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route plan

Once a safe route of sequenced waypoints has been defined, saved, and exported as a GPX file, a valuable addition to our navigation preparation, as well as a back-up to any electronics failure, is called a route plan, voyage plan, or pathway plan. This is a printed list of all of the waypoints, along with the Lat and Lon of each, and the course and distance between each. We can also often add to this two timing columns based on an anticipated average speed made good along the route. These would be the time interval for each leg, and perhaps actual times assuming a known starting time.

The key data however, are the names, locations, headings, and distances of each leg of the route.

This print out is often the quickest way to see where you are along a route, and to see what is upcoming. It also serves as a backup if the main electronics fail and you have to then enter the route into your hand held units when you failed to do so earlier.... these days, however, we have excellent nav and chart programs in our phones, so there is no excuse not to have emailed the GPX route to yourself and opened it into your mobile nav app and be ready for any contingency. Even for a day race around the buoys, or a a planned day sail, once the route is shaped, you can export it to your phone... even if you are not the navigator.

Pathway plan is terminology unique to the nav program qtVlm, because it reserves name "route" for a more advanced concept. But a qtVlm pathway plan is exactly the same as you would see as a route plan or voyage plan made by other nav programs.




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