2021-07-03, 04:45 PM
Let me put a bit a of context. In the forum we talk a lot about boats and electronics which are used to sail, but even if I starting to learn how people use "that specfic feature" in their boat, and some of you have even shared your whole setup, there are still some key points that I don't understand how you do. Specially from software perspective.
Most of the boat owners I know enjoy their boat in a similar way: 1-day (or weekend) coastal trips for most of the year, and then a longer voyage on summer, wether is coastal navigation or not. I'm gonna assume most of you do the same, or something similar. So I think we could summarise the needs for those kind of usages in something like:
Weekend trip
· Generic route planning
· Log the track so you can check later
· Display basic information for the navigation (wind speed/angle, SOG, COG, etc)
Summer voyage
· Detailed route planning
· Weather forecast
· Weather routing
· Up to date charts for the region to sail in
· AIS/Radar display
· Everything from weekend trip
All year round
· Monitor of basic aspects like battery charge, tank levels, etc
· Logbook for repairs, things to buy, things to change, etc
Before discovering the existance of OpenPlotter (for the first year of having my sailboat), i used commercial software Navionics and SquidX. I had both of them in a 7" tablet. With Navionics I planned the routes, saved tracks, and displayed the useful information on screen (SOG, COG, ETA) using the tablet's GPS. With SquidX i got the weather forescating solved, as well as weather routing. First issue was that i had to code a conversion from the exported weather routing to navionics format, and that was very annoying, specially taking into account that most software use VERY similar xml formats for they routes/tracks. There must be a open source solution for this, I thought!
And here I am 2 years later. Bought a Raspberry 4, installed OP2, bought a Moitessier HAT 2, got a couple serial to usb converters, bought VE SmartShunt, got f***g amazed with the power and simplicity of SignalK, read a lot, tested AvNav, Freeboard, OpenCPN, read a lot more, tested a lot more... and yeah, I can display a bunch of useful information on screen, but still i feel like I have the same issues.
OpenCPN is great, it really is, and has all the features of most of the comercial software, and would be wonderful if I could use it for sailing, but I'm afraid i can't. It just can't be used from touchscreen, even less through VNC. Even less when sailing in rough weather from the cockpit. Also the display was cool 5 years ago, but now, is hard to sacrifice the readability of KIP dashboards (just an example).
AvNav proved to be an excellent "1-day" plotter, specially embedded in a KIP dashboard too, but it doesn't have waypoint/POI storage, route management. Aside from that, IMO is better than Navionics. But for a longer trip, it's hard to plan several legs, i don't know how to import weather routing exported from OpenCPN, etc...
And the major pain in the ass, IMO, is to be unable to share grib/weather routing/routes/waypoints/tracks, between the different software.
Anyway, sorry for the long post and thanks for reading!
As for the question. I'm sure most of the issues are cause by my lack of knowledge, so people, how do you actually sail with OpenPlotter?
Most of the boat owners I know enjoy their boat in a similar way: 1-day (or weekend) coastal trips for most of the year, and then a longer voyage on summer, wether is coastal navigation or not. I'm gonna assume most of you do the same, or something similar. So I think we could summarise the needs for those kind of usages in something like:
Weekend trip
· Generic route planning
· Log the track so you can check later
· Display basic information for the navigation (wind speed/angle, SOG, COG, etc)
Summer voyage
· Detailed route planning
· Weather forecast
· Weather routing
· Up to date charts for the region to sail in
· AIS/Radar display
· Everything from weekend trip
All year round
· Monitor of basic aspects like battery charge, tank levels, etc
· Logbook for repairs, things to buy, things to change, etc
Before discovering the existance of OpenPlotter (for the first year of having my sailboat), i used commercial software Navionics and SquidX. I had both of them in a 7" tablet. With Navionics I planned the routes, saved tracks, and displayed the useful information on screen (SOG, COG, ETA) using the tablet's GPS. With SquidX i got the weather forescating solved, as well as weather routing. First issue was that i had to code a conversion from the exported weather routing to navionics format, and that was very annoying, specially taking into account that most software use VERY similar xml formats for they routes/tracks. There must be a open source solution for this, I thought!
And here I am 2 years later. Bought a Raspberry 4, installed OP2, bought a Moitessier HAT 2, got a couple serial to usb converters, bought VE SmartShunt, got f***g amazed with the power and simplicity of SignalK, read a lot, tested AvNav, Freeboard, OpenCPN, read a lot more, tested a lot more... and yeah, I can display a bunch of useful information on screen, but still i feel like I have the same issues.
OpenCPN is great, it really is, and has all the features of most of the comercial software, and would be wonderful if I could use it for sailing, but I'm afraid i can't. It just can't be used from touchscreen, even less through VNC. Even less when sailing in rough weather from the cockpit. Also the display was cool 5 years ago, but now, is hard to sacrifice the readability of KIP dashboards (just an example).
AvNav proved to be an excellent "1-day" plotter, specially embedded in a KIP dashboard too, but it doesn't have waypoint/POI storage, route management. Aside from that, IMO is better than Navionics. But for a longer trip, it's hard to plan several legs, i don't know how to import weather routing exported from OpenCPN, etc...
And the major pain in the ass, IMO, is to be unable to share grib/weather routing/routes/waypoints/tracks, between the different software.
Anyway, sorry for the long post and thanks for reading!
As for the question. I'm sure most of the issues are cause by my lack of knowledge, so people, how do you actually sail with OpenPlotter?