Welcome aboard Lt. Camber
I use - and recommend - RuB and SH3 Commander.
RuB contains many great mods like the navigation tools and such.
It will take away the 'tails' on map contacts which will mean you can't just draw a line through the contact and find them, but still isn't too hard to work out.
SH3 Commander doesn't affect gameplay (i don't think) but will give the ships random skins to make them look different each patrol
. And will also give you a nice log of your patrols, time at sea, total tonnage, etc.