Ocean Passages for the World

[Mirelle]

Deeply true.

The poor old UKHO is meant to be a "trading fund" and to wash its face financially.

It has just had a very nasty shock - only being a dozy outfit it has not quite realised how nasty the shock is, yet.

C-Map have been bought by Boeing, who already own the outfit that makes and sells the world's aviation charts.

"We welcome competition", their press release said.

Oh, no they won't. Not for long.

HUGE problem for them.

 

[milltech]

[ QUOTE ]
C-Map have been bought by Boeing, who already own the outfit that makes and sells the world's aviation charts.


[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't know that, but I do know that Boeing subsidiary Jeppessen owns Nobeltec the US No. 1 marine navigation software provider. Bolt them to C-Map and the potential in our market becomes obvious. I sold AIS engines to Nobeltec which was "a nice little earner" since they couldn't get them from Nasa due to a US distribution deal Nasa already had in place. (oops, maybe I shouldn't have said I was doing that - sorry Nasa, perhaps I wasn't selling quite so many here in UK as I pretended, ummm).

 

[Ships_Cat]

Jeppessen owns Nobeltec the US No. 1 marine navigation software provider

And in case not clear to some it is Jeppeson that is the Boeing subsidiary that does the aeronautical charts (I wonder how easy it will be for them to knock the "aero" off to get "nautical" /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif). They also do other things such as Airport Directories and weather.

Will certainly be interesting to see how it develops in marine - they openly say they intend developing other markets such as marine.

John

 

[Sea Devil]

It seems to me that the charts used by the average yacht, are of far too high quality with detail that is excessive.

Admiralty charts are designed to keep deep draft merchant and military shipping safe - I think in the North Sea some tankers are running around with only a couple of meters under their hull or less. Of course the detail and regular updating for ships of this kind is vital.

For the average yacht, you simply want to know where the land is and where the rocks ares. In the shallows what the drying height is and that's about it. None of the afore mentioned change significantly in decades.

Most small boat navigators use yacht type pilot books to get in and out of port and anchorages. What has happened is that in the defense of a copyright that is far out of the 50 year limit the BA claim that the changes made to charts that have existed since the Beagle make them 'new'. Very little about BA charts makes them yacht friendly. The size is too big for the average chart table. They are made from a paper so thick the weight of even 10-20 of them is significant.

I have always been very happy using photocopied out of date versions of mainly US charts reduced to 2/3rds size... along with pilot books and the Russian version of Cmap.

Michael

 

[wildmail]

Thanks Stingo! - admitted that we are newbies, we are greatful for all your support. We have decided on leaving firs tof december 2007, crusing the Caribean a month and then headding towards Australia.

Our only concern is the Marquesas, where we know the seson for tropical storms ends around mid march - april. But the sailing towards these islands are as we know it, not affected by storms, which is why we are wondering if it is possible to sail from Galapagos in the start of march?

Kind Regards Wildmail

 

[Sea Devil]

Lots of boats do it at that time... March..

May I suggest you invest around £20 plus postage in a ATLAS OF PILOT CHARTS - South Pacific Ocean NVpub107 -- you can get them from Tides End - Bellingham Charts in the US..

They have little boxes showing the tracks of hurricanes for each month. I use them for planning..

It is better to try to make Panama before the 'Christmas' winds get going... The Passage from the ABC's or from N Caribbean can be really lumpy - if you leave it til they are too well established.

It will take a couple of weeks in Panama to get organised - measured and through the canal... There is no wind towards the Galapagos so that's a couple of weeks plus - then there are the 3 anchorages to visit... must see... So that's another couple of weeks at least... Passage to Marquesas is around 3-4 weeks - see pilot charts for route... Marquesas to Tuamotu's 400 odd - then a day and a night to Tahiti roughly - so the hurricane season is all in your favour... But for planning the pilot charts are the way to go..

Michael

 

[wildmail]

Thank you very much for your valuable inputs MichaelE. We will definitely go and buy those Pilot Charts.

Thank you, and all the best


- Rasmus