Sail safely with GPS and ENC navigation, calculating your route using OpenCPN
If you are planning a boat trip and you are the captain, you may need a program that will help you to decide your routes and ensure safe navigation.
OpenCPN is a free and powerful application created by sailors and supporting electronic navigational charts (ENC); it also lets you know your precise position, heading and speed, even information using other sensors, such as AIS, radar, sonar, and more.
OpenCPN supports also GPS navigation including planning of routes calculation and relevant information, as with any GPS software featuring a line representing your route on screen.
The program supports waypoint navigation, autopilot output, alarm and anchor watch, GRIB and GRIB2 file input and display for weather forecasting, as well as a multitude of plugins, Climatology, Weather Routing, WeatherFax, Google Earth, Voyage Data Recorder, AIS-radar, SAR, sQuiddio, Radar Overlay, Logbook, and many more. You won’t find a lot of programs like this; if you are interested in sailing, you should definitely try it, after all it’s free! Besides the latest release, I suggest that you get also the plugins and the user manual. Enjoy!
