Pilot Chart Usage

[rgleason]

Excellent reuse! Good idea. Now that you know about Climatology, try Weather_routing, another of Sean's fine plugins, do your first routings with just Climatology! There are some examples that should run quite easily in the most current version.
Then when you get a chance download some predictive gribs and use both sources of wind data to run your routings. We look forward to your thoughts.

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Problem solved: revived my old Dell Laptop and gave it new life by installing Navigatrix on it. Now it has a real operating system plus grown up OPENCPN.

The Climatology plug in is way cool. A definate benefit of it vs traditional pilot charts is the ability to dynamically change date down to day granularity. This lets you watch gradual seasonal changes in motion...like the subtle SE the Trades in the NW Carib make around May.

Thanks much for the effort!

[Moo]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Are you really saying you do not know any cruiser who has Cornell's World Cruising Routes onboard? It really is amazingly common on cruising boats and I doubt they hide it from you.

Thought we were talking about his atlas not the cruising routes book. That is a little more common but really not very necessary and contains a lot less info than the Admiralty publication I mentioned and sailing directions. I have a copy because it was required reading for a course that I did years ago.

https://www.admiralty.co.uk/publicat...-for-the-world - get one of the older copies that include the charts, much nicer books

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Moo

Cornel's books are old hat. Very little useful information in any of them when you get down to the nuts and bolts of it. The atlas is particularly bad as all the data is available online and in a more up to date form. Just the way it is, no arguments.

Originally Posted by Moo

Thought we were talking about his atlas not the cruising routes book. That is a little more common but really not very necessary and contains a lot less info than the Admiralty publication I mentioned and sailing directions. I have a copy because it was required reading for a course that I did years ago.

https://www.admiralty.co.uk/publicat...-for-the-world - get one of the older copies that include the charts, much nicer books

You brought up the books.
I already have an old copy of the Admiralty ocean passages with the pocket full of charts. Fun to look at. It tends to cover only trading routes and with only short descriptions. In most cases Cornell's book has more info.

[Moo]

Originally Posted by Paul L

You brought up the books.
I already have an old copy of the Admiralty ocean passages with the pocket full of charts. Fun to look at. It tends to cover only trading routes and with only short descriptions. In most cases Cornell's book has more info.

Twist it however you like. you'll make a politician one day.

Cornell's book does not have more info. It has more words and much repetition. If you navigate using Cornell's book you will be disappointed. Think about this. He has not made a lot of those passages, most of the rest he has made only once and therefore has experienced the conditions on one passage on only one year. He has taken notes as he prepared his voyages and plonked in some very arbitrary waypoints that suited him at the time. The problem is that a lot of sailing public think that all of this is gospel truth and don't learn to understand the navigation of the passages that they are making. This is a dangerous attitude.

If you are embarking on the milk run with no experience and no knowledge it may be of some use. If you have basic experience and can read the pilot charts operate the climatology plugin understand the effects of El Nino and La Nina and can identify the polar fronts the STR, STCZ, STR etc., and such you are already a long way ahead of what is contained in Cornell's works.

The above is what makes OCPN, the GRIB plugin and the climatology plugin such a powerful tool which is more up to date and way surpasses the information in Cornell's atlas. Combine the above with current information from weather faxes and satellite images (all available at sea via email or on-board receivers) and you are well equipped to plan the strategy of an ocean passage and execute it tactically.

[Paul L]

Moo
The thing I said positive about the Cornel atlas was sometimes it's nice to have paper to flip through. The data on OpenCpn plugin is really nice for planning. The text in Cornell passage is worth checking when planning passages whether you are new or experienced.