My suggestion is pick the mid latitude and make it 60 * cos(lat) long for the 1° cell. Then scale according to zoom level.
Is OpenLayer also the software giving problems with the loxodrome lengths? This one can be fixed easily by internally making the boat speeds about 1.048 times greater than shown on the polars, then boats will move as expected on the map. The lenghts are short by 4.6% but the bearings are spot on. Something VR was not always good at.
On the other hand I like the maps. LS maps left a lot to be desired, especially in the arctic circle where everything was various shades of grey and I could not tell what was snow and what was land. I lost a race because of that, the one who beat me dared going closer to the land, where I was sure he would run aground but he didn't
Here there is no doubt what is land and what isn't.