st599
Well-known member
No idea if they're stopping production, but for a British coded vessel, the MCA only recognises UKHO/Admiralty and Imray charts.
Imray to stop publishing paper charts
- Thread starter Habebty
- Start date
Sandy
Well-known member
I've seen the announcement, read the posts and seen an email from Imray to their resellers. What I have not seen, hence my question, is "We are ceasing printing on XX/XX/2025.
I know this is being pedantic, but as an end user I need to know:
a) what is their last chart correction run; and
b) what is their last print run
In order to purchase the very last version of the charts I require.
Sandy
Well-known member
In my working life very often resellers were advised about things before we made it public. Just to give them a heads up that things were changing.
I consider by the end of 2025 an immediate thing.
Sandy
Well-known member
Chart Agent says they are still available, but wonders if they will go the same way.
I shall need to cultivate my French contacts.
Marsali_1
Member
Maybe an email to Imray asking those questions would get a more accurate response than from folk on here?
dunedin
Well-known member
I think Imray have been fairly clear
Imray will continue to serve the maritime community via our renowned pilot books, cruising guides, and the popular ‘Explore with Imray’ digital product. These resources will remain a cornerstone for sailors and adventurers, offering reliable, verified information for both coastal and offshore navigation.
Chart production and support, including Imray Notices to Mariners, will continue through the 2025 season. Beyond that, no new editions will be published.
You won’t be able to get any single date for cessation of printing as they probably have hundreds of different charts, so the final 2025 edition of each chart may be published on different dates, and the print will be done in batches on different dates.
They have said corrections “through the 2025 season” - so one might guess they could stop anytime in Q4 2025. Asking for any more precision at this stage is perhaps unreasonable - and of little difference to most UK boaters.
lustyd
Well-known member
It wouldn't have changed anything at all in this instance, the comms were vague enough that resellers would still have had to refer people to Imray. I agree it would have been polite, but this is how business is done these days. Imagine if someone had leaked it before they announced to the public, that would have been much worse.
lustyd
Well-known member
Yes but that one guy who actually updates his charts might be interested
For the rest of us, chart updates are very much more a nice to have. One of the benefits of digital is they just update automagically so I can both ignore them and have up to date charts.
Sandy
Well-known member
I was just highlighting my questions and suspect that many others have exactly the same ones.
The communications should have been much, much clearer.
Marsali_1
Member
I think this thread is a bit like being in class in school. Teacher says something that I don't fully understand so I ask my peers what did the teacher just say? I get a variety of responses based on their interpretation of what they just heard. I'm still confused but ask my peers again and get the same varied responses. So I ask the teacher for an explanation. Teacher realizes that the initial announcement was unclear and explains more carefully what was meant. I benefit, the rest of the class benefits. Substitute Imray for teacher.
Sandy
Well-known member
Its an internet thread, at least it has not gone off topic after six posts.
phlip
New member
1) Does anyone know whether Imray plan to continue with their digital raster chart product? While their apps' user interfaces are enduringly clumsy, the charts are second to none. It'd be great if they licensed them for use in platforms other than their IOS and android apps (think plotters). I suspect that the silence from Imray on this is bad news, because presumably maintaining chart data is a big cost, and they're shutting down the paper revenue stream.
2) Has anyone explored the current Admiralty small craft arrangement? It seems that folios of A2 charts are still a thing in that they are geographically grouped by a four digit number, such as 5606 (Thames Estuary, Ramsgate to Canvey Island), which has 12 charts, but... you have to go to a reseller and buy the sheets individually for £15 each.
Admiralty says there's a discount of up to 75% depending on how many you buy (15 or more sheets gets you the big discount). Some of the resellers seem to be complying (like bookharbour.com), and some don't (such as stanfords, seachest.co.uk, who are seemingly happy to charge ~£250 for a largeish folio). With the discount, a full folio is similarly priced to days of yore, though it's a bit of a pain to have to find and select all the sheets.
The last time we bought an admiralty folio (8-10 years ago) the different colour layers had been printed misaligned by up to 5mm, with ink less waterproof than kids' felt tip - this precipitated us switching to Imray (the more sensible sheet sizes helped too). If you've bought from one of the partners (print on demand), what did you think of the quality? How is the visual clarity? How tough is the paper? Can you rub out pencil lines without removing the ink? Is it water resistant?
Yours,
Philip
2) Has anyone explored the current Admiralty small craft arrangement? It seems that folios of A2 charts are still a thing in that they are geographically grouped by a four digit number, such as 5606 (Thames Estuary, Ramsgate to Canvey Island), which has 12 charts, but... you have to go to a reseller and buy the sheets individually for £15 each.
Admiralty says there's a discount of up to 75% depending on how many you buy (15 or more sheets gets you the big discount). Some of the resellers seem to be complying (like bookharbour.com), and some don't (such as stanfords, seachest.co.uk, who are seemingly happy to charge ~£250 for a largeish folio). With the discount, a full folio is similarly priced to days of yore, though it's a bit of a pain to have to find and select all the sheets.
The last time we bought an admiralty folio (8-10 years ago) the different colour layers had been printed misaligned by up to 5mm, with ink less waterproof than kids' felt tip - this precipitated us switching to Imray (the more sensible sheet sizes helped too). If you've bought from one of the partners (print on demand), what did you think of the quality? How is the visual clarity? How tough is the paper? Can you rub out pencil lines without removing the ink? Is it water resistant?
Yours,
Philip
Buck Turgidson
Well-known member
I asked directly:
Good morning David,
Thank you for your enquiry about your Navigator subscription following news of changes to Imray paper charts. We will be in touch directly with you over the next couple of weeks to let you know how your subscriptions may change.
Many thanks and kind regards,
Michele Murray-Porteous
Digital Support Coordinator
Imray Laurie Norie & Wilson Ltd
Wych House
The Broadway
St Ives
PE27 5BT
Sandy
Well-known member
I have emailed salesorders@imray.com with some specific questions, not related to the above, and had a detailed response. I won't post them here as I don't have their permission to do so.
Irmay's Comms have been appalling, they look like they have been filtered by a legal department and couched in corporate face saving language leaving everybody scratching their heads asking what the f*k does that mean.
When the HO announced that they were withdrawing paper charts I took the decision to move to Imray, I love their wire bound folios, so can't comment.
tillergirl
Well-known member
Do they really do that? Do you actually check?
AntarcticPilot
Well-known member
Mine certainly don't - I have to check and pay for updates!
Marceline
Active member
as someone new(ish) to sailing with only local charts I guess I need to buy those now for the places I'm hoping to visit in the coming years (hoping to do around UK and Ireland, Nordic countries/northern Europe, western Med, Portugal, northern Spain / France etc, and if somehow still healthy enough cross Atlantic - I guess that's an awful lot of charts
I really like paper charts and Imray in particular and had hoped to progress from my RYA Day Skipper Theory up to the Ocean/Celestial Nav in a couple of years - we use Savvy Navvy and likely step up to an electronic chartplotter but having the paper ones' seems a good safe fallback if those systems fail
should I order a lot of these now ?
I really like paper charts and Imray in particular and had hoped to progress from my RYA Day Skipper Theory up to the Ocean/Celestial Nav in a couple of years - we use Savvy Navvy and likely step up to an electronic chartplotter but having the paper ones' seems a good safe fallback if those systems fail
should I order a lot of these now ?
tillergirl
Well-known member
Oh, yes we have to pay. But the updates are not good. I have had an admission and apology from one Echart maker and I am monitoring a second.
requiem
Active member
In my experience it depends on the app (and the chart provider). With one it checks regularly in the background and I'll get a pop-up telling me things like "61 charts (19.2MB) are available for download from xxxxxxx. Press Update to begin".
With another I need to trigger the check manually, but it knows what I have and once the check is triggered it's a one-click download. Most apps do seem to have some provision for indicating when updates are available. I'm not fond of updates that install on their own, but I do want automated checking for availability.
Some chart providers issue updates fortnightly, others quarterly, etc, but at least for the subscription period the updates should be free.
tillergirl
Well-known member
I think I need to be clear - I wasn't clear. I wasn't talking about whether there are updates or not. That is very simple. What is important is the quality of the updates: are they correct? Are they up-to-date?