Virtual Passage Planner

Digital Wave Screen

For many years a staple of the cruising chart inventory were the Atlas of Pilot Charts now available for free at the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency web site for free (click the link above.)  These are a set of historical charts by month for the major oceans of the world.  They show the incidence of wind speed and direction and percent of calms for "cells" in the oceans.  They are used to predict what winds you will experience in a ocean crossing.  They are almost impossible to find in print and although they can be downloaded from the above site their size (11 x 17) makes them difficult to print on a standard printer or even a local pack and ship store.

Digital Wave has come up with a solution:  Virtual Passage Planner (now in version 2.)  VPP uses the data from the pilot charts to create reports that summarize a passage: distance, percentage of winds from various directions, average wave height and water temperature and so forth.  It is quite a neat program and I have been using it in my passage planing. For more information go to their web site at http://www.digitalwave.com