Imray to stop publishing paper charts

dunedin said:
... Hence the gap that needs to be filled by private surveys - which don’t make it onto official charts.
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Not sure what you mean by that statement. When I correct the paper charts from UK Hydrographic office, private surveys e.g. some Antares charts data which I would consider a "private" survey, gets quoted as a source when correcting paper charts. Similarly commercial surveys e.g. for CalMac, gets included as well. Perhaps I am misunderstand the context.
 
re: #152 (What's happening with Imray's digital raster product, and how are things going with the new Admiralty small craft "folio" product?).

IMRAY
In a brief phone conversation with Imray sales person earlier this month (broken website while buying some charts), it seemed that they may be unwilling to share a plan for the digital charts because someone might still buy the business: it stands to reason - why damage a business that might still have value. In the absence of the chart business being bought, I cannot see how the digital charts survive - keeping the database up-to-date has to be a major cost, and you'd be trying to pay for it with only one of the revenue streams.

ADMIRALTY
I got into a conversation with Stanfords (being a somewhat loyal customer of theirs for land stuff and weird marine things).
Q: why don't they honour the bulk discount scheme the admiralty have set out?
A: Ah - you should talk to our partner business down on the south coast: bookharbour.com...
...so I did, and this is what I found:
i) They do honour the discount scheme on their website
ii) If you find it annoying to manually select the right sheets online, they're happy to do it over the phone instead ("gimme all of 5606 please"), and told me that they plan to improve their web store to make this easier online as well.
iii) The base price has gone up from £15 to £16.20 per sheet (this seems coordinated across all sellers, although the admiralty site has not been updated).
iv) No-one's complained about papier mache or running ink (though I suspect they're less robust than Imray's)
v) They don't include the pvc wallets any more, with the justification that the sheets are slightly too big (why not get bigger wallets?). Score one for the environment.

5-9 charts receive 35% discount
10-14 charts receive 65% discount
15+ charts receive 75% discount
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£16.20 (base price per sheet) x15 (charts per pack) x 0.75 (discount) = £60.75, so not materially different from what Imray packs costs. Yeah - I know that some have less than 15 charts in them, but against that I usually do my bulk chart buying once per year, and typically more than one pack needs replacing.

I feel somewhat reassured - right now all of our most used Imray stuff is up-to-date, but in a year from now it seems likely that they'll all be stale (due to stoppage of the Imray correction pipeline).
 
phlip said:
I feel somewhat reassured - right now all of our most used Imray stuff is up-to-date, but in a year from now it seems likely that they'll all be stale (due to stoppage of the Imray correction pipeline).
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Wouldn't be too reassured - the Print on Demand service had an announced closure date but it has been delayed awaiting a sensible small chart solution for digital navigation (as plotters are "Not for Navigation")
 
st599 said:
Wouldn't be too reassured - the Print on Demand service had an announced closure date but it has been delayed awaiting a sensible small chart solution for digital navigation (as plotters are "Not for Navigation")
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Completely agree - my level of reassurance is only relative to the manifest awfulness of Admiralty POD about 10 years ago.
Another thing that I wasn't sure about: now we know "they" can be forced to blink in the face of all of the chart carrying, coded small vessels being rendered non-compliant at such short notice.

It's hard to see an electronic specification being agreed and implementations being on the market before the end of the decade.
ECDIS for ships without paper charts includes features like:
1) an amount of protection from lightning/EMPs (optical isolation).
2) redundant power sources.
3) "proven" software.

A little anecdote on the subject of getting new tech up-and-running in a hurry: the Jubilee Line Extension tube project realised less than 18 months from opening that they weren't going to be able to prove their moving block software in time (as the contract and the railway inspectorate demanded). Amazingly they managed to design, tender and deliver a traditional fixed block system in the remaining time (and then went on to upgrade to moving block progressively in following years). For avoidance of doubt, fixed block signalling is analogous to paper charts - I think the Admiralty's U-turn was impressively speedy, making me wonder how much of a heads-up they got from Imray.

While it's conceivable that the standards of software proof for railways are higher than what's been required for ship navigation systems, the complexity of the railway problem is also much lower: the signalling system is modelling what is essentially a one dimensional dynamic system, where all the other participants are using the same software, or at least software you have control over. Perhaps aviation (where the problem space is arguably more complex than on the water) is more representative? Having some idea of the costs involved in equipping a light commercial aircraft to fly legally in instrument conditions, I shall be interested to see how the economics for small commercial vessel operators changes immediately after paper charts end.

Any thoughts/speculation on what is heading our (non commercial) way?
 
Lucky Duck said:
Has it been established if Imray plan a final set of 2025 editions, when I last looked most were 2023 or 2024.
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Why would they? (unless they'd already made the investment on a given chart/pack) - they've only got until the end of the year to harvest any return - even with a flurry of "FOMO" buying, that's unlikely to be as much moolah as a normal 3-5 year cycle, which seems not to be viable, or we wouldn't be here. If it were me, and shutting down was inevitable but I were intent on honouring a commitment to support users to the end of 2025, I'd simply keep issuing ILNW corrections for the existing editions. I am not suggesting that no new charts are in the pipeline, but I doubt that they'll be carpeting us with 2025 editions. The chart explorer tool on their website is already well populated with broken links - I suspect the shut-down of various processes has already started.

In case you're wondering if I am throwing shade at Imray, I have only sympathy for their position - if anyone should perhaps be feeling responsible then it's us: the vast majority of recreational sailors (including folks who don't actually have sails) do not carry the up-to-date charts they know deep down they should be carrying. If we'd all done the "right thing" (cue outrage from the "I don't need up-to-date charts or some po-faced ninny telling me what I should have done" brigade), Imray's chart business might be considerably healthier, and maybe be able to operate at a lower price point. In anticipation of ECDIS-like gear in our future, I am nervous that the three big recreational plotter manufacturers (Navico, Garmin and Raymarine) each own their own chart pipeline, and appear to be moving to disadvantage the charts of their competitors - vertical integration rather than a standards based approach seems bad for us as vessel operators.

n.b: Imray's announcement includes "Chart production and support, including Imray Notices to Mariners, will continue through the 2025 season. Beyond that, no new editions will be published."

To me, "2025 season" is a moveable feast. The bit about no new editions is like "up to 500Mbit/s" in an ISP advert: not super reassuring on what will happen before the unspecified cut-off date.
 
I think a far more likely outcome is the realisation and acceptance that charts are not as necessary for most boats as we’ve been saying. Almost all leisure boats operate in an area well known to the owner, who will never look at the chart. A large portion of small commercial vessels do the exact same route day in day out. It’s insane that we require all of them to carry not only a full set of charts but to replace them regularly and spend time updating them.
I wonder if the Cowes floating bridge is required to keep charts?
 
phlip said:
n.b: Imray's announcement includes "Chart production and support, including Imray Notices to Mariners, will continue through the 2025 season. Beyond that, no new editions will be published."

To me, "2025 season" is a moveable feast. The bit about no new editions is like "up to 500Mbit/s" in an ISP advert: not super reassuring on what will happen before the unspecified cut-off date.
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Imray's communication to its customers has been rubbish. Full of wishy, washy platitudes.

I have heard it said that they will continue printing charts until they run out of paper.

Like many I have been stocking up on folios and frequenting Marine Bazar in Plymouth, they have a pile of old charts, and buying ones that will be use full in the future and have invested in a Visit My Harbour tablet with HO charts on it.
 
Sandy said:
Imray's communication to its customers has been rubbish. Full of wishy, washy platitudes.

I have heard it said that they will continue printing charts until they run out of paper.

Like many I have been stocking up on folios and frequenting Marine Bazar in Plymouth, they have a pile of old charts, and buying ones that will be use full in the future and have invested in a Visit My Harbour tablet with HO charts on it.
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The latest set of corrections are dated 31 December 2024 so possibly they are the last set. With some charts they are quite extensive so a final reprint incorporating them would be helpful if seemingly unlikely.
 
Martin_J said:
Heard the news on Facebook...

Imray and Freytag & Berndt in partnership...

And now heard at the Cruising Association...

Cruising Association welcomes Imray and freytag & berndt partnership to secure the future of paper charts | CA
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I wish Imray well with this new JV initiative. But without more information it is difficult to see how this could fundamentally transform the commercial viability of paper charts, other than in the short term.
Although personally I like and use paper charts, I like most on here are very much older generation. it would be interesting to see the 10 year trends in paper chart sales - which would have been in front of mind when Imray (presumably very reluctantly) made their initial announcement of withdrawing paper (and raster) charts. So not sure what in the fundamentals this changes?
But I hope I am wrong and that this is a spectacular success.
 
dunedin said:
see how this could fundamentally transform the commercial viability of paper charts
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Well he referred to them as maps for a start so that may help. More boaters use that term from what I can see these days so perhaps they’ll be easier to find 🤣
 
dunedin said:
Although personally I like and use paper charts, I like most on here are very much older generation. it would be interesting to see the 10 year trends in paper chart sales - which would have been in front of mind when Imray (presumably very reluctantly) made their initial announcement of withdrawing paper (and raster) charts.
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This is US-based, but may give you an idea of the trend.
(source: THE END OF TRADITIONAL PAPER CHARTS: THE FINAL TRANSITION TO ELECTRONIC NAVIGATIONAL CHARTS - IHR)
1744398919744.png

Here is information collected from IMO member states from 2008-2018:
(source: https://iho.int/uploads/user/Servic...e Paper Nautical Chart Final Report FINAL.pdf)
1744399196630.png
 
Sandy said:
Imray's communication to its customers has been rubbish. Full of wishy, washy platitudes.

I have heard it said that they will continue printing charts until they run out of paper.

Like many I have been stocking up on folios and frequenting Marine Bazar in Plymouth, they have a pile of old charts, and buying ones that will be use full in the future and have invested in a Visit My Harbour tablet with HO charts on it.
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They told their customers that they were looking for a buyer for their business and that they were going to stop producing charts. Why is that wishy washy or a platitude?
 
lustyd said:
Well he referred to them as maps for a start so that may help. More boaters use that term from what I can see these days so perhaps they’ll be easier to find 🤣
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Well that’s probably because Freytag and Berndt are a map company, and he is talking about the chart data literally filling a gap on their maps. We sailors often ask for charts that include land data too.
 
requiem said:
This is US-based, but may give you an idea of the trend.
(source: THE END OF TRADITIONAL PAPER CHARTS: THE FINAL TRANSITION TO ELECTRONIC NAVIGATIONAL CHARTS - IHR)
View attachment 191928

Here is information collected from IMO member states from 2008-2018:
(source: https://iho.int/uploads/user/Services and Standards/HSSC/HSSC12/2020-08-28 Future of the Paper Nautical Chart Final Report FINAL.pdf)
View attachment 191929
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These graphs seems to relate to official charts which are made for ships so we don’t know that they are representative of yachting too. The latest MCA regs don’t seem to take into account that most yachtsmen wouldn’t be able to afford the approved systems that run ENCs.
 
Jon Palm said:
These graphs seems to relate to official charts which are made for ships so we don’t know that they are representative of yachting too. The latest MCA regs don’t seem to take into account that most yachtsmen wouldn’t be able to afford the approved systems that run ENCs.
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That's a good point. With that in mind one two caveats may be added:

1. The ENC sales likely aren't representative of the yachting side (even though OpenCPN can use them).
2. The NOAA figures would include yachting, since unlike the UK the US doesn't really have the concept of separate leisure charts.
 
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