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Old 21-08-2010, 05:59   #1
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Pilot Charts Now Available as Digital Charts

The OpenCPN team is pleased to announce that, all US Pilot Charts that are published in pdf format, are now available as digital charts. OpenCPN, and other chart-plotters that can handle the BSB 2 format, shows these pilot charts as a normal charts.
Sadly the South Atlantic and the North Pacific pilot chart are not yet available from Maritime Safety Information

Download the Pilot Charts here:Download OpenCPN | Official OpenCPN Homepage

Note that the complete download is some 360 mb.

Thomas
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Old 21-08-2010, 06:43   #2
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Very cool! Thanks for the heads up.
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Old 21-08-2010, 08:23   #3
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Thanks for that.

It looks fine.

So you are guaranteeing I'll have wind up my butt for the next 4 months?


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Old 21-08-2010, 09:10   #4
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No problem Sea Life is a lucky yacht, isn't she ?

This leads to the question when and how you use pilot charts.
If you are looking for reliable statistics when it comes to winds there is no better source than COGOW Climatology of Global Ocean Winds - COGOW. This is based on data collected by Quick Scat, during it's total operational time. This is the best up to-date information, including the weather patterns during the last ~10 years, and observations covers all areas, not just ship reports. Maybe some day COGOW will be available as a KML overlay of OpenCPN or as vector chart.
The pilot charts, of course contains much more than wind data, and ... are now available directly in your normal chart plotter, but the data is slightly dated.

Neither COGOW nor Pilot Charts says anything about the wind you actually will experience on a given crossing, but if you ever do a specific crossing multiple times, your average will be close to what is stated in the pilot chart.

Pilot charts are for planning long term, think seasons. Weather forecasts are for the short term decisions. </rambling>

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Old 21-08-2010, 11:20   #5
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Excellent!
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Old 21-08-2010, 11:20   #6
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If anyone knows of any other charts that fell off a truck please let me know.
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Old 21-08-2010, 12:47   #7
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|Thomas,

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Well done!

Paul
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Old 21-08-2010, 12:55   #8
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Can't see them!

I downloaded both the central north America and the Caribbean but can't view them in OpenCPN.

Thanks
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Old 21-08-2010, 13:45   #9
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Originally Posted by Carver406 View Post
I downloaded both the central north America and the Caribbean but can't view them in OpenCPN.

Thanks
Have you read these instructions Installing Charts | Official OpenCPN Homepage ??

Thomas
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Old 21-08-2010, 15:41   #10
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Hm... I notice that a lot of the charts needs individual attention.
I started with the IO charts that are consistently digitized, all the twelve pictures are lined up on the same pixels. I can now see that this is not the case for the other charts, hence many of them have a slight georeferencing error. Stand by....for a while ... for a second edition.

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Old 22-08-2010, 14:47   #11
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I have updated all the Atlantic Pilot Charts for the problem with "jumping pixels". South Pacific is tweaked slightly, but as the original pictures are a bit warped, the georeferencing will never be perfect. This is however a very small error. The corrected files are now available on the opencpn.org download page.

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Old 23-08-2010, 13:41   #12
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Thanks! I notice the CED record is incomplete..

CED/SE=,RE=12,ED=

Should be:

CED/SE=,RE=12,ED=MM/DD/YYYY

CED/SE=05,RE=03,ED=08/23/2010
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Old 23-08-2010, 14:23   #13
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Thanks! I notice the CED record is incomplete..

CED/SE=,RE=12,ED=

Should be:

CED/SE=,RE=12,ED=MM/DD/YYYY

CED/SE=05,RE=03,ED=08/23/2010
Yes, by by choice, as it doesn't matter in this case. The release date of the pilot charts is one thing, and the date of the info is another, totally different thing. I think that the info in pilot charts has not been updated for years. (since 1970 ?).
We are not dealing with navigation charts, where this kind of info is more important, but with "information" charts.

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Old 08-09-2010, 14:29   #14
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One more Pilot Chart

The Mediterranean insert on the North Atlantic central sheet is now available as a separate georeferenced chart.
Link available at Download OpenCPN | Official OpenCPN Homepage
This download is 7z-zipped, which makes for a 10 - 15% smaller download.(5 mb).

Thomas
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Old 10-09-2010, 21:07   #15
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Sadly the South Atlantic and the North Pacific pilot chart are not yet available from Maritime Safety Information
Thomas: I just saw that the South Atlantic pilot charts are available on the NGA site.
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