Is there an easy-to-use pc program available that will store the lat-
long of each of our race marks and as well as store a number of pre-
defined courses and then calculate the overall course distance for the
appropriate course of the day?
This would be similiar to a flight-planning program for pilots.
Thanks, James Anderson, Kelowna Yacht Club, Kelowna, B.C. Canada
James
Just use Excel
On sheet 2, a table of existing marks, lat and long, using a colum for mark name, and for lat and long a column for degrees, a column for minutes and decimals a third column for decimal degrees (=degrees+minutes/60), sort always the table on mark name
On sheet 1, set your race course in column A, and a formula to search the name in sheet 2, display lat or long in decimal degrees, display only if the mark name is fully recognised.
Then if there is something on the current line and the previous lines, calculate the dLat as 60*(Lat_(n-1)-Lat_n) and dLong as 60*(Long_(n-1)-Long_n)/COS(averageLat)
Usually, the current Lat may be taken as averageLat as the difference of lat has no effect on COS(Lat) to 5 decimals. Don’t forget to convert degrees to radians by multiplying by PI() and dividing by 180
Then distance =(dLat^2+dLong^2)^0.5 and if needed course is ATAN(dLong/dLat)*PI/180, just a problem of sign and scale 0 to 180 to solve…
Trying to find a file I used in 2004… 600 CD’s to search
Phil De Troy
----- Original Message -----
From:
James Anderson
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 6:46 PM
Subject: [sailwave] course distances
Is there an easy-to-use pc program available that will store the lat-
long of each of our race marks and as well as store a number of pre-
defined courses and then calculate the overall course distance for the
appropriate course of the day?This would be similiar to a flight-planning program for pilots.
Thanks, James Anderson, Kelowna Yacht Club, Kelowna, B.C. Canada