof to IP67 front and back. One Mini PC drives up to three screens, each with its own layout, and an ordinary monitor works too, at the chart table for example.

Fewer apps on the side

Many boats run a handful of apps next to the plotter. Zora does several of their jobs itself:

• Weather: Windy's wind map, live from the internet, and Zora's own forecast on the chart, which the boat keeps aboard for when it is offline. See Weather.
• Polars and performance routing: Zora learns the boat's polar from its own sailing, and an uploaded polar fills in what it has not sailed yet. Under sail, cruising or racing, Zora works out the path to the next mark or waypoint from the polar, the live wind and the current, and draws it on the chart with its laylines and the next tack or gybe. The PND shows the boat's speed as a share of its polar, and the Start Timer counts down to the gun.
• Anchor alarm: Zora follows the boat as it swings and sounds the alarm if it drags out of its circle. See Anchor Watch.
• Cloud services: software updates, and notifications by email or SMS when nobody is aboard. See iNav4U Cloud.

The boat's records

Zora also keeps the paperwork of running a boat, filed against the equipment it belongs to:

• Logbook: the navigation logbook holds your notes and the entries Zora writes itself when you leave, set a sail, start an engine or anchor. The equipment logbook records the work on each system.
• Trips and stops: Zora records every passage and every stop by itself, with nothing to start or stop. For each one you can look back over its track, its log entries and the photos taken on the way, and replay the passage on 3D satellite imagery with the sails, engines and wind as they were. The replay needs an internet connection. See Trips & Stops.
• Maintenance and tasks: maintenance jobs come round by engine hours or by the calendar. When one falls due, Zora puts it on the Tasks board by itself, and the crew moves it across the board until it is done.
• Documents: manuals, invoices, photos and certificates, kept with the equipment they belong to.
• Finances: what the boat costs and earns, in whatever currency it was paid. Finances converts every amount into the boat's currency, so a season in three countries still adds up.
• Vessel Map: a plan of the boat, deck by deck, with a marker for each piece of equipment, so the crew can find each one aboard. See Vessel Map.

What Zora does not replace

Zora does not replace the systems already installed. It uses them, as long as they speak an open standard or a protocol Zora already reads. A closed, proprietary system that Zora cannot read stays as it is, outside Zora, and the compatibility list says which ones those are. That is what makes Zora suited to a refit: the boat keeps what works, and Zora brings it together.

An autopilot keeps its own course computer and drive, and Zora steers the boat through that computer. Zora is an aid to navigation, and its terms of use leave the captain responsible for the boat.

Where to go next

• Compatibility: check your equipment, make by make
• Setup: installing Zora and connecting the boat's equipment
• Zora: using the boat every day
• How it works: the iNav4U Platform behind Zora