so how often do you update your electronic charts?

[AntarcticPilot]

Various sources, mostly correlated by the UK Hydrographic Office (part of the Navy) who the other publishers like Imray and Navionics buy the data from (though it's possible they also take updates from other sources as well).

The Royal Navy do still have an in-house surveying function, though I don't know how much of the UKHO input comes from them any more versus commercial survey contracts.

Harbour authorities sometimes commission their own surveys of their approaches, and hopefully pass the data on. Mostly commercial ports, but even Chichester Harbour does regular surveys of the Bar and entrance channel - here's their latest: http://www.conservancy.co.uk/assets...hichester_bar_survey_June_2018-OEqotiUB49.pdf

If you look at a real Admiralty chart (not their leisure publications) you will find a "source diagram" that shows where (and crucially, when) the data for each part of the chart came from. Some might be recent commercial port surveys, some might have been done with an early echo-sounder in the 1920s, and in remote places some areas might still be from a hand lead in the 19th century.

Apart from surveys, deliberate changes to buoyage and other aids to navigation should be notified by the people actually making the change - obviously it's inefficient for someone else to have to notice it.

And yes, you can send in "reports by general public" - there's a special UKHO form for doing so.

Hopefully AntarcticPilot will see this thread, since he has a lifetime's experience in this area and I'm sure can correct and expand on my rough idea above

Pete

Pete has it pretty much spot on. Of course, ship's navigators send in reports, but most of the changes are from ongoing hydrographic survey. Of course, in some areas, such as the Thames Estuary, a change might be spotted by a ship or yacht, then reported to the HO or Conservancy or whatever who commission a re-survey. Local surveys are also carried out; several places on the East Coast have local surveys carried out on a regular basis because the bottom changes quickly. See the East Coast Pilot website for details!

Source diagrams are a very useful resource when it comes to assessing the quality and currency of a chart. Sadly, they aren't given on the Leisure editions!

Things like wind farms and offshore drilling or cable laying also generate new surveys. I once applied for a job with the Crown Estates managing their sea-bed interests offshore, and it was interesting to see how much of the sea-bed around the UK is of commercial interest to one group or another. That's the real impetus for improved charting in a developed part of the world. Round Antarctica, I was involved in proofing Admiralty charts; that was interesting, especially as the coastline data were often provided by us in the first place! We did a lot of collaborative aerial survey for the HO. However, bathymetric data round the Antarctic is of the "here be dragons" kind - and there are plenty of rocks named after the ship that hit them or my favourite, "Fullastern Rock"!

 

[Yealm]

Various sources, mostly correlated by the UK Hydrographic Office (part of the Navy) who the other publishers like Imray and Navionics buy the data from (though it's possible they also take updates from other sources as well).

The Royal Navy do still have an in-house surveying function, though I don't know how much of the UKHO input comes from them any more versus commercial survey contracts.

Harbour authorities sometimes commission their own surveys of their approaches, and hopefully pass the data on. Mostly commercial ports, but even Chichester Harbour does regular surveys of the Bar and entrance channel - here's their latest: http://www.conservancy.co.uk/assets...hichester_bar_survey_June_2018-OEqotiUB49.pdf

If you look at a real Admiralty chart (not their leisure publications) you will find a "source diagram" that shows where (and crucially, when) the data for each part of the chart came from. Some might be recent commercial port surveys, some might have been done with an early echo-sounder in the 1920s, and in remote places some areas might still be from a hand lead in the 19th century.

Apart from surveys, deliberate changes to buoyage and other aids to navigation should be notified by the people actually making the change - obviously it's inefficient for someone else to have to notice it.

And yes, you can send in "reports by general public" - there's a special UKHO form for doing so.

Hopefully AntarcticPilot will see this thread, since he has a lifetime's experience in this area and I'm sure can correct and expand on my rough idea above

Pete

Thanks great info !

 

[GHA]

Just for interest as an example, here's the corrections for the Imray folio of the West Country: https://www.imray.com/files/chart_corrections/IC2400-5N.pdf . The current edition of that folio is from 2015, so this is three years of changes across 16 charts (albeit in an area of the country that changes slower than some).

Admiralty corrections are more or less similar, though with a little added bureaucracese and not split out by individual chart which I find slightly awkward compared to Imray.

Pete

Think they've (or admiralty) even thought about releasing corrections as KAP files? Can't be hard, just add a little bit of programming as all the data is already digital.

Opensource not really their market I suppose

Can MFD plotters display KAP files?

Never owned a plotter....

 

[Resolution]

my favourite, "Fullastern Rock"!

Wonderful!

 

[tillergirl]

Pete has it pretty much spot on. Of course, ship's navigators send in reports, but most of the changes are from ongoing hydrographic survey. Of course, in some areas, such as the Thames Estuary, a change might be spotted by a ship or yacht, then reported to the HO or Conservancy or whatever who commission a re-survey. Local surveys are also carried out; several places on the East Coast have local surveys carried out on a regular basis because the bottom changes quickly. See the East Coast Pilot website for details!

East Coast Pilot? HOW DARE YOU? They keep their book up to date of course. But Crossing the Thames Estuary monitors Notices to Mariners weekly, provides an illustrated individual Notice service - FREE from the Wash to Dover; Boulogne to Hook of Holland and in between. Not East Coast Pilot! See http://www.crossingthethamesestuary.com/page9.html

The service gives Notices chronologically and by Area. So if you are coming for a cruise in this area you can scroll through the Area lists and see whether there is anything of consequence to note.

Yes, UKHO will issue Notices sourced from members of the public. Without being pompous I have had several and I also submitted several sourced from other forumites and the Notices were credited to the source. The UKHO is interested in reports from the public and will be pleased to have them.

But local Notices can be more important to leisure users: for example there was a local notice issued by Harwich Haven Authority last night reporting that tomorrow morning a one km pipe will be towed through the Stour/Orwell/Harwich and Felixstowe Harbours between 4.30am and 6.30am AND everybody moving in that area must be reported to Harwich VTS. The tow has several sharp turns and leisure craft will be using that area even at that time in the morning. Have a look at the type of local notices in the list in the above quoted page to see examples of things that can be reported.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

East Coast Pilot? HOW DARE YOU? They keep their book up to date of course. But Crossing the Thames Estuary monitors Notices to Mariners weekly, provides an illustrated individual Notice service - FREE from the Wash to Dover; Boulogne to Hook of Holland and in between. Not East Coast Pilot! See http://www.crossingthethamesestuary.com/page9.html

The service gives Notices chronologically and by Area. So if you are coming for a cruise in this area you can scroll through the Area lists and see whether there is anything of consequence to note.

Yes, UKHO will issue Notices sourced from members of the public. Without being pompous I have had several and I also submitted several sourced from other forumites and the Notices were credited to the source. The UKHO is interested in reports from the public and will be pleased to have them.

But local Notices can be more important to leisure users: for example there was a local notice issued by Harwich Haven Authority last night reporting that tomorrow morning a one km pipe will be towed through the Stour/Orwell/Harwich and Felixstowe Harbours between 4.30am and 6.30am AND everybody moving in that area must be reported to Harwich VTS. The tow has several sharp turns and leisure craft will be using that area even at that time in the morning. Have a look at the type of local notices in the list in the above quoted page to see examples of things that can be reported.

Mea Culpa! I was thinking, though, of the local chartlets issued for places like Stone Point and the Deben entrance. So far I haven't explored south of Walton!

 

[prv]

But local Notices can be more important to leisure users: for example there was a local notice issued by Harwich Haven Authority last night reporting that tomorrow morning a one km pipe will be towed through the Stour/Orwell/Harwich and Felixstowe Harbours between 4.30am and 6.30am AND everybody moving in that area must be reported to Harwich VTS.

Similar operation last week here in Southampton:

http://www.southamptonvts.co.uk/admin/content/files/NTMs/2018 No 26 (T) Southampton Water - Pipeline arrival and mooring.pdf

Pete

 

[tillergirl]

Mea Culpa! I was thinking, though, of the local chartlets issued for places like Stone Point and the Deben entrance. So far I haven't explored south of Walton!

I never dare trespassing on the East Coast Pilot territory. South of Walton? I am convinced the clocks in Walton stopped in 1950. Now south of Walton, there's exciting!

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I never dare trespassing on the East Coast Pilot territory. South of Walton? I am convinced the clocks in Walton stopped in 1950. Now south of Walton, there's exciting!

But your very useful NtM posts on the East Coast Forum usually tell us that there is dredging at Wells! I do think that it would be more noteworthy if you told us when there ISN'T dredging at Wells

I'm quite pleased that the clocks stopped in the 1950s in Walton - Hall's boatyard is surprisingly inexpensive for many routine tasks!

 

[Plum]

as part of my chartplotter vs tablet internal narrative - I decided that something should change, last week when we were using our old outdated paper charts of poole plus an up to date ipad navionics. mostly as the ipad is rubbish in direct sunlight.

but it's nice to have up to date (or fairly) charts - and looking at the price of up to date charts for plotters I wondered how many of us update the charts regularly anyway?

if that's the case then arguably it's just as good to have a clunky ipad than a fantastic but out of date chart on an e-plotter.

in the end i've gone for an android tablet on the basis that my phone was far better in sunlight than my ipad so I'm hoping a tablet will be nearly as good - and even without that i'll just have to keep it somewhere shady. but at least some of my charts will be up to date

(I'm also buying some up to date paper charts of poole as I was fairly horrified when I worked out how out of date mine were!)

anyway this is a question about chart plotter updates and not a critique of my out of date paper ones!

I buy Admiralty charts for my Andriod tablet from Visit My Harbour website (£15 for all of UK and Ireland, less if a member) and buy a new set every year.

www.solocoastalsailing.co.uk

 

[Boathook]

My paper chart for Poole is a good 10 years old and still accurate enough. My plotter was updated in April and won't possibly be done for a few years when I will buy a new Navionics card.
Over the years of using old charts I have found them accurate enough but then I do buy a new almanac each year.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

I have a C-Map Card which came with the boat when I purchased in 2008. Apparently the card was original from 2003. .... ChartCo in Southhampton and they stated they could still update the card. .... the coverage on the card could not be updated as the coverage had now been split into two cards. ......

Just wanted to add, my Navaman Tracker 5600 screen renders a lot slower than it used to. I also appear to have lost a zoom level when I zoom out. At lower zoom levels the sea just goes all blue with no detail and limited land detail. I used to get basic detail at low zooms and had to go to a bigger chunk of the West Coast before the sea changed to all blue. It is old technology, so maybe something to do with the card data.

 

[dolabriform]

My previous plotter had charts from 2008, and they worked. However my newly installed B&G has Navionics charts and Wifi. Whenever I get to the boat, I switch on personal hotspot on the phone, the plotter connects to Navionics and updates the charts automatically. It also connects to B&G and checks for software updates and will ask if I want to install any that are available.

I can now plan routes on the iPad at home and send them to the plotter, knowing both have up to date charts. Additionally, I can screen share the plotter to the iPad so I have full control from the cockpit.

This is an absolute revolution to me and along with NMEA 2000 makes everything just work.