Got charts?

NOAA announced today that the federal government will no longer produce paper charts for boaters as a cost-saving measure.

I read the article and I am not 100% sure it's about cost savings because it won't save them very much in the grand scheme of things. It's more about concentrating on other aspects of the chart making process and letting private companies take over the market of printing hard copies. Reallocation of resources is what we call it at Cisco. ;-) It's kind of a bummer, but the print-on-demand thing is a good idea, but I am still going to miss those big lithograph prints.

I have used Bellingham Charts for years. Bellingham Chart Printers

Will be interesting to compare prices between Fed prices and private prices.

Boatgm said:

I have used Bellingham Charts for years. Bellingham Chart Printers

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Thanks for that link!

Just had an email conversation on the subject prior to opening Trawler site.

Both of us have old charts, by that I mean paper that is tough as rawhide compared to the texture of the current charts. We both seem to agree that while we rarely reference paper charts, they are fun to roll out on the table and have the "Screen Shot" in a Columbus setting with all the crew gathered around. As one who has never utilized the Compass Rose navigation aspect, rather point to point and a rough heading. For me charts are friendly warm and comforting.
They look good rolled up and neatly stowed by length, impresses my land lock relatives when they visit, particularly when I reference the secret crab pot locations marked on the charts. Too often when I used the GPS to mark the damn GPS goofs up and I have to recalculate losing all of the locations stored. Bummer, but with the chart and my keen sense of direction in clear weather, I find them once again!
Last word, Keep the charts, and if you can or need to, buy current new or used cause I fear the Government does have the power to shut down the system.
One wonders what else the Government has planned. floating FEMA Camps?
Al Johnson

The government did the same thing with land maps decades ago.

We are probably not far behind the US in going paperless. For what it's worth, In Canada, paper charts "issued by the CHS (ie: government) are still mandatory by law under specific circumstances. If your using digital raster charts, you must carry the paper equivalent regardless. Pleasure craft in home waters that can prove local knowledge and competency do not have to carry paper.

Personally, I wouldn't leave the dock without paper charts. I rarely use them for plotting any more but both the wife and I like to reference the big picture of things when in unfamiliar waters.

Nice discussion of paper charts in the latest Active Captain news email. You may or may not agree with the point of view expressed there, but he makes a good argument as to why not having paper charts can be a good thing.

While Active Captain is a fantastic tool for navigation, it should be only one of many in your toolbox. Chartplotters and laptops fail, and moreover, do not provide the "big picture" that paper charts do. At least, not without a great deal of fiddling. No, I see electronic charts only for your immediate surroundings, but for route planning and look-ahead navigation, nothing beats rolling a chart out on a table. Or at least in our case, flipping ahead in an Explorer Charts book.

Here it is:

[FONT=monospace, courier]Newsletter #187 - October 23, 2013

The second most dangerous thing onboard


>>> The second most dangerous thing onboard >>>

Warning - this is a controversial subject. Actually, to call this controversial may be an understatement. I know many of you will disagree strongly with this premise. But the subject is real and worthy of discussion. My intent is not to cause a holy war but instead to promote thought and discussion. After all if we agreed on everything, the conversations would be boring. When we respectfully disagree, discuss, and honestly look at different sides, we can begin to find what's right for each of us.

While Karen and I often co-write newsletter segments, this segment is all Jeff.

First, I believe the *most* dangerous thing to have onboard is a schedule. I've seen too many people get into serious trouble because they had to be at a certain place at a certain time. I've seen seasons end for cruisers. And I've even seen people sell their boats because of an incident caused by a schedule. I know all experienced cruisers will agree that a schedule is the most dangerous thing to have onboard.

Then what's the second most dangerous thing?

Today, I believe it is paper charts. My writing of this segment is based on a press release issued by US/NOAA yesterday titled, "NOAA announces the end of traditional paper nautical charts." In their announcement, NOAA warned that they would no longer be printing paper charts after April 13, 2014. Other companies can print the charts but there will no longer be price-fixed, standard NOAA paper charts from the US government. I think that's a big announcement and is just one more of a series of nails in the coffin of paper charts. It acknowledges what has happened in every other industry which has experienced similar technology changes. In this case, it's the chart image, not the media, that's important.

My feelings about this started long ago. I was taught to navigate using dead reckoning by my father on his sailboat many years ago. For years, Karen and I only piloted with paper charts and until a few years ago we always had paper charts out in our pilothouse with our position updated every hour at a minimum. A couple of times a year we'd turn off all electronics and practice dead reckoning using paper to keep our skills up. Offshore, overnight passages were taken very seriously with pre-planned DR positions calculations, planned speed, and course all worked out.

Back in these early-to-mid 2000's years, most cruising boats had a single laptop and a basic mobile phone. Because I wrote 3 chartplotter mobile phone products for Maptech, we had more devices than most boats but even then we only had 2 laptops and 3 mobile phones.

In 2005 we piloted our boat from Maine to Key West covering the Raymarine chartplotter and only using a 2" Palm handheld for navigation. If the weather was bad, we used radar and the full suite of electronics onboard but the charts were all displayed on a 2" screen. Needless to say, we made it and I learned an amazing amount from that experience.

Over time the number of computer devices onboard all boats grew dramatically. Now most couples each have their own laptop and smartphone. New tablet/iPad devices are multiplying and most boats have one or more chartplotters. This wasn't a doubling of technology - it was a tripling or more. We now had different chart displays created by different manufacturers with new and exciting capabilities. 3D, crowd-sourcing, radar integration, AIS, and more became common. All of these computing devices could connect to a GPS. Many even had one built in. The typical boat grew from having a chartplotter GPS to having 4 or more GPS's. I can easily put my hands onto 10 different and independent GPS's on my boat along with 3 built-in Garmin chartplotters and 6 instrument display screens at my helms. I admit, I'm geekier than most, but there are more computing devices today on all boats.

I used to feel that paper added redundancy. The electronics were better and had more features but I still liked having paper to fall back on. I knew that electronic charts would eventually replace paper charts because of the added capabilities offered as hardware redundancy became more common.

Then something else happened. Having all of these electronic chart products onboard made boaters less likely to update their paper charts. We carried about $800 of paper charts and found it harder to justify the annual expense. As ActiveCaptain grew and we started meeting hundreds of boaters each season, we'd be onboard and I'd ask about their paper charts. It was common to find charts that were 3 years old. It was not unusual to find charts that were more than 5 years old.

In addition I noticed that on many helms the paper charts were acting mainly as coasters. Sure, they were there but they weren't even open. There were no pencil marks, course lines, erasures, or time marks. They were as fresh as the day they were purchased because, well, they weren't really being used anymore. This wasn't from a lack of skill or experience. I saw this on boats with tens of thousand of miles under the keel. It was because when they were underway, they were using the best charts they had onboard, the electronic ones.

Right around this time, C-Map started a campaign about the dangers of out-of-date charts. NOAA started releasing updated charts almost every day. I witnessed this early because of all the navigation product integration we were doing with ActiveCaptain. Some navigation products actually update their charts from NOAA servers whenever there is an update. Amazingly today, literally hundreds of new charts are released every month from NOAA. This all started to change my feelings about paper charts. No longer were they something that electronics would replace solely because the electronics had more capability. Now they were something that should be replaced because the paper was becoming so out of date as to be more dangerous than the electronics. It's the chart image, not the media, that's important

In December, 2010, we removed all our paper charts from our pilothouse. True to form, while overnight and offshore at North Carolina in April at 11 pm, all of our built-in electronics blinked and went black. This is one of the melt-down scenarios we hear about. But it turned out that even with a difficult offshore slue passage to make in total darkness, it was trivial with our backup electronics which handled the real need perfectly. When we arrived on the Chesapeake, we removed all paper charts from the boat and have never missed them.

First, here are my specific reasons why I believe paper charts are more dangerous than electronic ones:

- The paper charts onboard are typically far out of date. While there are areas like Maine that haven't changed in centuries, even Maine changes harbors, buoys, and channels. Consider the amount of changes to the New Jersey coastline after superstorm Sandy. Yet how many cruisers have updated those paper charts? However, even if you do update your charts annually, you still miss the almost weekly updates from NOAA.

- I have not gone onto a single boat in the last 10 years where the captain had gone over each and every Local Notice to Mariners to update their paper charts between chart editions. Be honest - do you even receive any of the 17 districts of LNTM updates published every week in the US alone? The job is just too big.

- The electronics have gotten so reliable and so redundant that you no longer need a backup paper chart with out-of-date information. Most couples now have about 4 backup chartplotters, some that are even in your pocket on your phone.


Here was my major Ah-ha moment. I guess you could call it the final nail in my coffin for paper charts:

With a chart drawn on an electronic screen, I can do DR plotting just as easily as I can on paper. It's easy to drop waypoints and marks electronically, measure distances, and set angles. It's quite simple to use traditional chart tools on top of screens as well, especially iPads. OK, leave the dividers with the needle sharp points in the drawer. But divider measurements are built into all chartplotter products and apps today.

These DR calculations work on phones too along with the other electronic screens you have onboard. A grease pencil can even be used if you feel you have to draw something. It all still works. The chart on your electronic device is the same as your paper chart only it's probably newer. It's the chart image, not the media, that's important.

One of the meltdown scenarios given to justify paper charts is, what if the entire GPS satellite constellation goes down, won't you lose everything? But I haven't even mentioned GPS yet. This is all using the electronic displays just like paper charts, only they're more up-to-date. In other words, all of these electronic charts give the same capabilities as paper charts. You can do the same measurements, course planning, or anything else you can do on paper.

But...

Most of the time the GPS satellite constellation has not been destroyed, hacked, or disrupted. Most of the time it works incredibly well. In that case, there is no paper chart in the world that will, by itself, show me where I am located. But every one of the electronic devices I have including all of my mobile phones will show me within 16 feet exactly where on Earth I am located. And it'll track my movement over current, georeferenced nautical charts. And it'll do it in any weather.

But there's more...

Did you know that some of the more advanced chartplotter software products perform automatic DR positioning when the GPS stops giving a fix? As you move you can update your current speed and course and it'll march you across the chart display without any need for making calculations in any weather. I'm sure there are other products but I've done it many times with Coastal Explorer. In fact, if the GPS goes out in CE, it'll give an alarm and go immediately into DR mode with your last known course and speed set. You update your movement parameters and it'll continue to update your boat icon's position about once per second. There is no way that I could manually do the math every minute. And I wouldn't want to do the manual math on paper in 5 foot oncoming seas.

There are three other melt-down scenarios that people always bring up when I've suggested that paper charts no longer have a place in coastal cruising:

1. Everyone knows that the electronics eventually fails. What then?

Redundancy. Just like when my Raymarine chartplotter failed offshore, my iPad picked up the job in a few seconds. In a few minutes, a spare laptop was running the same route and even controlling the autopilot. If both of those failed, there were another few replacements ready to take over too. And that's not just my boat. It's easy and inexpensive to have that level of redundancy on all boats today.

2. All of this electronics requires power. So now you have a single point of failure.

No you don't. My boat's batteries can explode right now without affecting my phone or my wife's phone from operating perfectly. Both of our laptops will work. All 4 of our tablets will work. They're redundant because they have their own battery supplies.

And if you've followed any of the DragQueen anchor alarm discussions, we've suggested using extended battery backups for your mobile devices. We have three separate ones. Also don't forget that in a real emergency, with paper charts you'll be fixing your position a few times each hour at most. You can easily turn on an iPad for a minute, grab your position, and turn it off over and over again and it'll last for days on its regular charge.

Note too that there are a myriad of interesting charging solutions available today. There are self-contained solar panels that charge a USB device. There are winding devices that you pull over and over or rotate to generate USB power. These are all inexpensive and easy to keep on a boat allowing you to make sure all of your portable electronics are charged no matter where you are, even if you're in a liferaft.

If you get rid of your paper charts, you might need to have some of these charging solutions. The savings is about $750 a year for us. Again, we have three of them.

3. Lightning always comes up - that'll get you - it'll fry all of your electronics.

Redundancy is the key again. First, we never have all electronics plugged in. Some are put away. During a storm, we protect a few devices by placing them in the microwave which creates a pretty good cage of protection (don't turn on the microwave). During a storm I also like to put a phone in my pocket. I want to have it with me, to be honest, in case we end up in our liferaft. A press-and-seal baggie is all the water protection you'd need. Now if lightning strikes our boat in a way that fries the phone in my pocket, I've certainly gone into cardiac arrest and won't be around to worry about paper or electronics any longer.

Here's a more realistic scenario. Lightning strikes and blows out a few windows or rips off some bimini covers. Now the paper charts are in the wind and rain getting soaked if not blown into the sea. Think you could navigate in that condition by paper?


There are also 3 issues generally raised with the discussion of the demise of paper charts:

1. I get a much better overview on a paper chart. You just can't do that with electronic charts.

I seriously don't see that. I think zooming works pretty well with electronic charts. And I like drawing non-permanent lines on electronic charts for planning. Electronic charts allow me to zoom in with context so I can get details on a particular area quickly. Zoom back out and get the overview. That type of thing requires page turning or chart finding and is very cumbersome with paper. I think this overview argument comes from the feeling that some people like the physical feel of the paper media on the table or in their lap. I sort of understand that but I wonder if the other negative issues with paper charts are really worth that very hard to define quality.

But even more than that, electronics allow me to have every chart in the US and Caribbean on my phone. When we're onshore at a restaurant, we can discuss and plan where we'd like to go next using real nautical charts. When I'm dreaming about spending the summer in Grenada someday, I can do it while sitting in a waiting room. I've yet to see someone bring their paper charts into a restaurant or a waiting room. And yet, I do that type of thing all the time with my electronic charts.

2. You're somehow not a real captain/pilot unless you're using paper charts.

In 2011, the IHO removed the carriage requirement for ships to have paper charts. They can now have a second ECDIS chartplotter and remove their paper forever. I'm not even considering having a single backup in our own boat. Again, most of us have 4-5 backups.

This argument falls apart in some places like Canada. For some reason, Canada requires recreational boaters to carry paper charts. I would expect that to change in the near future but it's law today. It's also quite rare.

3. Yeah but XYZ ship went aground because they were following GPS and electronic charts. Or a corollary of this is that when you're using electronic charts, it shows you on land every now and then.

First, do you have any idea how many ships were destroyed before modern GPS navigation? Seriously, do you think there are more navigation failures today with electronic charts or yesteryear before GPS and electronic charts? Now it's pretty big news when there's a navigation disaster. Coming from a coastal town in Maine, I can tell you that the coastline is strewn with the remnants of sunken vessels that went aground on the rocks. Compared to the volume of boating done today, GPS and electronic charts have proven their safety.

Then, yes, I've been on the ICW in the middle of the channel and the electronic charts have shown me on land. But those electronic charts were digitized from the paper charts. If the paper could show you exactly where you were, it would show you on land too. It makes no difference whether you're using paper or electronics. You have to take position information in context with what your eyes actually see, right? Remember, it's the chart image, not the media, that's important.


Again, I know this is controversial. I know that there are some that will consider this as blasphemy. That's fine. We each have a right to our opinions and beliefs. You can still buy paper charts from a company who does print-on-demand or bundles them together in other ways. You still have that option, for now. I believe the NOAA announcement points to the future. The day is coming when paper charts will go the way of the chronometer, lead line, and sextant. I prefer to look forward and believe it will lead to safer boating much the same way that printed charts, depth sounders. and AIS improved safety in the past. I believe the prudent captain will realize that the same money that used to purchase paper charts can be put into a tablet device which will allow easy charts updates. After all, it's the chart image, not the media, that's important.

Please note - last week's very basic newsletter about GPS in cellular products generated 100 emails. Some wanted more info; some wanted to tell us we were wrong; some just wanted to complain about their phone. If that factual article generated that, this newsletter will generate 10,000 emails. We can't answer them. Please do not email us or reply to this newsletter. Instead, there's an eBoatCards group where we'd love to continue a civilized discussion. The rules are: be nice, be civil, and respect differing views. We all have the same goal - safer, more enjoyable cruising:
The 2nd Most Dangerous Thing » eBoatCards[/FONT]

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This is scary! Navigating to a 1778 chart!!! Wow

Alaska Charts Dangerously Outdated According To NOAA | gCaptain

Most charts are outdated. Charts of the Bahamas are all 1800's/early1900's from what I understand. Kinda gets your attention don't it.

When we were traveling down the coast of Cuba in the sailboat, we were advised to buy Cuban charts (which we did, in Havana) because the ones available in the U.S. were hopelessly outdated. And then as a sequel, when we were subsequently traveling down the coast of Mexico from Isla Mujeres heading for Guatemala, we were advised that our charts of the Mexican coast were made by the English Navy in the 1800's. Kind of made us feel spooky, because going south we had to hug the coast to stay out of the Yucatan Current. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place!

all charts have to be updated even the echarts.

Updating charts was an honorable task for Plebes.

I took a fewAdmiralty Charts in for update and found a few were still updated by hand but they also had a printer that printed the updates on a sticky-back type paper. These small overlays where then applied to the chats.

I have been using charts in boating for years, but never bought or used nautical NOAA/FAA charts. My charts are from companies like MapTech and others who print and package charts of an area in a single chart or a chart book for navigational use. These will still be available. I suspect it's probably the rare mariner who only uses NOAA/FAA as his sole paper chart provider. The rest of us won't notice a difference.

FlyWright said:

My charts are from companies like MapTech and others who print and package charts of an area in a single chart or a chart book for navigational use.

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Same here but I have to admit that I didn't use them much back when I was cruising. (I don't cruise more than 15 miles (One direction) anymore.)

After reading the Active Captain treatise on paper charts I find myself divided on the points made. With the argument that paper charts need updating regularly or they're dangerous I agree somewhat. With the notion that few skippers update their charts I agree completely. But with the implication that e-charts and chart plotters offer more reliable information I disagree completely. Is there any reason to expect electronic chart data will be updated by users any more than paper charts? If the answer is no, then Active Captain's argument falls apart. Better, I think, to remember a basic tenant of competent navigation: Charts (whether paper or electronic) and the information they contain represent nothing more than "aids" to navigation. The prudent navigator will keep that in mind.

Captain K said:

After reading the Active Captain treatise on paper charts I find myself divided on the points made. With the argument that paper charts need updating regularly or they're dangerous I agree somewhat. With the notion that few skippers update their charts I agree completely. But with the implication that e-charts and chart plotters offer more reliable information I disagree completely. Is there any reason to expect electronic chart data will be updated by users any more than paper charts? If the answer is no, then Active Captain's argument falls apart. Better, I think, to remember a basic tenant of competent navigation: Charts (whether paper or electronic) and the information they contain represent nothing more than "aids" to navigation. The prudent navigator will keep that in mind.

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I agree with both sides...but like living with cel phone mentality...we all change a little....and usually in increments.

I'm pretty much all electronic now. I have 3 laptops on board - 1 dedicated to ship/nav...1 personal and a girlfriends as a backup. I also have a Navionics + capable chartplotter where you can update the charts every day if you feel the need to with a simple plug and play with the internet. I also have a dumb GPS that provides positioning. Chances of being chartless or not updated for very long or unable to navigate to a pretty self explanatory sea buoy with the GPS and coordinates provided somehow is such a longshot I'd rather gamble on the powerball.

Easier than paper charts??? You bet. I still love Raster Scan charts over anything else (old school eyes).

But like any piece of equipment...most don't have brains yet so who's in charge you or the machine?

Let's temper this discussion with a bit of reality.

I use a chartplotter with a chip that is five years old. I also have a set of paper charts that is 10 or more years old. Both work fine for me and having the latest NTMs notated on the chart or some other obscure change over the years included in my chart doesn't do much for me. Soundings are rarely updated and that is what really matters.

But if you can ignore that part of Jeff's argument he does make a strong case that most cruisers have adequate electronic backups and with some sensible actions to protect them, they are as good a backup as paper charts.

When we cruise, we have three backups: an iPhone, and iPad and a Nexus tablet. The first two rely on wireless connectivity (which can fail or be unavailable offshore) but the third has the latest charts downloaded and does not rely on any connectivity.

So, I will keep my ten year old paper charts and rarely use them. But I will not replace them.

David

I'd be curious how often Active Captain's charts get updated with the latest notice to mariners?

I think Jeff always says ActiveCaptain is NOT intended for navigation... that it's more like a cruisers guide.

-Chris

djmarchand said:

I use a chartplotter with a chip that is five years old. I also have a set of paper charts that is 10 or more years old. Both work fine for me and having the latest NTMs notated on the chart or some other obscure change over the years included in my chart doesn't do much for me. Soundings are rarely updated and that is what really matters.

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FWIW, and everybody probably get's it... there are chips... and then there are chips...

Many plotters allow both software (chip) and chart (ship) updates... and that can be independent of each other.

A software update might make the display work better, easier, faster, whatever... or maybe correct a bug...

OTOH, a chart update would incorporate all the Notices to Mariners that happened in the meantime... and those can happen often. Yearly in some cases, weekly or daily (or on demand) in others...

-Chris

I just saw this from NOAA: NOAA’s newest addition to the nautical charting portfolio is the new Portable Document Format (PDF) nautical chart, which provides up-to-date navigation information in this universally available file type. The PDF nautical charts are available for a three-month trial period, from October 22, 2013, to January 22, 2014

PDF Nautical Charts (Trial)

I tried downloading one, just as a test, and it just sat there. There was an indicator (a little spinning circle) which would seem to mean that it was downloading, but after about 10 minutes I aborted it. Perhaps the site was just super busy.

jwnall said:

Perhaps the site was just super busy.

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That'd be my guess. I downloaded several a few days ago (10/22, actually), easy, no glitches, etc.

FWIW and IMO, the PDF charts are nice enough but don't do well when zooming in... the pixels separate and the chart becomes illegible... so it's not like viewing a NOAA raster chart with a chart plotter, purpose-made app, chart viewing software, etc.

Still, potentially decent for some uses.

-Chris

I just downloaded 11326, Galveston Bay with no problem. It was about 7 meg and I can zoom in 800% with no degradation. Very cool, although I'm not sure how I would actually use them underway, since my nav computer will have it's own electronic chart in use.

Keith said:

I just downloaded 11326, Galveston Bay with no problem. It was about 7 meg and I can zoom in 800% with no degradation. Very cool, although I'm not sure how I would actually use them underway, since my nav computer will have it's own electronic chart in use.

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I managed to do it successfully this time. The problem seemed to have more to do with my browser (Firefox) than with the NOAA site, so once I figured out how to do it I downloaded a couple of them quickly. The resolution looks good.

This is an interesting topic and while it seems nearly everyone is now navigating on raster or vector electronic charts, I'm wondering how many still steer by compass? Although I have long since moved to electronic plotting and navigation, I still steer by compass versus folowing a plot line or steering screen. Not exactly sure why, trust?, force of habit? but I do find it easier & more comfortable. I've met several relatively new boaters who don't even have one, or if they do, can say whether it has been swung or not. Many may laugh, but I still carry an RDF on board......... just in case. I concede it never gets used for Nav anymore but it's not wasted space as I like listening to the oldie AM stations on it.

Great discussion!
I sit on the middle of the fence on this one, I love my 15" Northstar plotter and the quick info and location it provides with no hassle, I also have a PC going running NOAA charts ... plus a tablet.. and a smart phone. Redundancy isn't going to be a issue.

But... I also really like to have paper on board and typically keep a chart at hand unless it is local where I don't feel the need. When we cruised the S.Pac in the 90's the government actually shut down the GPS net for a day or two.. right in the middle of the crossing between Mexico and the Marquesas!. As we were proficient at celestial at that point it was a non issue... but I was happy to see the box start to get a fix when they flipped the switch back on.

As the Admiral and I sat through the movie Gravity last week I had a epiphany....

1- if a event like that happened we all would be screwed if it happened at the altitude of the ring of gps sats..

2- Sandra Bullock looks hot in booty shorts

The scene where she stripped of her space suit and revealed her amazing figure while doing some yoga/fetal pose had me audibly say wow... I had to quickly assure the Admiral that it at that very moment hit me of how we would all be royally screwed if something of that nature accured ( the sats taking space junk impact not seeing S.B. in booty shorts )

I don't think the Admiral bought the " wow" reason but I had to say something.

My point is that all the redundancy doesnt do squat if the satellite system for what ever reason failed to provide our units on the surface a signal.

HOLLYWOOD