News today: The end of paper charts?
Posted by BlackCatX250@reddit | sailing | View on Reddit | 66 comments
New today from Imray (https://www.imray.com/news/imray-chart-publishing/) following the similar decision made by Admiralty. This is interesting and likely led by commercial decision making on the basis of sales volume.
But it makes me think about the theory paper for RYA Day Skipper and Yacht Master which have a significant element of chart work. While I make use of a Raymarine chart plotter and various apps "in real life" I have used paper charts extensively for passage planning both home in the UK and abroad.
I am not sure this feels like the right decision to me. What do we think?
alex1033@reddit
This whole story is getting a little weird. It would have been easier if chart plotters had large screens and flexible zooming. They don't. Also, all modern chart plotters and positioning-enabled devices assume that the satellite-based fix always exists and it's always correct. Lately, in the Baltic sea, we found out that it's not necessarily true. Navigating with a chart plotter when your boat's position is incorrect, is impossible. With a mobile phone or tablet you can turn the GPS off and use it as an electronic chart, but with a marine chart plotter it's more difficult or impossible.
SVAuspicious@reddit
I think this is good business. I get pilot books and cruising guides as PDF or Kindle when I can. Digital is digital. I'm sad about the diminishing availability of raster digital charts for vector digital charts but I'll manage.
When commercial airlines went all electronic I went all in.
I have two paper documents. Jimmy Cornell's World Ocean Atlas pilot charts (not available electronically) and Steve Dodge's Inlet Chartbook (not available electronically). Everything else I need and want is electronic. If I do get hit by lightning (unlikely but possible) I have graph paper, DR, my lat/lon log and can find a continent. It's hard to miss a continent. *grin* I don't carry a sextant (I can see mine from here) on delivery but I can manage with stars and sun and a mechanical watch (usually more jewelry than time - I use my phone for time). I can actually do the spherical trigonometry to navigate by the stars without tables (not hauling those around) but I sure don't have the ephemerides for stars. Dollars to donuts I can find a continent and likely Chesapeake Bay, New York Harbor, English Channel, Skagerat, any number of inlets and harbors.
I have a big presentation I have given at boat shows and rendezvouses titled Classic Navigation in an Electronic Age. The problem with electronics is not lightning in my opinion. It's the loss of basic skills. What do you do if you depend on Navionics and the subscription bug hits you? One of your batteries loses a cell and takes the entire bank with it? Importantly, what will you do with all that raw chicken thawing in the freezer? Do you have a male-to-male nipple to bypass your propane relay which draws an amp? Do you really understand food safety? What will you do about not having nav lights at night? Are you prepared to hand steer for days on end without power for your autopilot? Do you even know what sheet-to-wheel steering is, much less how to rig it? Are you good enough at sail trim to minimize windward and leeward helm? If you took out a water tank to make space for a watermaker, what do you do now? Do you even know what FEMA and SPoF are? In short, are you worried about the right things?
BlackCatX250@reddit (OP)
I couldn'nt agree more with this - loss of skill is the concern here for future generations. Where are you based? Your talk sounds exellent. We are the oganisers of our local CA (Cruising Association) group and we host speakers in the off season.
SVAuspicious@reddit
Hi u/BlackCatX250,
I'm based in Annapolis MD USA. I've been a member of CA off and on over the years - great organization. I have your burgee hanging over one of my desks.
As I wrote, I've done a lot of webinars and am happy to do a presentation remotely. I can help with tech at your end. As long as you have a screen, projector, computer, and good Internet connection we're good. We can set up Cisco WebEx (I have an account) or Teamviewer connection so I can "drive" your computer. It helps if you have a webcam so I can see the audience for interaction but that isn't critical. If we use WebEx (or Zoom) we can record for your archives.
Everyday is a work day for me, so Saturdays and Sundays are fine and usually better for participation.
You can write me at dave@AuspiciousWorks.com and we can see if what I offer is of interest.
pouillyroanne@reddit
If you have a link to your presentation "classic navigation in an electronic age" it would be amazing to see!
SVAuspicious@reddit
I share a lot, including things I usually get paid for. There are problems sharing this. First, it's a full day program. Second, I do get paid for it. Third, the important parts are pictures that are not self-explanatory.
I can tell you how I built it. I'll be happy to answer questions. I started with Bowditch's American Practical Navigator. I used the structure of the table of contents for organization. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Who am I to think I can organize so much material better than Nathaniel Bowditch, NOAA, and NGA? I have a paper copy of Bowditch from the '50s and used a modern electronic version for counterpoint. You can get the current version online. This is not a book report. I focus on fundamentals of route planning, tactical navigation, and geolocation. I have some weather and some logistics as they relate to navigation. I use classic methods for illustration and then show how to use electronics to accomplish the same ends. Live demonstration using OpenCPN and a lot of pictures of the same things on Raymarine and Garmin plotters and radar. It took a lot of work to boil this down to three one hour sessions with time for breaks. After lunch we run through three scenarios: entering Beaufort Inlet in North Carolina, Hampton VA to Annapolis MD, and a generic ocean crossing (Horta Azores to St Georges Bermuda). Then we do a student exercise that includes uses of landmarks and depth contours and how to use that information garnered from electronics. The location of the exercise is somewhere near where I'm presenting. We wrap up with a discussion of failure modes (like those I listed above) and responses to those. I take questions throughout the day and have a Q&A at the end. Depending on the venue, we'll adjourn to the bar and I'll take more questions.
Before the seminar, I send out material that talks about OpenCPN and the charts I'll use so people can be prepared to bring their own devices (BYOD) and follow along. If a participant is wed to Navionics or Aqua Map or Expedition or something else s/he is welcome to use that and I'll help as much as I can without being tech support.
If you've followed my posts here on r/sailing and elsewhere you'll know I have lots of links aka footnotes and my seminars are the same. Depending on the sponsor there will be a handout, a USB drive, or a website with all the links. That's a moving target as the Internet is *ahem* dynamic.
It's a challenge to stay within 0800 to 1700 including breaks and lunch, plus the bar, *grin* but I manage.
I've done this once as a webinar and it was exhausting. I'd be willing to try again.
I do updates before every presentation, mostly for links. I do an update after each presentation to capture questions that were asked. Sometimes questions get far afield and I have to set them aside (lots of radar imagery interpretation for example) but I follow up with the group afterwards. If one person has a question s/he is likely not alone, just brave. *grin*
FuzzyOne5244@reddit
As I do not know how to do most of this, I really value your post. A nice little list of things for me to learn before I can make my cursing dreams come true. I pray sailors like you can teach us enough before your time is done. Thanks!!!
SVAuspicious@reddit
I had to fix a typo in my post. I don't generally dream of cursing although I have been known to engage in some, mostly under my breath. *grin*
I have good genes. I probably have 30 years left in me. I'm here to help.
rowman_urn@reddit
Myself, bought paper charts of the local area when last updated recently, just in case. I have them onboard and take them home for winter and I m happy about that.
Use them, because it's easier to cover a large area, and look at details.
I'm also a techie, and using e-charts onboard/and at home via OpenCPN, to stay up-to-date with new navigation hazards/changes.
But I enjoy, just marking my position, in soft 2b pencil at regular intervals, during a passage, also writing a log of the journey, sometimes only for reading Infront of a fire, with a brandy during the winter season. Somehow, it all adds to my experience, inspires me to plan next season, and feel confident. If allll electrics went, I would have some idea, how to get home at least be able to give my last position on the radio.
oldmaninparadise@reddit
Like you , a techie, even got a small nuc to hook into my monitor in the cabin to show position on opencpn.
However, I printed a bunch of my local areas charts, at various zoom, then laminated them, and keep them for handy reference.
rowman_urn@reddit
Sometimes you can't beat analogue!
issue9mm@reddit
Did an offshore training off the coast of Maine, and we used updated laminated paper charts and a wax pencil for our reckoning and it added to the suredness of knowing WHERE you were.
You can look at a chart and see where you are, but if you've plotted your route and tabled out your ATONs, it sort of moves your awareness INTO the chart instead of just looking over it. Made me much more embedded to the journey in a way that allowed me to know the answer to questions as they were asked instead of having to say "Oh hang on let me go look at the chart."
rowman_urn@reddit
I have taken screenshots of charts for print, found that very useful for pilotage, my respect for lamination.
Having a rough area map in your head from a chart, is so useful to be able to communicate with crew, just point at it and let them absorb.
issue9mm@reddit
I've seen at least one captain who takes his windy/predictwind forecasts and saves videos of them while he pans back and forth across the timelines just in case they're not able to update them
rowman_urn@reddit
Maybe he needs a strong coffee and a full breakfast, but seriously I look at multiple weather predictions, sailing these days is meant to be fun.
issue9mm@reddit
He's a delivery captain, so he's in that weird valley where fun and income intersect, but there are responsibilities from the one that detract from the fun of the other.
rowman_urn@reddit
Your crew and delivery responsibilities are probably a complex dynamic complex.
Anstigmat@reddit
Morse Alpha?
issue9mm@reddit
Yep! Absolutely brilliant.
Salt-y@reddit
I can't tell you how many times I've seen people using paper charts, but using electronics to get their position and heading, then mark the charts. Silliness. They say, if we lose the electronics then we'll still have our last position. So?
Late-Hotel-861@reddit
Funny decision german police just ruled, that you need weekly updated papercharts on board otherwise it's a fine of 100€
LocoCoyote@reddit
I always will use my paper charts along with the digital. Planning just seems so much easier looking at paper.
glastohead@reddit
This is do weird. Why wouldn’t the just offer a digital ‘print to order’ service?! I mean they still have to create the charts for digital?!
Living_Stranger_5602@reddit
The problem with charts is if you misjudge a current or a tide transposing to the chart or misjudge a compass heading transposing you still have bad data. GPS is fairly rugged with lots of redundancy, my boat has numerous power sources with multiple devices not connected to just one power source. Engine, battery, house battery, cel with backup battery and tablet. If all that goes south I have lot more problems than knowing where I am.
velthesethingshappen@reddit
All fun and games till the “lights” go out. Dont trust the gov!
fiat-flux@reddit
call me paranoid but GPS experiences outages a lot more often than people like to believe, and incidents of jamming and spoofing are becoming more common. I still rely on it for everyday use but I wouldn't want to get stuck near a rough unknown coastline without a paper chart
ozamia@reddit
Jamming of GPS is not really a thing outside of the SE and E Baltic Sea, and due to line-of-sight limitations, it's really only aviation that's affected, not surface users. The GPS system itself isn't jammed, and it's extremely reliable. I don't think I've heard of a single system-wide outage in the quarter century that GPS has been available without SA.
A GPS receiver in a boat can fail. But having more than one is plenty of backup for most people, and even if you lose the position, you still have the chart as long as the unit has power, and that chart is still better than a paper chart. If you're afraid of losing GPS positioning because of a power outage, prepare for a backup 12 VDC power source.
Paper charts make nice wall decorations. They're obsolete and pointless for actual navigation today.
issue9mm@reddit
Until you find yourself stuck in the middle of ocean and get struck by lightning
Yes, having a nice chart plotter is great, and of course you're going to use that if you have it. And of course you're going to have a backup phone or tablet. And I sure hope you have those in a faraday bag, like mine, and a separate bag which also has a backup power bank... but I've been on a boat where
a) the electrical power failed because of a bad battery b) the tablet and solar power bank failed after a thunderstorm
and let me tell you, "obsolete" and "pointless" aren't words that come to mind in that situation
ozamia@reddit
If you're hit by lightning, you're likely dead or near death anyway, so navigation is likely among the least of your worries. Besides, if you're in the middle of the ocean, you don't need a chart. If you have a clock, a sextant and a magnetic compass, you can calculate your position and write them down in a notebook.
Not having backup systems for power on a journey far off shore is bad planning and preparation. It has nothing to do with paper charts being useful or not.
issue9mm@reddit
Agreed. Not having paper charts for the places you might be is also poor preparation.
ozamia@reddit
Again, charts for the middle of the ocean, where land is days or weeks away, and the shallows are three miles deep, is meaningless.
Paper charts are only necessary if the country you're sailing to is so underdeveloped that they don't offer any digital charts.
issue9mm@reddit
You can't just park in the middle of the ocean forever. If for whatever reason your electronics become unavailable in the middle of the ocean, you still have to manage getting to shore
I promise you that charts are helpful in that scenario
ozamia@reddit
When you get close to shore, there are other solutions. But again, your scenario is highly unrealistic. Most will die instantly if hit by lightning. Direct lightning strikes are very rarely survivable. And even if you survive, the hull is most likely doing a very good impression of a colander or sieve, due to all the holes from the discharge.
whyrumalwaysgone@reddit
I've been hit twice, and I've refitted half a dozen boats that were hit. No injuries, but all electronics were completely toasted. Lightning is a squirrilly situation, it can do all kinds of weird stuff. Whether you get a direct strike matters, that's when you get physical damage. But regardless, ANY strike, direct or indirect, will destroy your electronics. Look up "induced current", basically every wire on the boat (including the little soldered connections on a circuit board) has a ton of power flowing in it. Fuses are useless, lightning grounding is useless, it really doesn't matter unless your equipment is in a Faraday cage, period.
issue9mm@reddit
Holy crap, man
issue9mm@reddit
There are other ways to lose electronics than lightning
"other solutions" are lesser solutions. Charts have worked for hundreds of years
I'm not trying to argue here. You're free to sail however you like, but you keep saying "oh so unlikely" but I've only been sailing for a few years and this has already happened to me
Good luck out there
zoinkability@reddit
It's entirely possible for one's boat to be hit by a lightning strike that fries the electronics but leaves the people and the non-electronic parts of the boat relatively undamaged.
Anstigmat@reddit
Even in that extremely rarified situation where you lose all electronics in the middle of a crossing, there are ways in insulate yourself from danger still using electronics. You can keep back ups in safe storage containers for example. Frankly if I was in the middle of the Ocean and had a lightening strike, I'm guessing it would be more of a rescue situation, rather than get out the Sextant situation. In all other versions of that you're probably coastal and can hopefully manage to get the attention of other boats or limp back to a marina.
ovideos@reddit
Yes, all of that is true, but paper is a very tried and true technology that seldom fails (fire being its main weakness).
Getting hit by lightning is not always a rescue situation. But more importantly there are numerous ways for electronic equipment to fail (short circuits, dead batteries, etc). Paper is a great backup.
We can go back and forth on this issue forever, but to me part of the reason to sail is being self sufficient. Paper backups seem self-sufficient to me.
issue9mm@reddit
I mean, hopefully? I should probably write up a post on it at some point because it was a great example of all the things not to do (getting on a poorly kept tiller boat with an owner we didn't know with only my wife and I as crew in Florida in August with no bimini or sun cover etc. etc.) but the TLDR is that we did find ourselves 200 miles offshore without an engine or power or a radio to call for help or nav lights or any instruments working other than the compass, but which could only be reliably read in the daytime because even the little bulb that lights it up was out.
That story does end in a rescue, but only because we lacked navigation enough that we grounded in the Ashley river outside of Charleston.
I agree that generally you are not going to need paper charts in the same way that you are generally not going to need to keep a reserve of drinking water on an ocean passage -- but that's no reason to throw them overboard without knowing that you're inviting trouble
TriXandApple@reddit
You understand that even when GPS is turned off, you can still see the charts, right?
fiat-flux@reddit
fair point! I am only practiced with triangulation and dead reckoning on a paper chart, and it seems onerous, but I can imagine others finding it comfortable
nomadicsailor81@reddit
Yes, just not your location
MissingGravitas@reddit
Professional electronic nav software lets you manually plot traditional fixes. Even some “prosumer” software does. This isn’t a paper vs electronic issue.
LameBMX@reddit
my eyeballs work good for that. I ain't got no fancy training.
nomadicsailor81@reddit
Ok... I was in the army before we used GPS like we do today. I was taught how to read maps, use a protractor, use terrain association, triangulate my position from known points, and more. But after GPS was everywhere, we stopped teaching it. And it's a perishable skill. So your eyes may be great, but you'll never know when you need more than just terrain association. But you do you. I prefer to have redundancy. And I'm alive today because of it. Have a good one.
wkavinsky@reddit
So . . . just like a paper chart then?
nomadicsailor81@reddit
I'd have to look at mine, but there's no grid squares and I'm not sure if there's a digital protractor you could use. Might be ok for basic functions but you'd be winging it.
Guygan@reddit
The US government stopping making and selling paper charts about 15 years ago. The actual digital data is free, though, and some private companies will sell you paper charts if you need them.
No one has complained in about 14 years. We were fine, and you'll be fine, too.
ruidh@reddit
You can download and print ODF versions of NOAA charts
Guygan@reddit
Correct. But most folks don't have a printer big enough to print useful charts. That's why there are companies that will do this for you.
ruidh@reddit
Staples works for me with overnight service.
dfsw@reddit
Believe it or not, Staples is a company
whimsicalfoppery@reddit
[citation needed]
LameBMX@reddit
^1
MissingGravitas@reddit
A key difference is that NOAA still produced raster charts that could be printed, and it's not until relatively recently that they also ended those.
My read is that Imray is doing the same: eliminating raster chart production, which similarly means the ability to print up-to-date charts in the traditional appearance goes away.
Yes, NOAA offers their custom chart tool if you want a "flattened" chart to print, but it's not quite the same as what people are used to. It would still suffice for emergency navigation should your primary, secondary, etc. electronic systems fail.
ppitm@reddit
The only thing that really irritates me about this is how they stopped printing the new vector charts to raster PDF. This would have cost literally $0.00, and could be fully automated.
Nothing beats the robustness of a PDF file, if you are operating a small boat or want a backup to the chart plotter or want to just look at a chart on your computer ashore. PDFs require no specialized software to open.
But now to get a PDF chart we have to go find the Historical Charts sections and wade through dozens of hand drawn scribbles from 1736 to find an "outdated" chart from 2004.
MissingGravitas@reddit
I doubt it cost that little; the raster charts have everything hand-positioned. Any given change could easily require rearranging multiple charted objects to ensure everything fits neatly whilst retaining legibility.
ppitm@reddit
I don't mean updating the original raster charts. I just mean taking a screenshot of the vector files at the same level of zoom and exporting it as a PDF image.
MissingGravitas@reddit
That is... problematic. The vector charts are intended to be zoomed, panned, adjusted, and queried in order to use safely. There are many cases where flattening them into a PDF works reasonably well, but there are also many edge cases where it doesn't work so well, particularly around placement of text labels.
Have you played with this? https://devgis.charttools.noaa.gov/pod/
If you're in the US, it's essentially what you are asking for, with settings adjusted to get something akin to traditional charts. You can print the output yourself, or upload it to traditional chart printers for something your home printer probably won't handle. There's even the option for a "personal chart catalog" so you don't need to start over each time you want an updated chart.
MissingGravitas@reddit
It's about time. The insistence that "nothing can truly replace paper" has IMO damaged the field, resulting in a many sailors who lack traditional nav skills because their plotters and apps are dumped down "you are here" displays, as well as leaving recreational sailors without an effective path to using official electronic charts.
In the world of big ships you'd still all those skills on the electronic charts. The knowledge you gained is still of value; it's your plotter that's not quite fit for purpose.
In many cases I'd consider a boat without a functioning bilge pump to be unseaworthy, yet people leave shore all the time on boats with dodgy electronics. If you can't rig up reliable, redundant power supplies for your nav system, consider that just maybe your boat isn't as seaworthy as you think. Even for the resource-constrained, a few cheap tablets stashed in cookie tins can go a long way to addressing this.
AnchorManSailing@reddit
It's not a big deal. The US stopped printing nautical charts several years back. Want a paper chart? Download the rasterized digital file and send it over to a print shop that has a modern blueprint large format printer (like an Oce machine). You can even chose the paper you like.
Prize_Tadpole790@reddit
Admiralty paper charts will be available up to at least 2030.
https://www.pbo.co.uk/news/withdrawal-of-admiralty-paper-charts-delayed-until-2030-74464#:~:text=The%20UK%20Hydrographic%20Office%20(UKHO,digital%20navigation%20products%20and%20services.
Fun_Flower9165@reddit
Paper charts... I hope you're fan of sextans, otherwise your paper charts just supplement to toilet paper.
walt-m@reddit
They've been sunsetting the paper charts over the last 5 or so years. This decision was made public even before that when they had an open call for public comments.
https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/charts/farewell-to-traditional-nautical-charts.html
Beelzabub@reddit
From the businesses perspective, it creates an unncecessary expense and headache. Printing and publishing costs have increased due to a number of factors, including:
Paper prices: The price of paper has increased significantly. Raw materials: There is a shortage of raw materials in the print industry. Energy and utilities: The cost of energy and utilities has increased. Labor and suppliers: The cost of materials, suppliers, and labor has increased. Paper printing and mailing services are largely obsolete today.
On the other hand, as a sailer I don't trust Starlink, or any other sat internet with my life (or my boat). Paper is almost always best, IMHO