Dutch Coastal and Inland waters as KAP-files for OpenCPN

[Roel Smidt]

FYI:

Since april 2017 Datacharter, a Dutch company, offers the entire set of “1800”-series nautical charts for the Netherlands as KAP-files for use in OpenCPN.

These (raster)charts cover the Dutch coastal zone of the Northsea and Belgium (including the Zeeland estuaries and the Westerschelde river up to Antwerp), the Waddensea up to the island of Norderney in Germany and the Dutch IJsselmeer and adjacent ports and waters.

Clearly these charts are not aimed at the lucky devils who spend their days in the paradise-like tropical waters of the Pacific or Caribbean, but more for us earthlings who have to make do with Dutch cheese and Belgian beer.

The charts are available as separate sets for a specific region ("north", "south" or "south-west" or as a complete set. It is also possible to order a set of basic maps for the whole region. The advantage of these basic maps is that the buoys are omitted. That may sound a bit strange, but if you use a rasterchart and you zoom in, you will end up with "Wow, that's a big b(u)oy!" and zooming out results in "Hmm, I can barely see it...". With the basic charts you can tackle that problem by just overlaying your own set of buoys as a GPX-layer (and by turning that layer off if you don't need it). For the Dutch waters very extensive (and regularly updated) sets of buoys are available via the splendid website of "Nautin" (https://www.nautin.nl/).

Prices range from €.25,- ($27,-) for the complete set of the basic charts to €.69,- ($75,-) for the complete set of the "normal" charts. The charts are locked by means of a personal code (and yes, that code and the corresponding charts are for nobody else but you).

Once unlocked the charts can be used on all your devices running OpenCPN. That is your PC, laptop or Raspberry Pi and/or your Android tablet/smartphone (with OpenCPN for Android).

http://www.datacharter.info/c-3901398/kaarten-opencpn/