I have spent the past couple of weeks planning out this years cruising season from the Solomon Islands, through the Louisiade Island of
Papua New Guinea and on through the Torres Strait to
Indonesia.
I rely primarily on CM93 charts but found the CM93 charts of the Louisiades woefully inadaquate for safe
navigation. Large portions of the southern coast of PNG are also completely inadaquate.
Looking for alternatives, I found the Polar
Navy software and the ability to easily download detailed encrypted S63
ENC charts for the Louisiades and other
parts of PNG, available through Chartworld. These charts were produced by
Australia and are very detailed. Chartworld, of course, also has charts of many other
parts of the world available for download.
That said, I would like to see OpenCPN implement the ability to download Chartworld encrypted
ENC charts and display them for use in Opencpn. I realize this is a bit much to ask for version 3.2, but I see two major benefits to doing this.
First, it would provide a very easy method for people to obtain charts of an area they may not have adaquatly covered. You can download these charts wnywhere you have an
internet connection.
Second, and probably more important, I suspect that Polar
Navy has worked out an agreement with Chartworld to obtain a commission for each chart sold through it's program. Entering into an agreement with Chartworld would not only benefit the users of OpenCPN but might also produce revenue to continue the the efforts of the OpenCPN development team.
In order to have adaquate coverage for this years cruising plans, I purchased the Polar Navy
software and also purchased about $100 of charts for PNG. I only wish that whatever commision generated went to the OpenCPN development team!!!