UKHO withrawing ARCS Skipper Charts

gerry99

gerry99

Well-Known Member
Joined
12 Sep 2002
Messages
461
Location
Berkshire
www.freedom.co.uk
For those of you who have made an investment in the ARCS Charts, be aware that the UKHO intends to withdraw them by November 2013. To make sure I contacted UKHO and got a fairly long reply, an extract of which is:-

"The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) can confirm that it intends to withdraw the ARCS Skipper product by the end of November 2013.
The UKHO is focused on serving the needs of the Defence and large merchant marine communities. ARCS Skipper was designed for use by leisure mariners, serving the needs of whom is not part of the UKHO’s public task."

Cheers
 
Times are hard and it looks like the government are returning their businesses units to their core business.
 
Does this mean the Small Craft folios and Leisure products are similarly threatened in the future? Or are these still seen as part of the UKHO's public task?
 
Last edited:
That is what I have heard. Others will be producing the charts in the future. Rather sad as I prefer the UKHO charts to Imray. Purchased my first Imray chart last week but it does not feel the same.
 
I know what you mean, I have mainly UKHO charts. I also miss the passing of Stanfords charts as they seemed to survive life in the wet cockpits of some of my previous boats, better than many others.
 
It's a shame, but we can't really expect what is essentially a government department to make a loss at the expense of the taxpayer for the sake of a few yachties, and I guess they realise that no one would pay for it if they charged the true cost.
 
I served aboard a small coaster years ago and the charts where all out of date and too big to have out in the wheelhouse.The skipper owner bought those charts with courses already maked in a nice red line...we never got lost!
 
I suppose that the people most affected will be blue water sailors. But at £1,100 per area disk, you'd have to be a pretty serious sailor. Can't see it affecting home waters as UKHO already license over 800 charts to Memory Map, Belfield and possibly others - good value IMHO.
 
Just seen this. I went with ARC's digital as I assumed they would be future proof. I've invested over £1,000 in charts from North of Scotland to Greece. Money down the drain, cheers UKHO.

I should have gone with someone more commercialy astute like Garmin.

Abraxas
 
Abraxas33 said:
Just seen this. I went with ARC's digital as I assumed they would be future proof. I've invested over £1,000 in charts from North of Scotland to Greece. Money down the drain, cheers UKHO.

I should have gone with someone more commercialy astute like Garmin.

Abraxas
Click to expand...

I, too, bought ARCS charts around the same value as you, about 10-12 years ago. However, when we added a chartplotter to the boat the ARCS charts never saw light of day again. A technology that had its day and has now been superceded.

Shame, as the charts were digital copies of the paper charts but the cost of them vs a CMap chip makes them overpriced for me,
 
When I worked for droggy, we regarded yachtsmen as a good market to be properly served. In those days we used to get many H notes from yotties visiting out of the way places. (Southeby-Taylors sketch charts of the Falklands, which turned out to be invaluable are a case in point. Nowadays, it seems yotties no longer render H notes.
And of course, I think anyone "doing" the arc is not a serious sailor.
 
Just come across this thread and found it of great personal interest.

I too have bought well over a grand's worth of ARCS Skipper charts over the last few years and now find that they will shortly, and not too slowly, become of no value to me. This is because without the facility to have my charts updated, I will believe them to be eventually unreliable and unsafe to be used.

Up until I learned of the impending ending of the Skipper service I had intended increasing the number of these charts in the understanding that once bought the whole lot could be updated, at yearly or greater intervals, and however many I would have, at a cost of about 70 Squids. The updates give the equivalent of a total set of brand new charts with all the official NtoM updates. These could be bought at any time suitable to myself with a year or more between updates. I found this to be highly appealing. I too contacted the UKHO to make enquiries. I received the same standardised response as the OP. In it they advised that although the issuance and updates of the Skipper charts were to end, as it was not within their charter to cater for the leisure mariner, I was advised to continue using the self same UKHO charts under a different service of theirs. This is the Navigator Service. I checked this out and found:-

ARCS Navigator Service

The ARCS Navigator service is a complete chart supply and weekly updating service. The ARCS chart catalogue provides worldwide coverage on 11 Area CD ROMs, containing up to 350 charts each. You receive a permit allowing you to unlock the charts you have bought from the Area CD(s). If you need more charts later, we can simply e-mail you extra permits.

After receiving your chart CDs you can either receive a weekly Update CD, containing all Notices to Mariners information and new editions, or you can download the updates via the Admiralty Updating Service. Navigator licences are annual and the price includes the weekly update and New Editions service. There is a minimum fee of £500 per year.

ARCS Navigator prices

Individual charts £15.50
Each Area CD £1100.00
All Area CDs £6000.00

　

As an example of these prices, the minimum fee of 500 Squid would get a lessee the use of 33 charts for a year.

At present I myself have bought in the region of 100 charts.　

The upshot, as I see it, is that the same charts are being issued, albeit with weekly updates, at a vastly increased price, aimed primarily at the professional seafarer.

If all the structure is in place to issue and update charts on a weekly basis to the professional, why can't they offer the same charts and updates on a yearly basis? The leisure seaman/woman who has invested, in some cases, considerable amounts has been given a raw deal.
 
Huttoft said:
The upshot, as I see it, is that the same charts are being issued, albeit with weekly updates, at a vastly increased price, aimed primarily at the professional seafarer.

If all the structure is in place to issue and update charts on a weekly basis to the professional, why can't they offer the same charts and updates on a yearly basis? The leisure seaman/woman who has invested, in some cases, considerable amounts has been given a raw deal.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it is actually that the service has been changed to more acurately represent the cost in running the service for leisure sailors in order to prevent the taxpayer and/or shipping getting a raw deal?
 
The problem is that in the commercial world raster charts are a bit of a pain, as you can't really use them for navigation and they take a bit more effort to update.

As ECDIS becomes mandatory on ships, the only real use for raster charts will be in areas where ENC's (vector charts) have not yet been produced for and these areas are becoming more infrequent.

End of the day, while it is sad I think it is unlikely that paper charts, and therefore raster charts will be around much longer.
 
wadget said:
The problem is that in the commercial world raster charts are a bit of a pain, as you can't really use them for navigation and they take a bit more effort to update.

As ECDIS becomes mandatory on ships, the only real use for raster charts will be in areas where ENC's (vector charts) have not yet been produced for and these areas are becoming more infrequent.

End of the day, while it is sad I think it is unlikely that paper charts, and therefore raster charts will be around much longer.
Click to expand...

I think wadget has it. All charts these days are created in S57 format (a vector format), and printed charts and raster products are then created from the vector version. Raster charts have serious technical short-comings, such as problems in zooming (there is a potential to loose features when zoomed OUT through re-sampling), lack of versatility (you can't easily recolour a raster chart to suit different light conditions, for example) and so on. ARCS were really only ever a stop-gap until charts were moved over to S57 format.

I differ from wadget in one regard - I think paper charts will remain with us, as they do things you can't do electronically (for example, they provide a better area overview than screen based devices can). Also they provide a genuine alternative which is not subject to the same failure modes as an electronic chart. You don't need electricity or batteries to run a paper chart! But they could move to being "print on demand", as some OS products are.
 
AntarcticPilot said:
I think wadget has it. All charts these days are created in S57 format (a vector format), and printed charts and raster products are then created from the vector version.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. A big thing I like about paper charts vs vector systems (at least Navionics and C-Map, I haven't used others) is that the charts show some human intelligence in how they've been laid out. For example, the light characteristics curving around a feature rather than obscuring it, or decisions about which lights to include at different scales depending on how they will be used and whether there are larger-scale charts or plans available to cover things omitted for clarity at the small scale. The vector systems just plonk the features down in their specified position, and it's up to the user to manage zoom and content selection to be able to see everything. If everything is now coming from vector, do they add in a human editing step, or do they just have much better layout algorithms than the average plotter?

Pete
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top