Notice To Mariners

[Old Snipe]

I was wondering how many CF'ers make use of the updates for their charts. I pulled out some old charts the other day to bring over to my boat. After looking at them, I could see that they were still usable, but need some serious updating.

Things have come a long way since the old Loran "C" days. I was trained to plot while serving on a open ocean torpedo retriever back in the early 80's. The chief of the boat used to let me help with the "NTM" updates to give me a break from the engineroom. We used to have to wait on the mail, or have the radioman get them off the teletype.

Now the "NTM" are a couple clicks away.

Local Notice to Mariners

Cheers!............... John

[Cheechako]

I used the NTM for a while, but tired of updating and most of the updates were inconsequential.
But now that they are online... would def be worth a scan!

[Stu Jackson]

Some areas change a LOT more than others. I've been sailing on San Francisco Bay, the California Delta and the coastal ocean for 35 years, and can only remember less than a half dozen buoy changes: 1) G "3" just north of the old Bay Bridge east side has been removed, since they built the new bridge right on top of it! ; 2) newer G "1" NE of Alcatraz; R"2" south of the D/E span of the western side of the Bay Bridge is relatively (ha!) new maybe 20 years!

That's about it, maybe some up in the Delta.

Other than the "Lightship" being changed from a real vessel to a Racon to a newer solar buoy within the past 50 years, there haven't been that many changes.

Back east and in other ports on the West Coast, I am sure that there are many more frequent changes, due to depth, shoaling, dredging, shipping channels, etc.

Like many things in boating: "It all depends..."

I used to update my charts by the old snail mail LNMs, but found that most of the reports were of damaged buoys that were in the process of needing to be replaced or repaired. I even subscribed when they went digital with email notices, and followed them for awhile. There's a major Coast Guard buoy repair service here on Yerba Buena Island. So I gave up bothering to do updates.

My Garmin GPS Map 76Cx sd card charts show all the barges that were stationed north of the east side of the Bay Bridge for construction of the new bridge, but they're mostly gone by now, still on the chart and un-movable since they're embedded as part of the chart.

[nigel1]

.One of those chores best done frequently and in small chunks.

Around the UK, it's getting to be a bit of a must with the sudden growth in wind farms, one day you have open sea, a few days later someone has gone and stuck a heap of wind turbines in the way.

[Sssssailor]

If you carry paper charts it can be pretty important to keep up with the NTM & LNTM. Some charts it doesn't matter too much, but others can be updated quite frequently and if you don't keep on top of it, there will be lots of buoys and rigs and whatever out there that won't be on the chart.

Print on demand charts are an option, but the paper sucks to write on (smudges) and they are way too expensive. NOAA puts out pdf chart files that you can blow up and print or save to your computer. Pretty handy. Updated weekly.


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[Garrettw]

As one of the most heavily trafficked waterways in the country, they are very useful for the Galveston Bay Area. I always make it a point to scan over the pdf from the USCG website before I go out, if only to see what navaids have been knocked over recently. More recently there has been a lot of dredging to get the area ready for the new Panamax vessels so the notice to mariners has info related to that.


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