Table of Contents
OpenCPN Manuals
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Book Index
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- Advanced User Manual to be Edited Fall 2024
Won't you become an Editor to advance OpenCPN
The OpenCPN Community maintains these Books, entirely on Volunteer Power, so please contribute your time, skill and donations!
Dedications
Dave Register
Dave Register, a programmer, and Kathi began full time cruising in 2000, aboard m/v Dyad. Dave wasn't satisfied with the commercial chart plotters available. He began to develop his own and named it OpenCPN. For years, OpenCPN was their own personal chart plotter. It reliably got them to wherever they were headed; from Newfoundland to the Bahamas. The public wasn't even aware of it at the time.
Dave began sharing the program with other cruisers here and there, which planted the idea to put it out publicly for anyone to download as open source. It's first online presence was on Dave's website, bigdumboat.com. In 2009 OpenCPN.org was created. The program now has a worldwide following, and a team of brilliant volunteer developers.
Recipient of the 2018 Ocean Cruising Club Award
On January 22, 2018 the OCC announced Dave Register as the recipient of the OCC Award.
“I'm honored and humbled. But I'm only the tip of an iceberg. This award and recognition would not be possible without the help and support of the worldwide OpenCPN team. Thank you.”
“The OCC Award, which recognizes valuable service to the OCC or the ocean cruising community as a whole, goes to David Register, lead developer of the OpenCPN navigation software. OpenCPN is chart plotter and navigational planning software developed by a team of active sailors using real world conditions for program testing and refinement. Their motto: “We're boaters. We're coders. …A network of more than forty volunteer software coders now work to improve the product, update it and expand its capabilities. Dave continues to co-ordinate this work from his floating home, Dyad, the Big Dumb Boat. …Open CPN has made a magnificent contribution to the enjoyment and safety of sailors cruising in small boats, and Dave deserves every bit of recognition for his invention and his ongoing efforts.” by Daria Blackwell, January 1, 2018.
The OpenCPN Community Thanks Dave for OpenCPN.
Science
with great thanks for their vision and persistence.
When Galileo Stood Trial for Defending Science
- Galileo wrote the 1632 Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican, and was convicted by the Catholic Church Inquisition of “Heresy” and imprisoned. The book was placed on the “Index of Forbidden Books”!
- On June 22, 1633, Galileo was ordered to kneel as he was found “vehemently suspected of heresy.” He was forced to “abandon completely the false opinion” of Copernicanism, and to read a statement, in which he recanted much of his life’s work.
400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism
Modern Science: What's Happening
- “Science will always look for explanations for what goes on in the natural world and test those explanations against evidence from the natural world — but exactly how this gets done may evolve. The scientific enterprise is not static.”
Flat Landers should stay away from this heretic material.
Nathaniel Bowditch
Dedicated to the author of American Practical Navigator 1802, Nathaniel Bowditch
and all who advance the practice of Navigation.