Chart Sticker Shock 2018

[Alan Mighty]

Originally Posted by Benz

You'll find to your astonishment that there are no soundings on the current issue charts at all for large areas there: a note reads: "Not surveyed to modern standards." However, the old charts made by Cook or whomever eons ago have soundings in fathoms are are as accurate as I could detect.
But rather than use soundings that don't conform to their imbecile system of measurement, the Canadian Government prefers to not provide ANY information, even though that leaves their charts woefully deficient and criminally dangerous. Seriously, you pay an exhorbitant amount for a chart, and they purposefully leave areas blank?

On the E coast of Australia, we used to be able to boast that several of the current charts were based on Matthew Flinders' work. Matt F, famous for shooting dead an indigenous man on Bribie Island for laughing at Mattie's hat, used James Cook's baselines (the incident led to a placename, Skirmish Point, although that place is not where Mattie did the deed).

For the most part, JC only ran a baseline up the Aus E coast in 1770. Matt F expanded that - but he still missed much, including the entrance to the Brisbane River, not discovered until John Oxley in 1824 (the best guess is that a mangrove forest had grown across the river mouth, which now is a not insignificant cargo port) gained local knowledge from local residents.

That has all (or almost all) been superseded by good work from the Aus Navy's hydrographers now.

As with your Canadian govt charts, some parts of the Great Barrier Reef are labelled similarly as being without accurate depth survey. The parts missing survey are outside the usual shipping route (and cruisers too, for that matter).

I regard that as a good thing. It's a warning - especially to the current crop of new boaters some of whom navigate from one GPS way point to another without much thought - that knowledge is limited. Your Canadian context seems different.

Coral can grow surprisingly fast. It also can die and disappear. On top of that, the Aus tectonic plate is moving relatively quickly, around 7 cm a year.

The tectonic movement of the Aus continent by itself causes a problem, especially for the GPS waypoint to GPS waypoint by autopilot crowd.

In 2017, the Aus govt had to move and started producing charts that have different lat and long than charts published only a year before.

Later this year, the QZSS global navigation satellite system (GNSS) paid for by the Japanese taxpayer, goes formally into operation, delivering to the longitudes that stretch from the home islands of Japan to Australia centimetre accuracy in GNSS.

Once the new crop of waypoint to waypoint boaters start using QZSS, goodness knows what happens. My dockmate in the marina, a powerboater who has a GNSS to steering system that can maintain a GNSS position and who uses that to dock and undock his boat, is impatient waiting for it.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Yes, I cruised past many areas like that this past season while heading to Newfoundland. Areas of white, with no survey data. Rather disconcerting.

But your statement is both ridiculous and silly. The lack of soundings data has nothing to do with the use of the metric system. Even a bureaucrat can convert between fathoms and metres. It obviously has to do with some other issue. If I had to guess it would be that the area hasn’t been sounded for so long, that they deem it irresponsible to provide potentially false information. You may disagree with this assessment, but it has nothing to do with the metric system.

I actually prefer my charts in feet, but since Canada, like almost every other country in the world, now uses the metric system, it’s obvious that new Canadian charts will be issues in that measure.

I would rather they put the soundings they had, however old, than just leave stuff blank. Make a note: this was last surveyed 200 years ago, here's what the depths were then. Should they just leave a blank space where St. Barbe is? No, though to their shame they don't just correct it's location, they show the islands, and make a note that they probably aren't where the chart says they are. But at least you know that in that general area you can expect to see a couple big islands. However old, any information is better than an vast blank spot.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by pcmm

Why fathoms? its such an old measurement system! meters makes total sense! my boat draws 1.35m easy to figure out. if you can count to 10 you can handle the metric system the rest of the world has figured it out.

Though I have to admit thinking of a 2x4 as a 50mmx100mm piece of wood is just weird!

My boat floats in one fathom. However old the measuring system is, it is not deficient. What is deficient is the small-minded communist meddlers who want everybody to think the same way, and call them stupid when they don't.

[Benz]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Good grief!!!

If you can not handle the conversion between meters, fathoms and feet in your head to a sufficient degree of accuracy for piloting purposes, well, perhaps you should not be in charge of a vessel.

Jim

Obviously I can and did successfully, but it's annoying to navigate with several different incompatible systems. We have a graticule in degrees, measure current, windspeed and boat speed in knots, but then are forced to cram soundings into an awkward unnatural system whose biggest selling point seems to be that if you can count to ten, you're all set.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by s/v Moondancer

Which is why even cruisers who grew up with paper charts rely on electronic charts...We have sailed to 30 countries, the price of paper charts whould have been enormous.

Ya, exactly.

I prefer to have an electronic vector chart at the helm for real time pilotage, but to do all planning and all navigation with paper.

However, it is absolutely impossible even on a 54 foot boat, to even STORE all the charts you would need to cover a large cruising area like ours. I have charts stuffed under every bunk, but they don't nearly cover everything.

The other thing which is really impossible on a short-handed recreational vessel is to keep a large number of paper charts up to date, and it's not safe, responsible, or legal to work off out of date charts. It's an enormous amount of work reading all the Notices to Mariners and implementing all the changes all the time, unless you're cruising in a very small area.

For these reasons, not even getting to the cost issue, I have gone to electronic charts for planning and navigation, rarely buying new paper charts, never updating them anymore, and using the paper charts I have for occasional overview and orientation.

I use OpenCPN with a fixed mount computer (a very cheap extremely tiny 4 watt Atom based computer) and a large 4k monitor (23 inches) mounted at the nav table. There are some kinds of chart work which are awkward to do, but you learn to adapt, and other kinds of chart work are brilliant (like creating waypoints and routes), plus O is an actual plotter, so does all the plotter stuff too.

The overview is still not quite as good as paper, but with raster charts and the large 4k monitor it's generally acceptable. Plus it is far easier to handle the charts, than with paper -- one click and you change to another one, and can switch back and forth as you like. This is yet another big advantage.

For cartography, I use CM93 as a base map (NOT for navigation), and I have different sets of charts. For the whole UK and European Atlantic coasts, I use the official "For Navigation" UK Admiralty raster charts licensed by Visit My Harbour. The entire region -- several hundred charts! -- costs less than $100 to acquire and less than $50 a year to keep updated. How do you like that!!

For U.S. waters, it's even better -- you can download the official NOAA charts in either raster or vector (or both) for free.

So that would be my recommendation -- and it will cost you less than a dozen paper charts.

In addition to OpenCPN at the nav table for navigation, I would strongly suggest that you have a normal marine plotter (or at least, an IPad) at the helm for pilotage in complicated waters. This is a great enhancement of situation awareness and safety. You may have never felt he need for it in familiar waters, but you sure will when you start to roam further afield.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Cadence

My concern is, what happens when some one's electronics or electrical system takes a dump? Is it were the hell am I?

Just like any mission critical system -- have backups.

Charts can "take a dump", too -- they can get blown away overboard, things spilled on them, etc. It's much, much harder and more expensive to have backups of paper charts, than it is to have backup electronic charts and systems, so this issue is a plus, not a minus of electronic charts.

But I also think that being without cartography or position data is not the end of the world for a reasonably competent mariner. You will know how to get to land and find your way into a port to repair or replace your systems, or wait for the nuclear war which took out the GPS system to end

Actually, joking aside, we now receive BOTH GPS and GLONASS, so BOTH system would have to get taken out for us to lose satellite position data. Soon Galileo and that Chinese system will be up, so we'll have THREE backups to GPS.

I have a sextant on board but don't expect to ever need it.

[TonyBe]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Ya, exactly.

I prefer to have an electronic vector chart at the helm for real time pilotage, but to do all planning and all navigation with paper.

I was just about to say the same thing, but you beat me to it.

I also find that this makes it much easier to share the planning with other people on board rather than trying to get everyone to huddle around a relatively small chartplotter.

However, it is absolutely impossible even on a 54 foot boat, to even STORE all the charts you would need to cover a large cruising area like ours. I have charts stuffed under every bunk, but they don't nearly cover everything.

The other thing which is really impossible on a short-handed recreational vessel is to keep a large number of paper charts up to date, and it's not safe, responsible, or legal to work off out of date charts. It's an enormous amount of work reading all the Notices to Mariners and implementing all the changes all the time, unless you're cruising in a very small area.

These are very good points. We generally do only cover a small area during any one year - for example, this summer we'll be sailing around the Balearic Islands, southern Spain and Gibraltar - and so we just have the charts onboard that we'll need that year.

and a large 4k monitor (23 inches) mounted at the nav table.

If I had something like that then I think I might change my mind as well

[Mariano]

Originally Posted by Benz

My boat floats in one fathom. However old the measuring system is, it is not deficient. What is deficient is the small-minded communist meddlers who want everybody to think the same way, and call them stupid when they don't.

Metric is a simple and LOGIC system, that is spreading as a world standard.

As an example: Metric: 1 ton = 1000 kg, 1 kg = 1000 gr, 1 km = 1000 meter, 1 mt = 100 cm (it's the same for all other measures)

American system: 1 mile = 880 fathoms = 1760 yards = 5280 feet = 63360 inches, 1 long ton = 2240 pounds = 35840 ounces, 1 short ton =2000 pounds = 32000 ounces

Nobody here said the american system is deficient, but it's old (metric is old too, it started en 1799) and it is complicated: every time you use fractions you need a calculator for precision .

Mariano

Fair winds

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Benz

Obviously I can and did successfully, but it's annoying to navigate with several different incompatible systems. We have a graticule in degrees, measure current, windspeed and boat speed in knots, but then are forced to cram soundings into an awkward unnatural system whose biggest selling point seems to be that if you can count to ten, you're all set.

Different incompatible systems. You mean like US charts that might be in fathoms or might be in feet, on paper charts noted over in a corner somewhere.

It makes imminent sense to me for the world to standardize on one system. Then there's no question what the numbers mean on any particular chart Also I don't have to have two complete sets of tools to work on one engine and it would make US (and Canadian) goods more exportable to the rest of the world.

I have and do use all different systems and I can assure you that metric offers many more advantages that just knowing how to count to 10. In technical and engineering calculations metric is so much more logical, consistent and much easier than SAE units.

By the way, nothing communist about it. In fact I know for certain that several of my engineering professors who insisted on using metric units were quite conservative and voted Republican.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Mariano

Metric is a simple and LOGIC system, that is spreading as a world standard.

As an example: Metric: 1 ton = 1000 kg, 1 kg = 1000 gr, 1 km = 1000 meter, 1 mt = 100 cm (it's the same for all other measures)

American system: 1 mile = 880 fathoms = 1760 yards = 5280 feet = 63360 inches, 1 long ton = 2240 pounds = 35840 ounces, 1 short ton =2000 pounds = 32000 ounces

Nobody here said the american system is deficient, but it's old (metric is old too, it started en 1799) and it is complicated: every time you use fractions you need a calculator for precision .

Mariano

Fair winds

Sure. The metric system is really good for quick calculations in your head. It concretely improves your ability to apply units of measure to complex tasks.

It's also really good for areas -- where the Imperial system gets really confusing.

But as to depth -- I don't know why anyone gets bothered about it. You can easily and quickly get used to whatever units -- what's the problem?

I like meters. They are easy to visualize, for me, since they are simple multiples or evenly divided parts between smaller and bigger units of length -- really useful. Easy to convert to all kinds of other stuff as well -- a cubic meter of water is a ton, a liter of water is a kilogram, etc. etc. etc. etc. Now tell me that's not useful. Meters also go into nautical units easily. A cable is close enough to 200 (185.2 to be exact) meters to make it very easy to visualize. A nautical mile is 1852 meters -- easy to remember, because it's the date I was born, ha ha.

But fathoms or feet are ok for depth, too. I do think of chain in fathoms more than in meters, just out of habit, but meters work fine as well. A shot of chain is close enough to 30 meters (actually it's 15 fathoms or about 27 meters) to use that (I call 30 meters my "metric shot" and my chain is marked that way).

Feet and meters are also easy to work with -- 3 meters is very close to 10 feet. And if you need precision, you only have to remember that 25.4mm is an inch.

A U.S. gallon is about 4 liters (3.82 to be exact, if I recall correctly). A pound is 440 grams. I haven't looked any of this up.

It's no big deal.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Benz

Obviously I can and did successfully, but it's annoying to navigate with several different incompatible systems. We have a graticule in degrees, measure current, windspeed and boat speed in knots, but then are forced to cram soundings into an awkward unnatural system whose biggest selling point seems to be that if you can count to ten, you're all set.

Different incompatible systems. You mean like US charts that might be in fathoms or might be in feet, on paper charts noted over in a corner somewhere.

It makes imminent sense to me for the world to standardize on one system. That there's no question what the number mean on any particular chart, I don't have to have two complete sets of tools to work on one engine and it would make US (and Canadian) goods more exportable to the rest of the world.

I have and do use all different systems and I can assure you that metric offers many more advantages that just knowing how to count to 10. In technical and engineering calculations metric is so much more logical, consistent and much easier than SAE units.

By the way, nothing communist about it. In fact I know for certain that several of my engineering professors who insisted on using metric units were quite conservative and voted Republican.

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by Cadence

My concern is, what happens when some one's electronics or electrical system takes a dump? Is it were the hell am I?

For local day sailing near home we don' bother, but the minute we are outside the Solent then we keep an hourly log. Date, time, position, speed and course stuff. It means that in the event of a complete electrical failure and thick fog setting in we can dig out the chart, plot a position and work out were we are and were we want to go to without going near the rocks. I have been caught out in fog once without, lesson learnt.


Pete

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Benz

I would rather they put the soundings they had, however old, than just leave stuff blank. Make a note: this was last surveyed 200 years ago, here's what the depths were then. Should they just leave a blank space where St. Barbe is? No, though to their shame they don't just correct it's location, they show the islands, and make a note that they probably aren't where the chart says they are. But at least you know that in that general area you can expect to see a couple big islands. However old, any information is better than an vast blank spot.

That is your opinion. Like I said, I don’t know the reason why the charts show no data — and apparently neither do you. But this has nothing to do with the use of the metric system.

ADD: I get that change is hard, and people like what they know. But anyone who would argue that the old imperial system is simpler than the metric system is simply, factually, provably wrong.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by Benz

I would rather they put the soundings they had, however old, than just leave stuff blank. Make a note: this was last surveyed 200 years ago, here's what the depths were then. Should they just leave a blank space where St. Barbe is? No, though to their shame they don't just correct it's location, they show the islands, and make a note that they probably aren't where the chart says they are. But at least you know that in that general area you can expect to see a couple big islands. However old, any information is better than an vast blank spot.

Containing old data would be fine as long as it is designated as such in an obvious manner not just a foot note.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

That is your opinion. Like I said, I don’t know the reason why the charts show no data — and apparently neither do you. But this has nothing to do with the use of the metric system.

Just speculating but I can think of one reason why new charts aren't printed with old data. If the agency responsible for printing the charts does not have recent or verified data I imagine they would be seriously concerned about liability. Someone using old data runs aground where the chart shows deep water, could be they're calling a lawyer.