[AdrianX]

With a major blue water race in August (i.e Fastnet 2009) and a series of qualifiers I am looking at our boat's navigation needs. I use MacENC now for general sailing and really like the app. One thing that MacENC appears to be lacking is passage planning/route planning in anything other than a manual way. Recognise that with Polar information, it will give a course to steer/next tack based on current location instrument readings but was trying to take a longer view for a given weather forecast.

Some PC based products offer "performance sailing" or predicative "best course" routes features/add-ons based on GRIB weather files and tide predictions. With an Ocens/MacWX subscription and Mr Tides I have the raw data but I am not well educated enough to make use of the data.

Does anyone have any recommendations for software that has this feature?

Is there a development roadmap for MacENC? Does it happen to include this type of feature/add-on?

Equally, does anyone have any recommendations for reading materials on making practical use of GRIB charts/tidal data for passage planning?

I recognise there is a laundry list of question above, but any guidance gratefully received.

Thanks,
Adrian