NOAA Stops Printing Nautical Charts

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by GordMay

May I presume that your electronic charts are updated weekly (regularly)? This is a QUESTION, NOT A CHALLENGE ... i have no experience /w E- Charts.

No they are not, but when a new update comes, all of the weekly changes have been worked into it. When you only update your paper charts now and then, you have missed all the updates in between.

In other words: with updated electronics charts, you get a whole new chart while you update. With paper charts you have to pencil in individual updates from a newspaper article, or at least that was how it was when I still did that.

[sww914]

Our boat's chart table wasn't worth a spit anyway...

[goboatingnow]

My compromise at the moment is to carry wide area , small scale paper charts as a backup and a way of plotting the whole voyage on. But modern plotters carry so much detail now, its impossible to carry the same in paper. I mean plot a course from Southampton to say Nice and see how many charts you'd need to acquire to be " fully" charted , it's ludicrous and way too costly , not to mention having to get update information from 3 or 4 countries HOs

People talking about paper are either sailing round a few local bays contained in a few charts , got at low cost from NOAA. The rest of us have to contend with multiple HOs, expensive and different charts and datums, charts that are difficult to even find , difficult to update.

Digital charts are a godsend and a major major improvement in safety in such situations.

Dave

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by Waterwayguy

OK, I agree, they won't hold your hand and do all the thinking for you. But there are still many sailors out there, including us, that would prefer to make our own decisions and use our skills, learned over decades on the water, to navigate our boats safely from one place to another. We use electronics, paper charts and guides because we never rely on a single source for information when it come to the safety of our vessel and crew. Printing never stopped when the dovernment shut down. Updates are provided weekly through the local notice to mariners. When was the last time the charts on your plotter were updated? Everything has its weak points and strong points. Each skipper has to decide for himself what tools to use. I won't counter with a list of what's wrong with electronics, since it would serve no purpose. Chuck

Chart plotter displays are not charts. If you want charts you download them from the NOAA web site and display them on a computer of some sort. My chart plotter display data was last updated two years ago, my charts were downloaded last week. TThere is no reason except a profit motive that any chartplotter these days could not display real charts at the option of the owner. They are after all just a computer and monitor with a restricted input. You can get some very nice and fancy display data for chart plotters these days that in some ways are superior to conventional charts. What is not superior is their ability to display up to date data.

The issue with POD charts is that they are going to be pretty expensive. Lithographic printing is very cheap compared to ink cartridges. The only advantage is that no one will have to dispose of unsold charts.

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Captain Bill

Chart plotter displays are not charts. If you want charts you download them from the NOAA web site and display them on a computer of some sort. My chart plotter display data was last updated two years ago, my charts were downloaded last week. TThere is no reason except a profit motive that any chartplotter these days could not display real charts at the option of the owner. They are after all just a computer and monitor with a restricted input. You can get some very nice and fancy display data for chart plotters these days that in some ways are superior to conventional charts. What is not superior is their ability to display up to date data.

The issue with POD charts is that they are going to be pretty expensive. Lithographic printing is very cheap compared to ink cartridges. The only advantage is that no one will have to dispose of unsold charts.

I don't get your logic here. Chart plotters DISPLAY electronic charts. Usually these days vector charts , which are far superior to raster charts.

Garmin for example does between 2-4 updates a year. That's more then most people would ever do with paper. Furthermore there's a whole world out there that are not using POD charts and the best way to get charts is in electronic form.

Ultimately we will see standardisation around the IHO vector chart standard , and this will remove the necessity of having an intermediate format. Then you can update your electronic charts as fast as the HOs produce them. I believe opencpn is considering implementing the S57 standard.

We in the leisure sector are way ahead of IMO compliant vessels , but that has caused a disconnect between the emerging vector standards and the systems developed for leisure use. I see that changing in time

Dave

[Captain Bill]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I don't get your logic here. Chart plotters DISPLAY electronic charts. Usually these days vector charts , which are far superior to raster charts.

Garmin for example does between 2-4 updates a year. That's more then most people would ever do with paper. Furthermore there's a whole world out there that are not using POD charts and the best way to get charts is in electronic form.

Ultimately we will see standardisation around the IHO vector chart standard , and this will remove the necessity of having an intermediate format. Then you can update your electronic charts as fast as the HOs produce them. I believe opencpn is considering implementing the S57 standard.

We in the leisure sector are way ahead of IMO compliant vessels , but that has caused a disconnect between the emerging vector standards and the systems developed for leisure use. I see that changing in time

Dave

The logic is that they are not charts. They are data displays derived from charts. If they were charts they would be qualified to replace charts in vessels that are required to carry charts. Think how much money the big boys could save by putting in a garmin and updating it 4 times a year. What do you think the USCG would tell the operator of a vessel required to carry charts if he said I updated my garmin last month. The downloaded charts from NOAA are the same exact data that are used in the big boys ECDIS systems. The garmin "charts" are not.

I absolutely agree that the best charts are electronic charts, but garmin charts are not electronic charts. There is already a standard for electronic charts and they can be downloaded for free (in the US and some other countries) and dispayed on virtually any computer, but no chart plotter that I am aware of will accept them, simply because the sale of updates to the chartplotter data is a big revenue stream for the guys that sold it to you in the first place. Keep in mind that these guys have to decide what to put on a memory chip and format it to be compatible with the firmware of the chartplotter in question. Since to have a competitive advantage they also tend to add non chart data to the chip. All of this takes time. So you get an update every 90 days, which is made from data supplied sometime before the date it was issued. I don't know how old the data is when the chips are released (or made available for download) after being processed by Garmin or bluechart or whoever your chartplotters favorite supplier is but I would not be surprised if it's at least a month old. So just before you next update comes out you are working with charts 4 months or so out of date. I on the otherhand am working with charts only a week out of date.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by GordMay

May I presume that your electronic charts are updated weekly (regularly)?
This is a QUESTION, NOT A CHALLENGE ... i have no experience /w E- Charts.

Gord,

I update all my chart data every time I go anywhere. I use iNavX on my ipad and phone, which allows me to download the most current NOAA charts for free. I have it set up to do the entire continental US, no matter wherewithal e are heading, simply because it doesn't take that long. My installed chart plotter get updated once a year.

This is why I trust my ipad over my chartplotter when the going get tricky. Because I know that the data on the ipad has been updated with the most recent NOM and the chart plotter hasn't been.

[svmeanderer]

Originally Posted by GordMay

May I presume that your electronic charts are updated weekly (regularly)?

I use polarview. When you go into the chart list and have an internet connection, it shows which charts have been updated by NOAA. You can then update individual ones or tell it to update all charts that changed.

I try to do it whenever I have good wifi - maybe once every couple of weeks but I could do it every day if I wanted. It takes about 10 minutes and updates a good hundred charts for a couple week interval. Doing an update after 1 day might catch only a few charts and will take a minute.

polarview then quilts the charts together to give a single view. You can pick raster or vector charts.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by Cotemar

Let me know how that paper chart works a 3am in pitch dark in a narrow shipping lane with a 600 foot ship coming at your bow and two 500 foot tankers at your stern.

No chart plotter. No AIS. You just have paper charts. All three ships see some small boat in the channel, but do not know what it is or if it is real. All three ships try to call something on your VHF. Your coming up on red buoy 5. If you have not sheet your pants yet, you will soon. Small boats get run over all the time and the large ships never even know they just did a hit and run.

With a Chart plotter and AIS those three ships see you and have collision avoidance and contact you by name. You never lose your night vision and its full speed ahead with no worries and clean underpants.

You ought to be following Colregs and not be in the channel. On top of that, situational awareness is what will keep you safe. If you don't understand where you are next to that #5 buoy in your head, a chartplotter won't save you.
I'm not against chartplotters and am all for AIS in terms of making yourself visible to ships but that doesn't negate the value of paper charts.

[Randy]

Originally Posted by GordMay

May I presume that your electronic charts are updated weekly (regularly)?
This is a QUESTION, NOT A CHALLENGE ... i have no experience /w E- Charts.

Exactly what I've been thinking. The electronic charts have to be updated the same way paper charts do and it's more difficult to update the echarts on a weekly basis than the paper charts.

[avb3]

Originally Posted by Randy

You ought to be following Colregs and not be in the channel. On top of that, situational awareness is what will keep you safe. If you don't understand where you are next to that #5 buoy in your head, a chartplotter won't save you.
I'm not against chartplotters and am all for AIS in terms of making yourself visible to ships but that doesn't negate the value of paper charts.

Which COLREG rule says you shouldn't be in the channel? Rule 9? Nope...it just says:

A vessel of less than 20 metres in length or a sailing vessel shall not impede the passage of a vessel which can safely navigate only within a narrow channel or fairway.

There is a long thread about what not impede may mean, with some divergence of opinions depending on which regulatory body is giving that opinion. Regardless, a sailing vessel is legally allowed in a narrow channel.

[Randy]

His concern was being run over by the ships and #9 does say small boats are not to impede ship traffic in the channel. If the small boat is transiting without impeding there isn't an issue and there wouldn't be a reason for the small boat owner to be crapping his drawers.

[bobconnie]

I don't know about the last page of crap on this thread, but if any of yall have any of those outdated nasty ole paper charts yall dislike so much, I would be glad to take them off your hands ! I have the room to store them aboard, and I really don't feel safe without haveing a bunch of paper charts handy !! Us old guys are funny that way!

[avb3]

Originally Posted by Randy

His concern was being run over by the ships and #9 does say small boats are not to impede ship traffic in the channel. If the small boat is transiting without impeding there isn't an issue and there wouldn't be a reason for the small boat owner to be crapping his drawers.

Like I said there is a very long thread on this. Impede does not necessarily mean that the larger ship may have to steer around or slow down....again, it appears, depending on which regulatory body makes interpretation. In addition inland water rules may impact situation. There was a different opinion from the USCG versus the British authority. Farewell was referenced in the USCG instance.

It is not clear cut. Saying not impede means different things different places it appears.

[Randy]

That really wasn't the point of Cotemar or my posts but I'd like to discuss it with you in one of those other threads if you'd like. The courts have made things fairly definitive.
The chartplotter can be useful in getting to that point of situational awareness that I talked about but the paper charts aren't going to inhibit that either. Staring at a chartplotter rather than understanding your place in the traffic pattern by looking around yourself and dealing with it will cause a lot of problems. I don't get the fear of paper charts nor the fascination with electronic gadgets (I use both).