2M Navigation Assistant

2M is a navigational program combining editor, sailplan generator and mercator route plotter. Given a waypoint list, 2M will produce a sailplan (waypoint sheet or route sheet) in ASCII text form suitable for printing or editing. In addition to a basic tabular listing, CSV (comma [or any character] separated format), USCG AMVER, and USN MOVEREP formats can be selected. Of course, speeds, times of departure and arrival, great circle routings, chart lists, zone descriptions, etc. can be added to enhance the output.

A route is often seen as a list of locations drawn from a big pool of locations. But to the navigator of a large vessel it is often a collection of information which has a flow and a known value only when used as a unit. The route legs are checked and plotted with great precision and tossing waypoints once selected back in a pool is unthinkable. Speeds are associated with legs as are charts, weather and traffic conditions, zone descriptions, great circle routings, intercepts used to plot the track, ports departed from and arrived at and pilotage information for both. Keeping it all together to produce a sailplan makes it more than a list, and a lot like a batch file or a program. Once the information in written, it should be easy to reproduce and alter the route with all the data together. The key thing is To Whom It May Concern: make it easy to write in way that can be edited to combine routes and splice in new destinations. 2M may be for the professional navigator what the spreadsheet was to accountants.


It is possible to cut and paste two separate routes together, look at the result on the globe, and print the waypoint sheet with ETA’s, local departure/arrival times, chart list, along with views of the route on a mercator projection, send AMVER (and/or MOVEREP) text to disk for radio transmission, and append pilotage notes in a few easy steps.

Some features of 2M:
Edit multiple routes and output sailplans.
Send text source and output to e-mail, telex, packet radio, basic printers, and any editor.

Turn off and on sections of route waypoints as needed
Obtain intercepts for any intersecting longitude or latitude (all intercepts are found).
Find time intervals by entering date and time.
Find DR positions with an entered time.
Go to a waypoint from an entered position as the new start of route.
Generate and read (U.S. Coast Guard) AMVER departure and deviation reports.
Generate (U.S. Navy) MOVEREP reports.
Read and Write NMEA $CCWPL waypoint list format (no checksum support).

Adjust leg speeds to make a time of arrival while reserving some leg speeds as fixed.
Add stops in hours to waypoints.
Generate great circle LatX points (and composite points).
Request LatX points for any leg at almost any dlo (1-50 degrees).
View a mercator map of the route or any location at almost any magnification.
Set what items are displayed on the map and in what colors.
(grid, land, ports, sea features, chart outlines, rivers, user locations, boundaries)

Append crosshair locations from the map to the source or edit and paste them in.
Show a file of user locations on the map.
Print maps as well as sailplans with user modifiable headers.
Print preview source, output sailplans, and mercator maps.
Change printer and screen type fonts for both output and map views.
Set the start number for the route.
Set ETA minute rounding values.
Print local times in the headers with source zone description lines.
List user charts for route along with intercepts needed to plot the track on each chart.

List program selected charts (and intercepts if desired).
Append pilotage notes below the sailplan section.
Track positions and log GPS NMEA-0183 input. (Positions date/time stamped).
Goto any waypoint from GPS position to get BRG, DIST, XTE, VTWP, TTG, ETA.
See rumbline and great circle data simultaneously in the GPS data window.
Take GPS log positions and paste into a route source document.
Switch between GPS unit supplied SMG/CMG to sampled values.

Select 2 or 3 places of precision in output for latitude and longitude.
Obtain context sensitive help anywhere in the program.