Thread: AICW Charts
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Old 02-21-2017, 05:06 PM   #1
kev_rm
Senior Member
 
City: Wherever the boat is
Vessel Name: Kismet
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 458
AICW Charts

Have been wandering a couple days down the ICW, started in Savannah now in St Augustine clocked ~200 miles thus far.

For charts I use Navionics, latest Garmin and OpenCpn w/ latest NOAA.

A couple of observations -

1) There are many stretches where the charts are just plain wrong - and not just the ICW magenta line - e.g. shows we're travelling on land.

2) There is significant error in terms of shoaling, which I understand is hard to keep updated (see below).

3) Vast stretches, probably at least 30 miles today were areas with not a single sounding, and probably 2/3 of that not in areas where its actually dredged.

So as you may have surmised, its my first trip in the ditch. Not a fan to be honest, in particular, if we are at a fast cruise, I'm dropping half my speed (off plane) when it gets under 10 ft and I'm doing that a lot.

My favorite point today was inside Amelia island, 25' power boat approaching keeps challenging my line, I full stop when we are 150yds away as 4' under keel. He then stops. I am like "why the hell did he stop". He calls me on the radio. "Captain I've got 2' of water here, I'm going to have to cross your bow". WHITE ON ALL CHARTS.

Anyway, Looking for some advice, it was more aggravating than I anticipated. I don't want to waste a day and dollars getting stuck in the mud.

Side Note - As a technology person, it is maddening that chart/sounding data is not even remotely good. On a given stretch of the ICW there are hundreds of sensors pinging the bottom and calculating coordinates every day that could be used to keep charts up to date with some open standards and internet connectivity (aka the cellular network)
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