Raster Navigation Charts (RNC, or BSB)

boldt · June 1, 2026, 8:08pm

Hello Rose Point Team,

I have heard that Coastal Explorer 4.5 may no longer support BSB raster charts. As a Coastal Explorer user and sailor, I would like to strongly encourage you to keep BSB/raster chart support in the product.

For many sailors, raster charts are still very important.

One reason is performance. BSB raster charts are simple, fast, and reliable. They run very well even on smaller Windows tablets such as a Surface Go 3. This is important on board, where many sailors use compact, low-power devices instead of large desktop computers.

Another important point is chart availability and cost. In Germany and Europe, raster charts are still widely used because they are affordable and easy to obtain. Companies such as NV Charts still provide chart products for many cruising areas in the world, including raster chart options. This is especially important for sailors who cruise in different regions and need practical, affordable chart coverage.

BSB/KAP support is also still relevant in the wider navigation software market. OpenCPN, as a free and widely used navigation program, continues to support BSB raster charts and many other chart formats.

In fact, OpenCPN can already read more chart formats than Coastal Explorer today. For me, this is an important point. One of the reasons I still prefer Coastal Explorer is its speed, clean usability, and good navigation functions. However, if BSB/raster chart support is removed in the new version, I would unfortunately have to consider switching to OpenCPN.

That would be a pity, because I like Coastal Explorer.

For me, one of the major strengths of Coastal Explorer has always been that it is fast, practical, and flexible. The value of navigation software is not only in the user interface or route planning functions, but also in the ability to use the best chart source for a particular cruising area.

As a sailor, I do not want to be locked into only one chart provider or only one chart format. When choosing navigation software, I want the freedom to select the most suitable charts for my sailing area, budget, and hardware. In many cases that may be vector charts, but in other cases raster charts are still the better or more economical choice.

The ability to read many chart formats is a strong buying argument for Coastal Explorer. Removing BSB/raster support would reduce that advantage and make Coastal Explorer less attractive compared with free alternatives such as OpenCPN.

In my opinion, keeping BSB/raster chart support would preserve one of Coastal Explorer’s important strengths:

fast software, good navigation functions, and broad chart compatibility.

I hope Rose Point will consider keeping BSB raster chart support in Coastal Explorer 4.5, even if raster charts are no longer the main focus of future development.

Best regards,
Nils Boldt

boldt · June 1, 2026, 9:47pm

Maybe there is a business opportunity for Coastal Explorer

I think Coastal Explorer could have a very strong market position if it combined two things that, in my opinion, do not really exist together today:

A professional, fast, polished navigation app with a great user interface
An integrated chart store or subscription model, while still allowing other chart formats and third-party chart sources

Garmin/Navionics has a strong chart ecosystem, but it is relatively closed. OpenCPN supports many formats, but it does not offer the same polished commercial user experience.

Coastal Explorer could potentially combine both worlds: an easy chart store for normal users, but still enough openness for experienced sailors who already own raster, BSB/KAP, NV Charts, or other chart products.

For many sailors, chart formats are confusing. They simply want their charts to work. A Coastal Explorer ecosystem with both easy chart purchasing and broad compatibility could be a real advantage, especially in Europe.

JDCAVE · June 2, 2026, 11:28pm

I would like to encourage CE to continue with support for Raster charts, because the land features are superior to ENCs. The NOAA ENCs do not show contours at any level of zoom. I guess the worry might be that because they are not updated anymore, increasingly they could be considered officially as “Not for Navigation” and hence cannot be on the platform. However that could be tagged with a warning and disclaimer.

Jim

brad · June 3, 2026, 12:25am

Coastal Explorer v4 will continue to support raster charts and will continue to be supported by Rose Point for some time after v4.5 is released. However, it will not be receiving any more feature updates after that time.

Version 4.5 is only intended for use in the US and Canada where raster charts have been discontinued by NOAA and CHS. We are also working on v5 which we hope will not be very far behind v4.5. We are looking into several possible sources of world-wide charts and depending on how that works out, v5 might support rasters.

While we are working towards v5, I would encourage anyone that can’t live without rasters to just stick with v4 as we cannot justify adding support to v4.5 without any sources of up-to-date raster charts. But first I would encourage you to try out hybrid vector mode with topo maps which will give you the benefits of vector charts on the water while showing contours and more on the land.