Paper Charts for Circumnavigation

[hellsfire]

Hi All
Can someone give me advice on where to get a complete set of charts to use to circumnavigate?
I have many electronic charts and GPS but I would like these for planning and as a back up.
Is there anywhere you can buy a set as all I can find is individual charts many overlapping.
Regards
Hamish

[Wotname]

Hellfire (Hamish), it might help if you gave us your location, at least what country.

[GordMay]

You might download/print copies of the NGA’s Atlas of Pilot Charts.
➥ https://msi.nga.mil/Publications/APC

They also provide other useful Nautical Publications, such as:
American Practical Navigator (Bowditch)
Sight Reduction Tables for Marine Navigation
and many others.

[hellsfire]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Hellfire (Hamish), it might help if you gave us your location, at least what country.

Currently boat is in Thailand but this is a full circumnavigation and not decided yet to do the med of SA so would get both sets of charts.

We will do the pacific first having said this

[hellsfire]

Originally Posted by GordMay

You might download/print copies of the NGA’s Atlas of Pilot Charts.
➥ https://msi.nga.mil/Publications/APC

They also provide other useful Nautical Publications, such as:
American Practical Navigator (Bowditch)
Sight Reduction Tables for Marine Navigation
and many others.

Thanks will check this out

[chrisr]

for pacific charts, try these folk in sydney

https://www.boatbooks-aust.com.au/paper-charts/

A grade chart agents and used by all commercial shipping companies. very easy to deal with on-line

as well as charts, have all the necessary books & publications

cheers,

[Uricanejack]

Kelvin Hughs.

Probably the best known and oldest British Admiralty chart agent. Still in business as far as I know. They also supply US charts.
A full BA world folio used to have about 3600 charts,
What’s an Admiralty chart cost now?

The good news you don’t need them all. Which would be Very expensive And requires a pretty big boat just to carry them all.

All you need to do is order the BA Chart catalogue. It’s a big book full of small scale charts showing all the charts for the world and there numbers.

Pick the pages you intend to visit and draw a line of the rough route you plan to take.
The charts you route line crosses are the ones you need.
You can order them by number.
There is no pony in ordering the whole lot ate the same time. They go out of date pretty quick. Keeping them up to date is a virtually full time job.
So just order the ones you need for each section of your trip.

Personaly I would just by the ones I need when I need them locally. BA charts are available pretty much anywhere. And Kelvin Hughs have an out let in pretty much every major port world wide. Or they did. Once upon a time.

Also. Would by American charts for America in America, Canadian in Canada Australian in Australia ect. As and when I need them.

Personally I’m old fashioned. I like real charts. But for sheer number required and cost involved,
A computer or plotter plus electronic charts has a hell of a lot going for it.

[acem]

His question was rather vague but the answers helped me! Thx-Ace

[Dulls]

Originally Posted by acem

His question was rather vague but the answers helped me! Thx-Ace

I have been buying the odd NV folio. Fairly cheap but very comprehensive.

[AiniA]

If you are in Thailand you have already 'done' the Pacific unless you are heading back to the Americas. Our experience was that you only need to have a relatively small number of small scale charts for planning. We relied on electronic charts (we had two backup sets) and cruising guides where they existed along with passage reports from the SSCA for more obscure areas. We bought a set of 120+ charts for the Pacific but never used them except to look at the one for Pitcairn (and found out that it was inaccurate).

[erdos]

Originally Posted by GordMay

You might download/print copies of the NGA’s Atlas of Pilot Charts.
➥ https://msi.nga.mil/Publications/APC

They also provide other useful Nautical Publications, such as:
American Practical Navigator (Bowditch)
Sight Reduction Tables for Marine Navigation
and many others.

Thank you!

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by hellsfire

Hi All
Can someone give me advice on where to get a complete set of charts to use to circumnavigate?
I have many electronic charts and GPS but I would like these for planning and as a back up.
Is there anywhere you can buy a set as all I can find is individual charts many overlapping.
Regards
Hamish

Hamish, The problem with your request is that ALL the charts for a complete circumnavigation is a lot of charts. Up Thread someone noted that a full world folio is 3600 BA charts, which must be about $144,000, plus you could not fit them in your boat, period.

Since you want them as back-up, you can get by with a few small scale charts (whole oceans), and guide books for the countries you plan to visit. Scrounge around for the ones you still need after that. This could fit in your boat.

In the old days when we used paper charts we had about 600 of them, copies, originals etc. It covered a lot of the world. But that stack of charts was the second heaviest thing on our boat. I sold them and bought a used jib in Australia.

Now we get an ocean chart for the next ocean and some guide books. If you lose your ECD you use the ocean chart to get you close and the guide book to get you into the harbor, where you buy a new ECD. We still do this, but in all the years we've been cruising with electronic charts (24yr) we've never had to resort to paper.

Planning: Here are the tools we use.
Ocean Passages of the World, by British Admiralty
Jimmy Cornell's Books World Cruising Handbook and Cruising Routes
Visual Passage Planner (software)
Noonsite
OpenCPN

Passage Preparation:
If you are are navigating with electronic charts one preparatory task before each passage is to get your hands on the best charts you can find for your destination area, even if you have to make them yourself.

[grantmc]

Certainly agree with comments of others. Most of my paper charts (I have about 1,200) I've bought second hand. The difficulties though are the height of the stack, the weight and storage space. And let's not forget about finding the chart(s) you need. Electronics take away those problems.

As in the US, New Zealand provides its chart catalogue free to download and print: https://www.linz.govt.nz/sea/charts. As well as NZ waters it includes areas of Antarctica and the South-West Pacific