News, news - the Buxey Beacon has been moved

[tillergirl]

Another classic blunder by Navionics. And I also admit a collosal blunder by me - I bought a Navionics card last week! Me, yes. I'm sorry.

Can I list the current errors with last week's chart or app:

The Buxey Beacon has been moved by someone to the position of the current location of the Ray North yellow special buoy. Somebody yesterday has added the Ray North in the right position - that's well done. I think that might be the yacht that went round the buoy yesterday. Perhaps that yacht has the app.
The Ray Sand is STILL shown in the old position
The Ray Middle red and white has been permanently removed by the CHA but Navionics show the red and white buoy in the current position of the Ray Sand - which is yellow
A user has added another position of the Ray Middle sort of west of where the Ray Sand is currently location.
A user has added a North cardinal beacon! adjacent to the Sunken Buxey North Cardinal buoy
The Ray North red and white buoy is still shown in its old position.
The contours - oh dear. I have a old Navionics card from 2019 as well - Yes I admit it but it is on my Humminbird and all I need on that is a general approximation. Whoops, not even a general approximation in 2019 and whoops todays contours have been changed which I reckon is back to 2010! I admit I am guessing but I first drew the Ray Sand in 2011 and what is today on Navionics is certainly antient.

P1090744 by Roger Gaspar, on Flickr

I grabbed my camera yesterday and you can see 'Osprey's' (very sensible track). She went round the Ray North buoy so you can see Navionics' blunder before she headed for the 1 degree meridian. See the positons shown of the red and white buoys which don't exist! Note the collosal blunder of the contours supposely drying north of the Buxey Beacon! That is quite wrong.

I admit my tracks are a little odd on the chart - I was just trying to answer the question whether there are just peaks rather than a ridge (there is a 'ridge')

Can I suggest you ignore Navionics. Perhaps someone will do it properly. In the meantime can suggest you download the CTTE chartlet - its FREE. V2 is currently shown but a V3 will be added later this afternoon.

V3 now added: Downloads

 

[Plum]

Another classic blunder by Navionics. And I also admit a collosal blunder by me - I bought a Navionics card last week! Me, yes. I'm sorry.

Can I list the current errors with last week's chart or app:

The Buxey Beacon has been moved by someone to the position of the current location of the Ray North yellow special buoy. Somebody yesterday has added the Ray North in the right position - that's well done. I think that might be the yacht that went round the buoy yesterday. Perhaps that yacht has the app.
The Ray Sand is STILL shown in the old position
The Ray Middle red and white has been permanently removed by the CHA but Navionics show the red and white buoy in the current position of the Ray Sand - which is yellow
A user has added another position of the Ray Middle sort of west of where the Ray Sand is currently location.
A user has added a North cardinal beacon! adjacent to the Sunken Buxey North Cardinal buoy
The Ray North red and white buoy is still shown in its old position.
The contours - oh dear. I have a old Navionics card from 2019 as well - Yes I admit it but it is on my Humminbird and all I need on that is a general approximation. Whoops, not even a general approximation in 2019 and whoops todays contours have been changed which I reckon is back to 2010! I admit I am guessing but I first drew the Ray Sand in 2011 and what is today on Navionics is certainly antient.

P1090744 by Roger Gaspar, on Flickr

I grabbed my camera yesterday and you can see 'Osprey's' (very sensible track). She went round the Ray North buoy so you can see Navionics' blunder before she headed for the 1 degree meridian. See the positons shown of the red and white buoys which don't exist! Note the collosal blunder of the contours supposely drying north of the Buxey Beacon! That is quite wrong.

I admit my tracks are a little odd on the chart - I was just trying to answer the question whether there are just peaks rather than a ridge (there is a 'ridge')

Can I suggest you ignore Navionics. Perhaps someone will do it properly. In the meantime can suggest you download the CTTE chartlet - its FREE. V2 is currently shown but a V3 will be added later this afternoon.

V3 now added: Downloads

Very interesting, even more glad I don't use Navionics.

 

[Jon4468]

I use Navionics and Garmin charts, that I believe are navioncs .
I kicked a bit of sand up a couple of weeks ago when cutting the south east corner of the barrow. It was dead calm and we were fishing in the shallow water so it wasn’t a surprise. Totally different shape on the two charts.

 

[Cantata]

I'm staggered at what TG has told us.
I understoood that Navionics users can submit changes. I did not appreciate that they are not checked. That is just pretty dreadful, really.
How could anyone ever trust them.

 

[Plum]

I'm staggered at what TG has told us.
I understoood that Navionics users can submit changes. I did not appreciate that they are not checked. That is just pretty dreadful, really.
How could anyone ever trust them.

you can look at their charts on their website, I assume so you can study before buying them, and if you look at the raysand here you will see errors. If you zoom in additional buoys appear.
Navionics ChartViewer

 

[MikeBz]

This is what my (up to date as of 27 Sep ‘23) Navionics shows for the contours around the Buxey Beacon. It does have the Ray Sand N and Ray Sand buoys way too far east [edit - oops, I mean west!!!).

 

[MikeBz]

Ha! Well I spoke too soon. Just downloaded another 1 Gb of updates and now the beacon is on that finger of sand as shown on TG’s screenshot.

You can choose whether or not to show Community Edits (user-added markers), when shown they are distinguished by a white cross on a green circle. Obviously one would be mad to treat any user-added markers as gospel in a safety related situation. The same goes for SonarChart contours for which data is collected from people’s boats, but I do find the latter correlates quite well in many of our favourite out-of-the-way anchorages. There’s no way Navionics could be expected to verify every piece of user added data, and it’s up to us whether we view it or take any notice of it.

From their website:

LEAVE YOUR MARK!​

Become an author by adding any information you believe might be of interest to you and other boaters simply by registering from the app and then selecting the icon that represents the object you want to insert (or, you can ask Navionics to modify the official data).

SELF-MONITORED​

Any user can comment, rate, modify or delete Community Edits. Community Edits are a separate layer from official data and can be switched on and off.

 

[snowbird30ds]

I have navionics on a tablet and funnily enough always refer to CTTE and ECP before actually plotting a route, a very good move it would seem.

 

[tillergirl]

You just saved me Mike, writing again! And it needs to get zoomed in. That little drying patch bottom left - it doesn't exist. Navionics have a similar drying in the SW Sunk swatch - which doesn't exist. It is bad enough that they miss something but to invent something that doesn't exist is a bit naff.

If we have a plotter, we have to have a chart. I - I am not sure how I ever got into this - I have C-Map on the Onwa (Glady's preference but that is the presentation not an argument that it is more accurate and now I have a Navionics card for the Onwa - a daft idea [please don't tell SWMBO] - I have also a 2019 Navionics card on the Humminbird (which is a side scan model with plotter functionality [rather than a plotter with fish finder if you follow me]) and I have Imray on the laptop. I prefer the Imray. I admit I am biased but Imray monitor local NtM such as the Crouch Harbour Authority and act on them - and do accept our data as do the UKHO.

I think Snowbird's comment is particularly relevant. If we have a plotter we have to have an digital chart. Whoever makes chart are dependent upon the UKHO. If I send in data to the UKHO they QA it and consider it and it either gets ignored (for valid reasons) for gets in the queue for action - bear in mind that are doing stuff round the world. And if the UKHO act, then the third party people then action. And they have to make decisions about what to include or what to ignore. Again they are all making charts around the world. So there is delay (I can cite a particular delay by Navionics after a NtM - I don't argue about the delay - I am sure its caused by logistics - but the I am unhappy by the way they implemented it). What I think is dangerous is the attitude that today's product is 'up to date' because its an app and app are up to date and are the cutting edge. No they are not. They are the best each can produce and we need to use each product in the knowledge that it is fallible - if no other reason that tomorrow might be different. There are a number of example in our area which could argue that it might be handy if someone understood what a topmark means, that knowing what the height of tide is at the moment, they didn't leave their screen at 1nm zoom rather than zooming in to 0.3nm, even on an UKHO chart it says there is 3.7m at chart datum - but have you looked at the Source Data? If you did you would see the most recent survey was 7 years earlier in a volatile area. What is critical is that one shouldn't take a boat out for the first time into open water without 'understanding' rather than just thinking they can follow a picture on a phone or tablet.

 

[MikeBz]

I should stress that by ‘up to date as of 27 Sep’ I meant up to date with the latest state of Navionics’ published charts, not necessarily with reality!

 

[ex-Gladys]

One needs to be aware of the survey info on which any chart is based. So there was an MAIB report on a grounding in Orkney in 2015, where the survey was done in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign by lead line and missed a rock spike...
Link

ALso one of the Clipper Venture vessels went aground in the Pacific by religiously following the plotter which was based on a survey by one James Cook...

 

[oldgit]

One needs to be aware of the survey info on which any chart is based. So there was an MAIB report on a grounding in Orkney in 2015, where the survey was done in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign by lead line and missed a rock spike...
Link

ALso one of the Clipper Venture vessels went aground in the Pacific by religiously following the plotter which was based on a survey by one James Cook...

the ink must have faded a bit by now ?

 

[ex-Gladys]

the ink must have faded a bit by now ?

Both were modern reprints with the data recorded on the chart. The MCA did a survey after the Orkney incident... Not using a lead line and pulling boat...

 

[RivalRedwing]

Is C-Map any better?

 

[tillergirl]

Interesting question! In the sense that C-Map hasn't meddled we could say it is better: the Buxey Beacon is in the right position and the three old Ray Sand buoys are the two red and white and the yellow buoys in their 2022 position.

The two 'electric' chart makers rely on the UKHO for updates. The CHA has issued a local notice notifying us of the changes - two yellow, one on the north and the round one down by the Crouch. Of course the Beacon remains where it has been. I assume the CHA notified the UKHO but the UKHO has not issued a notice. It is a shame I can't see on the Admiralty system but of course the Admiralty treats local buoys differently. For example even if you saw Mersea Quarters at 1:25,000 you wouldn't see the buoys, just 'Buoyed Channel (seasonal)'. So not expecting a notice of the Ray Sands isn't 'unexpected'. And so C-Map would not be alerted.

But Navionics have been alerted. There is one user who has wrongly marked the positions of the two yellows and another - I guess that might be Osprey as another user had marked the position of the RayNorth correctly on Saturday evening (hence it was Osprey that I saw 'go round' the RayNorth on Saturday afternoon).

The trouble is 'which user has marked them correctly?'. We know just because I was there at the time and could see today's Navionics was wrong. The bizarre action is the Navionics moving the Buxey Beacon and moving the red and whitle RayMiddle to the positin of the yellow Ray Sand. Only Navionics can move those icons so it is pretty reasonable to assume Navionics knew of the CHA changes. Why didn't them do them properly when fiddling.

I do note that the Admiralty do note the Ray Sand buoy on Chart 1975 (Thames Estuary - Northern Part 1:50,000) and we can assume that chart 3750 which is the 1:25,000 scale of the Crouch would show the Ray Sand - and indeed may have shown the red and whites in the past. So at least the Admiralty will have noted the CHA notice (Imray do, the same day) and given that the Admiralty has issued two Temporary notices this year (one the RayNorth being off station and a separate notice about two Swallowtail yellows being off station (for maintenance), I reckon the Admiralty might issue a notice about the RaySand......