Navigation & Charting Tools for the Great Lakes

There are several navigation and charting sources available online that are potentially very useful for the Great Lakes sailor.  The following is listing of some that we have found the most useful for planning a cruise in the Great Lakes.

1) OpenCPN - Awesome free software to convert your laptop into a GPS chartplotter.

2) Printable NOAA Charts - Great for desktop cruising, planning and some printing.

3) NOAA BookletCharts - Excellent for printing your own charts in 8.5" x 11" booklet format.

4) Lake Michigan Waypoints - Perfect for updating your GPS with common waypoints while at home.

5) GoSail.com - Nice, simple website with Lake Michigan specific information

6) Great Lakes Information Network - Tons of information, maps and tools specific to the Great Lakes.

There are of course many, many more sites that are also useful. For instance, Google Earth is an amazing tool for getting a bird's eye view of your sailing area.  If you know of other sites that our readers may find useful, please contact us!
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Weather for Great Lakes Sailing


WestMarine.com


Having access to good, reliable weather reports is critical for any serious Great Lakes sailing.  If you're planning a cruise or preparing for a race, you'll need to track the wind, temperatures, precipitation, waves and any number of other variables.  We've compiled the list of website links below as a tool for Great Lakes sailors to use.  You will also notice that we've added a sidebar with the same Great Lakes weather links so that you'll also have access from the Great Lakes Sailing homepage.

Here are the Great Lakes weather links:

NOAA's Great Lakes Weather Map: A great tool for visually viewing current and forecasted data on wave height, wave period, wind speed, wind gusts, weather and temperature.

Wunderground Marine Forecast: A textual summary of current and forecasted marine weather for the Great Lakes.

National Weather Service Marine Forecasts: Great tool for quickly locating your local NWS marine forecast, regardless of where you are on the Great Lakes.

National Buoy Data Center: Easy access to all the data from Great Lakes buoys including wave height, wind speed and water temperature.

SailFlow: Very powerful tool that integrates wind data with marine forecasts for specific areas within the Great Lakes.
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