Distances

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FergusM

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Does anyone know of a website or program (preferably not expensive) which allows you to enter two ports and get the sailing distance between them? Say I wanted the distance from Keil to Stavanger. Obviously, if you are planning a cruise yourself, you would sit down with charts, almanac and pilot books and work it out. But if you are just wondering about a passage, or reading about it in a book, that is not a realistic option, not least for cost reasons. It would also be useful for cruise planning as well.
 
There's Passage Planner 2 which does what you want plus a load more of, er, passage planning stuff like weather and current information. Cost me $90 about 3 years ago. Others on this board have used and recommended it as well.
 
I think I'd get an atlas and measure it out from that. I could give you the formula to calculate the rhumb line distance, but for the passage you mention that would take you over quite a bit of mainland Denmark!
 
Couple of options worth considering:

The best Visual Passage Planner Not only can you just get distances, but it will do Great circle, and will optimise plans for current and prevailing winds.

Free download (but IIRC time constrained) as a taster for a much bigger programme, but includes a distance calc from here
 
You could get Google Earth, and then use the path distance measuring tool. It is just as effective as any proprietary planning tool. Just zoom down to place a number of points on your path, then zoom out to take a bigger view, back down for next point... etc....

GE is free... just google for it...
 
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Enter the two places into your GPS. Set up a route from one to the other. Your GPS should now give you distance and course.

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I had a crew who used to do that. He described himself as an 'artist'. When I drew the course on the chart and said "Jim (name changed to protect the guilty), what about that rock directly in our path?" his reply was "I don't worry about details like that".

BTW, what would you make the distance from Cardiff to Weymouth?
 
Thanks, I have just tried this. It didn't have Kiel, but I took Lubeck. It was just about 450 miles, provided you don't call in anywhere.

Many thanks to all
 
I'm also assuming the necessary common sense to read a chart before putting in your route. Or is that too much to ask?

CNH
 
No niggle intended, but if you need to put in intermediate waypoints from a chart I bet you a pint I can have the answer with ruler and dividers before you've finished typing in the first couple of waypoints!
 
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