Jeff Richards wrote:

"Matt O'Toole" wrote in message
...
snip
Actually, the biggest obstacle I could see to
developing navigation software is that the file formats for charts
are proprietary, so you have to pay royalties to use them. (A pox
on whomever in
government made that deal.)

It depends what detail you need. Coastal vector outline data is
available for free at very high resolution, and can be converted to
formats that are easy to edit using simple interactive graphical
editors. It can be combined with object data, such as buoys and
lights, to provide a simple representation that is perfectly adequate
for racing analysis. Although I also use scanned chart images, I
actually find the outline data provides a more useful display,
especially as I always use the chart as the primary navigation tool.
For an example of what can be done with this public-domain data, see
http://www.users.bigpond.com/msn/jrichard/Sample.htm (third image
down).

Cool. Vector does seem the way to go. I'll have to look into this some more.
Maybe this fall -- I'm off sailing for a couple of months, tomorrow morning!
Cheers, and happy sailing!

Matt O.