Local Notices to Mariners

All,

Does anyone subscribe the the Coast Guards Local Notice to Mariners?

If so, I'm looking for suggestions on how to digest the information easily. There seems to be no structure to it... reading down the list the locations of discrepancies or hazards jump all over the place. And a lot of the locations are unknown.

It does reference the chart, but no location on the chart unless one knows the waters.

And there's usually 15 to 20 pages of them.

So to find out what is in your area you would have to virtually look up all of them, which is almost impossible.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pdf/lnms/lnm07402016.pdf

I've written them about a tutorial or perhaps an interactive map which would be great.

I'll have to look that up. I don't 'do' chart corrections anymore (the Chief Mate does). But IIRC there's an option. When printing to 'select by chart number' so you only get the corrections for your particular charts. And Yes. That's the fun of chart corrections. You have to actually 'pic off' the position to plot it.

As an alternative (assuming you are talking about chart PLOTTER corrections). You can update entire noaa charts directly to the plotter and not have to do any corrections (provided your plotter is of the new generation to be possible)

Also, the chart numbers are key to knowing which you need.

cappy208 said:

I'll have to look that up. I don't 'do' chart corrections anymore (the Chief Mate does). But IIRC there's an option. When printing to 'select by chart number' so you only get the corrections for your particular charts. And Yes. That's the fun of chart corrections. You have to actually 'pic off' the position to plot it.

As an alternative (assuming you are talking about chart PLOTTER corrections). You can update entire noaa charts directly to the plotter and not have to do any corrections (provided your plotter is of the new generation to be possible)

Click to expand...

Cappy,

Just happened to talk to the CG prior to posting and they said the only reference to the hazard is the chart number, and often the description is by a name that one may not know, especially in area they don't frequent. No lat/long into.

He also said that the NOAA charts on line are updated daily but still may not contain hazards.

Regarding the noaa chart update on the plotter... not sure how that would work. If you have Navionics or Garmin blue chart how would that fit in? But sounds great, thx!

refer to the appropriate coast pilot for local names corresponding to the chart.

I just looked at three of them. There isn't one item that doesn't have either a LLNR light list reference number or L/L accompanying it. Do you have an example?

Seevee said:

Regarding the noaa chart update on the plotter... not sure how that would work. If you have Navionics or Garmin blue chart how would that fit in? But sounds great, thx!

Click to expand...

We have access to daily updates through subscriptions for all our electronic charts.

As to Notices to Mariners, you just have to go by chart. We do have one navigation and plotter software which will actually allow us to enter the date of a paper chart and tell us all needed updates, but it's not available on most software in that manner. It also will give us Notices to Mariners and they're often incorporated into plotter systems.

As to paper charts, we seldom use them, and when we do we only use those we printed out within 24 hours of use.

In addition to notices to mariners and AC, I recommend looking at other sources based on your cruising grounds. For instance cruisersnet.net and waterwayguide.com have nice notices and alerts. Use as many sources as there are available. We have software, plotters, use AC, use everything we can name but Waterway Guide's weekly notice was recently the first place we saw (not saying no one else had it first, just where we saw it first) with the advisories on the dredging on the Illinois River. Similarly, if you're trying to find out how Dismal the Dismal swamp is this week, these other type resources will typically give you the most current information.