fake/counterfeit charts!

I do realise that the Royal Navy are a minority user of Admiralty Charts.
How many ships do they have there days ???
john_morris_uk said:
This idea is trotted out time and again and is misinformed twaddle.

Let's put it the other way round and ask why the tax payer should pay for surveys for charts for a minority of people to use?

Besides which, many of the surveys done round the UK are done by contract and not by the Royal Navy. Even very recently we had contracted boats with RN personnel on them helping supervise and analyze the data from the multi beam sonar systems.

If you can answer the above satisfactorily we can move on to answering why the UK supplies charts to all over the world and why you think we should give away that data which currently raises revenue for the UKHO?

I too would love free charts - but I can't justify why they should be free...

We can discuss the veracity of the data and the way that UKHO treats data vs the others as well if you want...
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sailorman said:
the point is
the American charts are free for citizens of the USA as they paid for the surveys , printing ect out of tax`s.
we pay twice
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I think you will find only electronic versions of US charts are free, if you want paper you pay for the paper and printing. In the UK all users pay with the taxpayer paying the costs for government users, much the same as is done for ordnance survey maps. If non government users didn't pay then the tax payer would have to pay even more for your and my charts, something many of the non sailing taxpayers might just object to.
 
So lets have UK ENC free as well, just like the Dutch charts, i downloaded yesterday


maxi77 said:
I think you will find only electronic versions of US charts are free, if you want paper you pay for the paper and printing. In the UK all users pay with the taxpayer paying the costs for government users, much the same as is done for ordnance survey maps. If non government users didn't pay then the tax payer would have to pay even more for your and my charts, something many of the non sailing taxpayers might just object to.
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The Nautical Almanac as an example-see link on origional thread.
Admiralty Edition UKHO-£40ish
Commercial Edition UK about £20 ish
Commercial Edition US about £15 ish
US Naval Observatory Edition about £8 ish!
All the same joint Admiralty/US Navy publication.
Charts of SE Pacific-NZ free from Linz NZs equivalent of Ordnance Survey and Admiralty Pubs. together.
Linz paper charts about £14
Remember these were all based on Admiralty Charts once upon a time.
 
maxi77 said:
I would love to have free charts too, but will the non sailing taxpayers like paying for your leisure activity.
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They should be free to anyone who uses our coast, not just leisure users.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
They should be free to anyone who uses our coast, not just leisure users.
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So you believe that our taxpayers should not only pay for your playtime but also subsidise commercial operations including those not under UK ownership. I for one fail to see where the value in this idea is to the UK taxpayer
 
Charts and business models

Check out this easy-to-use site available to those of us sailing in NZ; perfect for planning and reliable under-way. And totally free to the end-user. http://www.nzcharts.co.nz/
The business structure of UKHO is a consequence of political policies at the end of the 1980s (Thatcher government) and continued through the 90s, which led to the ideas for trading funds and other quasi-business models. The result is that the UK tax-payer is paying twice for this service, but make no mistake it remains the leading brand globally - every other competitor benchmarks against UKHO for quality, an echo of the reason Greenwich became the accepted 0 meridian (to the continuing dismay of our friends in France).
 
Greenwichman said:
Check out this easy-to-use site available to those of us sailing in NZ; perfect for planning and reliable under-way. And totally free to the end-user. http://www.nzcharts.co.nz/
The business structure of UKHO is a consequence of political policies at the end of the 1980s (Thatcher government) and continued through the 90s, which led to the ideas for trading funds and other quasi-business models. The result is that the UK tax-payer is paying twice for this service, but make no mistake it remains the leading brand globally - every other competitor benchmarks against UKHO for quality, an echo of the reason Greenwich became the accepted 0 meridian (to the continuing dismay of our friends in France).
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The premise that we in the UK pay twice for harts is false, if non government user did not pay then the shortfall in funding for Droggy would have to be met from public funds, which effectively mean that taxes ould have to rise to cover this shortfall or some thing else funded by government would go short of cash to pay for yachties charts
 
maxi77 said:
The premise that we in the UK pay twice for harts is false, if non government user did not pay then the shortfall in funding for Droggy would have to be met from public funds, which effectively mean that taxes ould have to rise to cover this shortfall or some thing else funded by government would go short of cash to pay for yachties charts
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Exactly the point I was trying to make but put rather better.
 
maxi77 said:
So you believe that our taxpayers should not only pay for your playtime but also subsidise commercial operations including those not under UK ownership. I for one fail to see where the value in this idea is to the UK taxpayer
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The value is in the fact that commercial operations use charts that deliver services to the UK. The idea of governments providing a service to attract enterprise, or assure standards, is nothing new or unusual. My position is that if the government has built up this asset over many, many years and is obliged to maintain aspects of that asset under agreements such as SOLAS Convention, then, the free issue of charts is not such a burden to the UK taxpayer. Those who play in the sea benefit by having free charts - they would not be the reason for a free service.
 
BlowingOldBoots said:
The value is in the fact that commercial operations use charts that deliver services to the UK. The idea of governments providing a service to attract enterprise, or assure standards, is nothing new or unusual. My position is that if the government has built up this asset over many, many years and is obliged to maintain aspects of that asset under agreements such as SOLAS Convention, then, the free issue of charts is not such a burden to the UK taxpayer. Those who play in the sea benefit by having free charts - they would not be the reason for a free service.
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The reality though is that marine trade is not a new enterprise that needs subsidy to encourage it's use, it is a very well established industry that is in most cases profitable, and these days mainly in the hands of non UK companies. I therefore fail to see the case for the UK tax payer to be obliged to subsidise these operations. The few marine operations which need financial support to benefit our society are subsidised in ways which do not require the issue of free charts.
 
Greenwichman said:
Check out this easy-to-use site available to those of us sailing in NZ; perfect for planning and reliable under-way. And totally free to the end-user. http://www.nzcharts.co.nz/
The business structure of UKHO is a consequence of political policies at the end of the 1980s (Thatcher government) and continued through the 90s, which led to the ideas for trading funds and other quasi-business models. The result is that the UK tax-payer is paying twice for this service, but make no mistake it remains the leading brand globally - every other competitor benchmarks against UKHO for quality, an echo of the reason Greenwich became the accepted 0 meridian (to the continuing dismay of our friends in France).
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If you go to www.linz.govt.nz
they have a full NZ chart catalogue of tiff files-once upon atime you had to calibrate them yourself but either you can buy complete with a reader on CD or there is someone who has calibrated the lot -free download-but no guarantees but seems to work ok.
 
nigelmercier said:
Still handy to be able to do this, what do people use now?
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I used a programme from Ozzy Explorer http://www.oziexplorer.com. The chart / map is uploaded and then iirc I clicked on corners / or features near corners and entered the UTM. Back then we had survey maps of the whole region which we got the UTMs from and it was sections of these charts that we scanned and uploaded. I used to do a lot of trail riding in the Middle East on a motorbike.
 
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