Pilot books... good for propping up wonky tables

Nostrodamus

Nostrodamus

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www.cygnus3.com
Pilot books cost a small fortune and occasionally a page may be good.
Then again a lot of the places named may have been written by the local goat herder.
I wonder if anyone has visited the places they show. Marked anchorages have been taken over by something else, some places mention marinas being built but they have been in existence for years.
Other places are hardly mentioned yet they are some of the best places to go on the coast.
Why is a latest publication so out of date all the time.
 
Nostrodamus said:
Pilot books cost a small fortune and occasionally a page may be good.
Then again a lot of the places named may have been written by the local goat herder.
I wonder if anyone has visited the places they show. Marked anchorages have been taken over by something else, some places mention marinas being built but they have been in existence for years.
Other places are hardly mentioned yet they are some of the best places to go on the coast.
Why is a latest publication so out of date all the time.
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It ia a sad fact of life that most reference books are out of date before they are printed. Pilot books are a prime candidate for this unfortunate state.
 
Nostrodamus said:
Pilot books cost a small fortune and occasionally a page may be good.
Then again a lot of the places named may have been written by the local goat herder.
I wonder if anyone has visited the places they show. Marked anchorages have been taken over by something else, some places mention marinas being built but they have been in existence for years.
Other places are hardly mentioned yet they are some of the best places to go on the coast.
Why is a latest publication so out of date all the time.
Click to expand...

Splendid opportunity for you to put things right and produce your own (up to date) version!
 
Normal state of affairs. I had a brief conversation with someone who'd crossed from France and was getting ready to leave Ria de Arousa today. He said that the new pilot books he'd bought were a waste of time and wrong for everywhere he'd stopped. He told me that the marina in Muros was free again, but no water or electricity. They just had power and water when I visited last year and were charging for pontoon use. I'll need to check that out again but I suppose the economic climate isn't an aid to stability.

I mentioned that I'd anchored in front of the local GADIS to make shopping easier and he pointed out that it had just closed. The sign was taken down a couple of hours later. We had a closer look at the building and decided that they might just be renovating it. Very unlikely a pilot book would keep pace as local businesses come and go, but we have the internet for that stuff. You'd think they'd get rocks in the right place though. Nope. I anchored in the Ria de Aldan and there were a couple of lethal rocks awash at half tide in the anchorage. Nothing in the pilot's plan but both clearly shown on my chart.

Have pilot books on board, but avoid reliance on a single source of data if possible (of course people do crib the same incorrect data and you still run into problems anyway :D).
 
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nigelmercier said:
This is something that Imray take very seriously, and everyone should send in any changes we find.
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I wonder whether it's partly down to the author: There are 8 pages of supplements to the two year old greek waters pilot, yet a measly half page for the 4 year old channel pilot which I'm sure we all have our favourite mistakes in
 
I think Nostro et al are being overly-critical and generalising - based on tickling around the Med, where the main issue seems to be whether some marina or bar might or might not have gone belly-up since the last edition of the Pilot/Guide/Companion was published.

Imagine, by way of contrast, someone visiting a cruising area for the first time, say with huge tides and strewn with rocks like the Channel Islands and adjacent French coast, without any pilot book information whatsoever... just a set of charts and a tidal-stream atlas?

I'm planning on doing just that this summer, and am finding Peter Cumberlidge's North Brittany and Channel Islands Cruising Companion absolute gold-dust.

I did find one mistake however: the wrong caption was applied to a photograph of Beaucette Marina!!!!! Looks like I'll have to chuck the whole crappy volume away.
 
There are many places within the books that make me wonder if anyone has ever been there or they have just been written about from photos.
We have spent a while coming up from Cabo de Gata to Cartagena.
The coastline along here is stunning and well worth spending time exploring yet the pilot book just gives a few lines to a few anchorages. A lot of the information is wrong or out of date. There a numerous anchorages everywhere.
We found this area some of the best in Spain. Still Spanish, no real developments and absolutely beautiful. A lot of the boats we spoke to came strait across from the Cabo to Cartegena because they say the books didn't show a lot of places to go. If anyone else comes this way spend some days along the coast. It is beautiful.
 
Babylon,
You are probably right and I am being overly critical. I always buy a pilot book for the area I am cruising but the serious point I am making is that they are only a guide and the information in them is often well out of date. I don't know where they get their information but sometimes it looks like places have probably been written about without anyone ever visiting there. On the whole tough they are an excellent GUIDE.
 
Mistroma said:
Normal state of affairs. I had a brief conversation with someone who'd crossed from France and was getting ready to leave Ria de Arousa today. He said that the new pilot books he'd bought were a waste of time and wrong for everywhere he'd stopped. He told me that the marina in Muros was free again, but no water or electricity. They just had power and water when I visited last year and were charging for pontoon use. I'll need to check that out again but I suppose the economic climate isn't an aid to stability.

I mentioned that I'd anchored in front of the local GADIS to make shopping easier and he pointed out that it had just closed. The sign was taken down a couple of hours later. We had a closer look at the building and decided that they might just be renovating it. Very unlikely a pilot book would keep pace as local businesses come and go, but we have the internet for that stuff. You'd think they'd get rocks in the right place though. Nope. I anchored in the Ria de Aldan and there were a couple of lethal rocks awash at half tide in the anchorage. Nothing in the pilot's plan but both clearly shown on my chart.

Have pilot books on board, but avoid reliance on a single source of data if possible (of course people do crib the same incorrect data and you still run into problems anyway :D).
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used as a guide like lonely planet not as a chart, pilot books are generally good but always out of date, however most can be updated by downloading updates from websites.
nothing ever stays the same, but pilot books do give you a clue and using then in conjunction with Almanacs and charts is good.
 
Like many things, the Germans do it better. Until very recently, for a modest sum I subscribed to the Nautik-Verlag Hafenhandbuck Mittelmeer and received an annual update for their A5-sized loose-leaf binder books for the Adriatic Sea.
http://nautik-verlag.de/shop2012/index.php?cat=c6_Hafenhandbuecher-Hafenhandbuecher-6.html#6

It was my wife's willing task (she's a tidy sort of person) to spend an hour or two of our first days on board each year to update the three volumes we have.

All subscribers keep the publishers updated on what they find during their cruising that differs from the published pages plus any extra input thought relevant. I think they need corroborating inputs before publishing the new pages for distribution.

Because of the amateur contributions some of the photographs and chart sketches are not of top quality but the information can be invaluable. Highly recommended for any German-speakers.

12_0.jpg
 
Nostrodamus said:
We have spent a while coming up from Cabo de Gata to Cartagena.
The coastline along here is stunning and well worth spending time exploring yet the pilot book just gives a few lines to a few anchorages. A lot of the information is wrong or out of date. There a numerous anchorages everywhere.
Click to expand...

I quite agree that much of the Costa Blanca, particularly the western half, is beautiful and grand (even, surprisingly, within just a few miles of the grotesqueness of Benedorm). A far cry from the bloody awful Costa del Sol. The focus of the pilot, like so many these days, tends towards marinas rather than anchorages.
Personally I'm happy that this neglects many potential anchorages, since I'm more than happy to find them myself and it tends to keep some of them less well trodden. Identifying somewhere suitable to drop a hook ain't that hard.
 
macd said:
I quite agree that much of the Costa Blanca, particularly the western half, is beautiful and grand (even, surprisingly, within just a few miles of the grotesqueness of Benedorm). A far cry from the bloody awful Costa del Sol. The focus of the pilot, like so many these days, tends towards marinas rather than anchorages.
Personally I'm happy that this neglects many potential anchorages, since I'm more than happy to find them myself and it tends to keep some of them less well trodden. Identifying somewhere suitable to drop a hook ain't that hard.
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Totally agree and on that bit of coast there may be next to no marinas but there are a thousand wonderful places to anchor and find shelter from most directions.
 
Tony Cross said:
Would this be a good time to mention (again) my own pilot for Crete? 122 full-colour pages brimming with information, some of which might even be accurate. Regularly updated it's a ripping yarn, though the plot's a bit dry. Get it now absolutely free from http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25934908/Crete%20Pilot.pdf
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Good link Tony especially if it is free.
I would also add that this is one area the "CA" has an advantage. Places are updated by members regularly with good information which is current and by people who have actually been there.
 
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