UKHO want to drop small craft folio charts

[Ohlin Karcher]

I wonder why these threads so often end up in a squabble?

Surely there is no right or wrong here, just preferences?

For me, the prudent mariner will have the ability to use any navigation tool at their disposal. Not everyone has their own boat with the luxury to have their installation of choice. Indeed quite a few people sail a whole bunch of different boats and get whatever they get (!) to navigate with.

That is reflected in the RYA theory courses by the way.

And the sea gods did indeed send Kindle to ease the burden of long distance sailors everywhere and is the best thing since sliced bread!

Going to a strange yacht, I always pack a Portland plotter, pencil, rubber and sharpener, which are no longer in every chart table because people rely on chartplotters.
Squabble alert: A HBC is also on my list, because of the virulent delusion that AIS is a meaningful substitute for collision avoidance...which definitely is a 'matter of right or wrong'.
What did you do on long ocean passages, before Kindle was invented, to 'ease your burden'

 

[GHA]

I wonder why these threads so often end up in a squabble?

Surely there is no right or wrong here, just preferences?

For me, the prudent mariner will have the ability to use any navigation tool at their disposal. Not everyone has their own boat with the luxury to have their installation of choice. Indeed quite a few people sail a whole bunch of different boats and get whatever they get (!) to navigate with.

That is reflected in the RYA theory courses by the way.

And the sea gods did indeed send Kindle to ease the burden of long distance sailors everywhere and is the best thing since sliced bread!

Bang on. use anything and everything.
Usually the luddites seem to be very vocal their particular views.
And bang on about kindles! No more reading the same books 3 times on an ocean passage before topping up with more rubbish at the next book swap cos that's all there is available in english.

 

[Ohlin Karcher]

Apart from the Thames Estuary and the Wash type places with shifting sands and buoys, where in the UK has any potentially dangerous change occurred, which neccessitated a new chart? A new wreck here and there, windfarms, not much else surely?

 

[capnsensible]

Going to a strange yacht, I always pack a Portland plotter, pencil, rubber and sharpener, which are no longer in every chart table because people rely on chartplotters.
Squabble alert: A HBC is also on my list, because of the virulent delusion that AIS is a meaningful substitute for collision avoidance...which definitely is a 'matter of right or wrong'.
What did you do on long ocean passages, before Kindle was invented, to 'ease your burden'

Agree with all of that.

However the weight saving of kindle is awesome. No more dragging a load of books and newspapers around the world. It only took one trip to understand that.

And anecdotally, not having to load movies in big metal boxes prior to slipping for 90+ day patrols with the advent of video was a delight!

 

[capnsensible]

Bang on. use anything and everything.
Usually the luddites seem to be very vocal their particular views.
And bang on about kindles! No more reading the same books 3 times on an ocean passage before topping up with more rubbish at the next book swap cos that's all there is available in english.

I have read some truly awful stuff, there is a reason that books get dumped in the bookswaps!

 

[zoidberg]

Navigation is done between the ears - not on a chart and certainly not inside a plotter. All of those things at best provide the thinking navigator with some information of varying reliability for him ( sometimes 'her' or 'they' ) to evaluate and process.

F'r 'zample, I was once asked by an aged multihull owner to help take his new Danish trimaran from Brighton to Oban, for a Scottish Peaks Race. He asked me to navigate, with the assurance that all I'd need was already on board. I knew the auld scrote to be notoriously parsimonious so I took that 'with a pinch of salt'. Just as well.... His charts, in a roll, had been soaked with seawater a year previously when he'd inverted a smaller trimaran in Loch Scavaig, and left soaked for the year. They were a solid, matted clump of useless papier mache.

He asked me obliquely if I was happy to proceed, and I told him 'yes, I had what I needed.' He was content when we ran the Needles Channel at night, working the relative bearings on the channel Lateral Marks, and he was not visibly uncomfortable rounding Portland and Start Point with a sufficient offing. It came as no surprise to me that his borrowed chartplotter, while mounted, failed to issue as much as a chirrup the whole trip. I plotted our whereabouts from time to time, using an IKEA 2B pencil, onto the appropriate page of a recent copy of NP 109, the Hydrographic Office's free 'NW Europe Standard Nautical Charts Catalogue', and some good old coastal nav techniques as briefed by Stokey Woodhall at SIBS recently.

He asked me again if I was at ease with this solitary source as we passed Plymouth, where there is a handy chart agent, and again with Falmouth on the beam. I reassured him that 'all was well', even as he faffed about during our rounding of Lands End, leaving the Longships just far enough to starboard..... Had I encouraged him to stop for other charts, I knew with certainty he'd expect me to pay for them!

We continued up the Irish Sea, pencilled fixes, times, and sparse course data entered as 'Log On Chart', without my having any concern. My grizzled companion took to peering at my cryptic calculations of ETAs for headlands when I was asleep, but he couldn't query them as he was unused to mental arithmetic other than checking his change in the pub. The North Channel was as straightforward as all before - keeping Britain on the right, with Ireland on the left - and so also was the next bit up towards Crinan. As mentioned somewhere above, I 'knew the coast' both by sailing much of it and, earlier, flying all of it so I retained a useable mental map of what was where.

It was only nearing the top of the Sound of Jura, where the tide-streams run really hard and swirly and dire tales of the fearsome Dorus Mhor and Corrievreckan nearby were recalled, that my owner/skipper became agitated in a suppressed-panic way. He had vivid but confused memories of running the Sound of Luing previously, at night and in foul weather, the seas boiling and breaking, and with rocky islets everywhere. "It's all right," I assured him. "I know my way around these bits..."

What I didn't tell him was I has a new copy of 'BA2386 - Firth of Lorn' folded into my kitbag, and I'd memorised what I needed - all the while marking little pencil crosses up the very small-scale Chart Catalogue page 11. Shooting the narrow, boiling strait between Fladda and Dubh Sgeir was in fact easy, as the islets and their daymarks were clearly visible, and so was the last stretch. I'll swear my companion offered up a Christian thanksgiving to some saint or other as the club moorings at Oban later hove into view.

To this day he still thinks I'd 'nav'd the whole route using only the UKHO Chart Catalogue. I hadn't the heart to tell him I'd memorised all I really needed by Route Study before we left.

And yes, we sailed together on several other occasions - including a very foggy Lerwick to Lowestoft to Plymouth without engine - when again a wee bit of trad-nav knowhow enlivened an otherwise dull, drizzly watch, but I didn't divulge all the pro navigator's trade secrets. One never knows when they'll be needed to confuse an owner into compliance....

 

[Blue Sunray]

I agree completely with every single word of Seajet's post. Have I also got 'comprehension difficulties'?

Possibly or you might just not have read my original post, I suspect the latter as you haven't in the past shown anything like Seajet's consistent inability to see beyond his own prejudices.

 

[Blue Sunray]

I wonder why these threads so often end up in a squabble?

Surely there is no right or wrong here, just preferences?

For me, the prudent mariner will have the ability to use any navigation tool at their disposal. Not everyone has their own boat with the luxury to have their installation of choice. Indeed quite a few people sail a whole bunch of different boats and get whatever they get (!) to navigate with.

That is reflected in the RYA theory courses by the way.

And the sea gods did indeed send Kindle to ease the burden of long distance sailors everywhere and is the best thing since sliced bread!

+1 I carry at least one, normally two backups for the Kindle (Original Kindle and the app on both a tablet and a mobile phone).

 

[GHA]

Navigation......

All that would have been an awful lot easier with the addition of a tablet or even phone to glance at once in a while running opencpn even with the aging cm93 charts, you're allowed to use anything and everything.

The charts are colour as well, unlike peoples views on here on the subject

 

[Stemar]

I didn't divulge all the pro navigator's trade secrets. One never knows when they'll be needed to confuse an owner into compliance....
:encouragement:

Exactly how guilds like the masons kept their power for hundreds of years. Viago's just enrolled you into the Illuminati :biggrin-new:

 

[capnsensible]

The problem with navigating using tablets is that they are very heavy and you need to keep a sharp chisel and hammer ready for ammendments.

 

[maby]

:encouragement:

I thought electronic charts were “an aid to navigation”. And shouldn’t be relied upon????

That's just Garmin and Raymarine covering their arses with disclaimers displayed on the screen at bootup. They know full well that virtually everyone in possession of one of their products will rely on it but they want to protect themselves from lawsuits issued by widows whose husbands have blindly sailed into a cliff which the plotter insisted was not there! It's pretty much the same as the situation with food allergies that has been discussed elsewhere on these forums - people are idiots and the manufacturers need to protect themselves!

 

[graham]

Multiple people saying navionics is wonderful and makes paper charts redundant .

Navionics lacks detail of drying areas including omitting some rocks abov e the low water line.

In areas with big tides navigating and anchoring above the low water mark is common.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

That's just Garmin and Raymarine covering their arses with disclaimers displayed on the screen at bootup. They know full well that virtually everyone in possession of one of their products will rely on it but they want to protect themselves from lawsuits issued by widows whose husbands have blindly sailed into a cliff which the plotter insisted was not there! It's pretty much the same as the situation with food allergies that has been discussed elsewhere on these forums - people are idiots and the manufacturers need to protect themselves!

It's not arse covering. They do not meet any standard for quality control of navigational data for electronic systems, or electronic reproduction of data required for approved electronic navigation systems i.e. they are not approved navigation systems. It is a crystal clear fact. Read about the requirements on the Hydrographic Office web site or IMO web sites. There are rigorous standards for approved electronic navigation systems.

Interestingly, one area of arse covering that is in place, is auto routing. Apparently it is not implemented on software issued to USA market for liability reasons. I read this on Attainable Adventure web site, you can check there if you wish.

 

[GHA]

The problem with navigating using tablets is that they are very heavy and you need to keep a sharp chisel and hammer ready for ammendments.

As a sometimes cruiser you should know that no plans are ever cast in stone...

 

[rotrax]

Multiple people saying navionics is wonderful and makes paper charts redundant .

Navionics lacks detail of drying areas including omitting some rocks abov e the low water line.

In areas with big tides navigating and anchoring above the low water mark is common.

Are there multiple people saying that? Of course with complete failure of the electrical system or GPS signal electronic nav will fail. Hence the requirement for paper charts IN UNFAMILIAR AREAS.

I feel confident to navigate in the home waters I am familiar with through experience using basic pilotage without assistance of any charts, and I am sure there are many who can do the same. From Littlehampton to Gloucester Docks or to Cork or Kilmore Quay I would consider familiar waters. Cherbourg, Alderney and down to Guernsey the same.

Outside these areas I would prepare with Paper charts, but expect not to use them.

11 years since I changed to Raymarine/Navionics-never required a paper chart for nav since.

As I said before, it goes against the percieved wisdom, but is, in fact, the reality for most sailors.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

That's just Garmin and Raymarine covering their arses with disclaimers displayed on the screen at bootup. They know full well that virtually everyone in possession of one of their products will rely on it but they want to protect themselves from lawsuits issued by widows whose husbands have blindly sailed into a cliff which the plotter insisted was not there! It's pretty much the same as the situation with food allergies that has been discussed elsewhere on these forums - people are idiots and the manufacturers need to protect themselves!

If I was a blind husband I would counter sue my wife for being stupid enough not to be keeping a watch while her blind husband steered the boat into a cliff. I guess this proves your last point that we are all idiots. (-;

 

[Genoa]

Agreed, so why not do as the USA do & offer free electronic charts. Free as they are paid for from public funds in the first place

Sweden too. It’s great around the archipelago where you want digital real-time to your position, With lower scale paper as the backup and hourly plots.

 

[dunedin]

Sweden too. It’s great around the archipelago where you want digital real-time to your position, With lower scale paper as the backup and hourly plots.

Does Sweden offer free electronic charts now? Was aware that Norway does, but didn’t know of the Swedish ones. Got a link to them?
Denmark is the opposite - so restrictive that most other electronic source like Navionics omit them unless pay extra for Denmark.

 

[zoidberg]

..... they are very heavy and you need to keep a sharp chisel and hammer ready for ammendments.

A problem well known to Getafix the Druid Navigator...