Passage Planning

Passage planning is best done at home or on board your boat at mooring (not while already at sea!). In this phase you are likely to use the following features:

1. Select charts

PassagePlus provides five different ways of choosing the chart you wish to open. See Chart Selection and Opening.

2. Create routes

A route shows your starting point and the route you intend to follow to your destination via any number of intermediate points. You can create as many routes as you like. They can be named, saved, edited and deleted.

Routes are saved independent of the chart over which they were originally created. So a given route will appear on any chart that it intersects. Routes are created by clicking on the chart.

3. Create waypoints

Whereas a route shows the planned route for a particular passage, a waypoint is intended more as a particular point that you might wish to use repeatedly in many of your passages or perhaps a point that is not actually on any route but which you may wish to monitor your distance and bearing from.

You can create as many waypoints as you like. They can be named, saved, edited and deleted. Again, they are saved independent of the chart over which they were originally created, and a given waypoint will appear on any chart that it intersects. Waypoints are created either by clicking on the chart or by inputting from the keyboard. The latter is useful if you wish to enter waypoints from a pilot book or similar source.

4. Import waypoints and routes

If you have an existing collection of waypoints, routes and tracks created using other software, you can import them for use in PassagePlus. You first need to convert the collection from its existing format into the standard GPX format (a kind of XML designed for GPS data). The open-source software GPSBabel (donation ware) can be used to convert a wide range of formats into GPX. You can also download data directly from your GPS and save it in GPX format. Waypoints, routes and tracks can also be exported from PassagePlus as GPX files for use in other applications or for upload to a GPS unit.

5. Create regions

A region marks an area on the chart. It might be an area you want to visit, like a fishing zone, or one you want to avoid, like a shoal. Like routes and waypoints, regions can be named, saved,

edited and deleted. A region can be any shape you like, and you can give each one its own colour. A region will appear on any chart it intersects.

A special class of region is created rectangular and will always remain rectangular if you move or resize it. Rectangular regions are useful for highlighting a particular section of the chart.

6. Enter tidal information

If you sail in a tidal area, you may wish to take advantage of PassagePlus's capability to calculate ‘course-to-steer’ information. For charts that you use a lot, you may wish to key in the tidal diamond information. This is somewhat tedious but only needs to be done once per chart. For a particular planned passage you would also enter the high and low tide heights and times at the reference port for the period to be covered by the passage.

The alternative is to base course-to-steer calculations on an estimated tidal flow that you enter 'live' at the time when you need it—perhaps from tidal flow diagrams. Under this alternative you do not need to key in tidal information in advance.

7. View chart notes and Temporary Notices to Mariners

Chart notes and Temporary Notices to Mariners can be viewed in separate windows, making it easy for you to include a review of these as part of your passage planning process.

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