NOAA RNCs ar going away.

[Corsair63]

We must consider that cartography, in first instance, is not made for leisure vessels, they are done and published for the shipping and fishing industry.
From long time ago that the most developed navigation devices are made for fishing industry together with cable layers and they are using ENCs longer than shipping and using more advanced navigation devices than we, even could not dream.

It was a real pain in the ash to have corrected the paper charts at any time for the ship’s navigation area, most of the time the whole world, you spend the whole watch and doing overtime like hell with correction, first with land mail tracings, later with special sat modem for those tracings, and printing it in vegetal paper plus the weekly gazette for minor corrections and corrections of navigational publications too, a real nightmare, it was like a jail punishment.

For the time being ECDIS are made to work with ENCs and RNCs, but RNCs are used only in areas where still not available ENCs.

Something pointed in previous messages is that a RNCs is as is and you cannot ask anything to it you can only see what is “printed”, I have to say that sometimes the work is better on a paper chart because of the use of dividers, triangles, etc. but when you must plot manually the position at intervals not exceeding 3 minutes, it becomes …… like in channel with pilot on board.

That RNCs are remarkably close to disappear, it’s well known but it will take time, not so much but legislation have to exchange.

Nowadays SOLAS says that all merchant vessels must carry two “charting” systems, most of the industry has opt by 2 ECDIS (1 main, 1 backup, working all the time) this option is reducing day by day the production of paper charts and their reproduction as RNCs.

But there is the other option of having on board 1 ECDIS and paper charts as backup ….. so, until industry and international Codes (IMO) would legislate for being compulsory 2 ECDIS on board some countries will continue with the production of paper charts, and we still will have RNCs.

Being available for the entire world in ENCs at this stage it’s bit complicated, and I don’t know how long it would take.

Also the prices of the Electronic charting is not cheap at all, again looking at the monthly bills for it in a vessel for international trade moving all round the world we’re talking of some hundreds of US$, I was in international trade and normal was between 900 and 1500 Sterling pounds monthly and not making any update of publications either technical library, for such reason the chart permits sometimes are for only one month, because you’re going somewhere that maybe you’ll never call again, and the money spent it big.

Another thing that IMO considers is that less developed countries, and their fleets have not the resources for being digitalized and still using and producing paper charts and derived to it having RNCs of the area.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

...and I have found the satellite view will often allow me to identify things that are not labeled and missing from the default map view.

Yes! Good point. There are places where the satellite view is more current than the chart, especially where there are slowly shifting sand bars but infrequent surveys.

[Kettlewell]

Yes! Good point. There are places where the satellite view is more current than the chart, especially where there are slowly shifting sand bars but infrequent surveys.

Just yesterday I was looking at the chart for a marina with a nearby mooring field and I needed to know where the moorings were located. The satellite view showed me instantly where the moored boats would be located.

[dpons]

Yes, is a pity losing raster and paper charts. In a few decades, everything that is digital today will be lost forever. Just try to read a floppy from the 80's, if still has any readable data.

[Kettlewell]

In a few decades, everything that is digital today will be lost forever. Just try to read a floppy from the 80's, if still has any readable data.

Store anything important in the cloud with a major provider like Google, Amazon, or Microsoft and it will be there for as long as we're around. Yes, keep local backups on hard drives and SSDs too, but the cloud is now the archive.

[P_Dub]

Loose electrical power and people are lost! That is the reality today.
You should be ashamed of the technology.

[Kettlewell]

Loose electrical power and people are lost! That is the reality today.

I carry a full set of paper charts and the tools to use them, and I have paper charts at the helm on every trip.

[CaptTom]

Originally Posted by dpons

Yes, is a pity losing raster and paper charts. In a few decades, everything that is digital today will be lost forever. Just try to read a floppy from the 80's, if still has any readable data.

Agreed. But it's not just an issue for emergency backups. To me the real shame is we're going to lose an entire segment of history.

Today, we can look back at books (and charts) written hundreds, even thousands of years ago. Some day, everything which has happened in the lifetime of some people alive today will be totally gone. Unrecoverable.

Sure, Amazon and Google will be around for a while. But not forever. We have paper records of long-gone companies today, but once those little magnetic ones and zeros are gone, you can't pull them out of some dusty file cabinet or forgotten cave.

I suppose it's possible someone will create a "digital vault" which will stand the test of time. I know there are efforts already underway. But I don't know that we know enough about the future to guess what media will still work, and what won't.

I already have old files in a format which is no longer readable. And those are the ones on hardware I can still access. I recently threw away a lot of old floppy disks, and have been working through the CDs while I still have one old machine which can read them.

[requiem]

Originally Posted by Kettlewell

Store anything important in the cloud with a major provider like Google, Amazon, or Microsoft and it will be there for as long as we're around. Yes, keep local backups on hard drives and SSDs too, but the cloud is now the archive.

At least as long as each account is paid up, though I suppose material of interest will be re-copied.

[Corsair63]

We can trace human history based in hardware originals/copies, e.g. Altamira caves paintings, Lascaux, Egypt pyramids, etc.
will see how another civilization would trace our history based in digitalization?
it would be from now on like in the Middle Ages, the dark ages, no trace of all of us.

[sailingharry]

I have often quipped that the ubiquitous nature of digital photography has destroyed the photographic record. All of us old farts have pictures in our possession of family members from 100 or more years ago. Sure, they weren't very good when they were taken and they have a hundred years of aging on them, but we have them.
My sister-in-law and her husband are quarreling about a computer he inherited from his father. He wants to go through it and see if there is anything on it, she says it's been months (years?) And he hasn't, he should just throw it away. I look at it and think that it may hold the only copy of many hundreds of pictures that his father took.
In the past, pictures were expensive. We didn't take many and we save the ones that were good. Today many of us have tens of thousands of photographs, 99% of which have no value. The remaining 1% are lost in plain sight.

[Kettlewell]

In the past, pictures were expensive. We didn't take many and we save the ones that were good. Today many of us have tens of thousands of photographs, 99% of which have no value. The remaining 1% are lost in plain sight.

Use Google Photos and you can find stuff with search that would be lost to history using printed photos. Go to any estate sale and you will see boxes and boxes of printed photos being given or thrown away. Sure, some are saved by family, but most disappear, if they haven't already disappeared in a flood or fire. Not saying digital is perfect, but I keep in my pocket a cell phone that allows me to look at and use photos I have taken since I got my first digital camera in about 2004. That accounts for about 250GB of photos by the way! Yes, I also have multiple local backups, but I am happy knowing that when I die my children will have the keys to my Google account and most of the photos that have documented their lives and mine.

Similarly, though I love and use paper charts, I also love having on my cell phone every NOAA RNC and Open CPN so I can plan a trip or zoom in while entering a strange harbor. Plus, I can carry multiple backups on USB sticks or drives, and I can easily carry multiple phones that in my experience are vastly more durable and reliable than any marine electronics.

[artjohnston]

When I found recently what the US Coast Guard and NOAA were doing, I downloaded all the raster maps that were there. Unfortunately, many of the raster map had already been removed.

Anyone who has compared the raster maps, that were made and updated for the last hundred years, to the vector maps know that the vector maps are dismal, very hard to find info on, and inferior.

This is also a shame because (as I understand it) no paper charts will even be available for any printing/piloting/marine purposes. (Like coastal piloting).

Vector maps are ONLY usable for chart plotters and impossible to use with any hand coastal piloting techniques/backups. All the Bowditch techniques that we used to teach in coast piloting class are no longer possible/usable without a paper chart.

Does anyone know if Open CPM or anyone else has archived any of the .kap raster charts. I am having a hard time finding them on the web, but I will let you know what I find, and please let me know if any of you have found any archives.

When we find those .kap files, can anyone tell me how to enable Open CPM to read those files, where to put them, etc.?

Thank you for your help!

[requiem]

Originally Posted by artjohnston

This is also a shame because (as I understand it) no paper charts will even be available for any printing/piloting/marine purposes. (Like coastal piloting).

Vector maps are ONLY usable for chart plotters and impossible to use with any hand coastal piloting techniques/backups. All the Bowditch techniques that we used to teach in coast piloting class are no longer possible/usable without a paper chart.

Two comments... first, NOAA is providing ways to print paper based on the vector data. I believe they are likely aware of the place name issue, but not sure what solutions may be in progress.

Second, ENCs can be used with those Bowditch techniques. If you're a professional on a ship, part of your training on electronic chart systems will be how to plot a running fix, 3 point fix, etc. on the screen. I do it on my phone/tablet/laptop if only to keep in practice. The issue here isn't with the ENCs, it's that chart plotters and many apps are designed for the largely un-trained recreational crowd and thus they assume there's no market for such features.

[artjohnston]

First of all: The issue is not the "we are untrained" or with "ENCs", the issue that the NOAA marine charts should not just be for "professionals on a ship". I am a recreational boater, and yes, I do count.
I say again, it is a shame that NOAA has turned its back on recreational boaters and has made recreational boating more hazardous.
Secondly: the NOAA NCC website and its printed charts are garbage. It appears that no one in NOAA, the CG, or their software contractors, have done any beta testing of this gross product.
Here's some comments on one NCC chart that I generated: a 1:70,000 map that I printed of the Duluth Harbor (Lake Superior): 1). no height or any description on three of the four lighthouse at the harbor entrances; 2)no depths in the harbor; 3) texts are misplaced and poorly situated; 4) dredged channels are not even indicated;5) there are no buoys even indicated; 6) I could go on and on...
And no, those pathetic charts can't be used for any coastal navigation. AND most recreational boaters' smart phones don't have coverage offshore (in most areas).