Stitching routes together?

[Stuartl]

I am new to OpenCPN and find that the route tool often inadvertently starts a new route so that one complex route appears as a series of routes in the route manager. Is there a way to concatenate these segments to make one route? I don't have the trackpad skills to complete a complex route without this problem.

[wdkester]

From the maanual - "Extend Route:Extending is possible only when it is obvious, what should be joined with the current route (current = visible in the Dialog). Eligible are all visible route points shared with, or lying nearby to the current route's endpoint. If there is exactly 1 such point, then it is considered obvious, and the Extend button is enabled. If there are more, some should be hidden before proceeding, until just 1 remains.
Routes are extended forward, based on the geographic location, next route point must be very near, as when mouse-extending the route. If the next route point is to far away for extending, just create the joining leg and extend twice."

[wdkester]

I just tested this and the waypoints to be connected have to be very close, like 5 meters.

To use this feature you will have to extend the last WP of route a until it is on top of the first WP of route b and then "extend". You will still have 2 routes, a and b. You may want to delete b because it is included in a and thus redundant.

[cagney]

@Stuartl
There is also the option of manually exporting the routes to files, and then manually merging these. The format is gpx (similar to xml), and fairly easy to understand.

But.... I think that what you describe should be avoided from start.
Can you describe exactly what you do to "inadvertently starts a new route".
Perhaps there is a way to change OpenCPN to avoid your problem.

Thomas

[Sandero]

Why do you actually use routes? This is something I can't comprehend. Is it that you don't have time to set the next way point.. and set the AP to the course... or trim the sails... or steer the course?

Is it that you repeat the journey so often that it's easier to not bother? Can't you select stored waypoints in that case just as easily?