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Downloadable PRINTABLE NOAA Charts

117K views 155 replies 88 participants last post by  alpinekid 
#1 ·
I like to have some paper charts in case the GPS charts go away. At $20 a chart, that gets pretty expensive on a long trip. It seemed like there should be some standard format, printable copies of the NOAA Nautical Charts on the internet, but I couldn't find any. So I made some. Here are the NOAA charts in .png format, full resolution:

http://xpda.com/nauticalcharts
 
#68 ·
British Columbia printable charts

One thing I've not found anywhere would be free downloadable printable charts for British Columbia (Georgia Strait, Johnstone, etc.) I don't even know if such a thing would be possible. I think the University of Washington has some Canadian charts and maybe some of the Washington state yacht club libraries have informal collections, but otherwise anyone needing paper charts is going to be out a lot of money.
 
#69 ·
rgscpat
Canada unfortunately doesn't think that since we have already paid the taxes for the production of charts that we should get them on the web like the US does. I know of no source for Canadian charts online.
And by the way everyone needs paper charts of their cruising area by law I believe. That may change but I don't think it has yet.
 
#70 ·
Brian, thanks. I wonder what would satisfy the paper chart requirement ... 80000 to 1 series? b&w or color copies? old British Admiralty charts? In the US, some chartbooks print disclaimers that they are "not for navigation", so I wonder if they would or wouldn't meet requirements in Canada.

Possibly this is one of those sorts of things that gets enforced if a sailor has to be rescued after getting lost or is investigated after an accident.

It's not quite obvious that the Shuswap Lake tragedy would have been avoided if the runabout skipper with 27 empty beer and cooler cans on board would only have taken the time to unfold his chart and update his Dead Reckoning position before lethally impaling his boat into a houseboat.

But I do understand the electronics can fail and BC boaters have lots of places to get lost or in trouble.

I could maybe see some great value in joining a not otherwise dreadfully pricey or exclusive BC or WA yacht or sailing club if they had a chart library available for members. Maybe that's an idea for someone.
 
#71 ·
I'm not sure what scale would be required. Back in 1970 a friend and I went from Vancouver to Bella Bella and back over a 3 month period with only charts 3001 and 3002 (which cover the whole coast :D ) and the pilot books. We didn't hit anything and found our way without a problem, but I certainly wouldn't now. It was a budget kind of trip in an 18' sailboat with a British Seagull ob and a Coleman stove for cooking. Fantastic time though.

As you say it probably wouldn't come up unless there was an accident or investigation.

In the Shuswap lake accident was he drinking? It is the first thing I thought of but I didn't see anything in the press about it. It has to be hard to miss a houseboat that had to have some lights on it with 13 aboard.
 
#75 ·
Kamloops Daily News in Canada, quoting National Post | Canadian News, Financial News and Opinion, as of several days ago:
"Police found 27 empty beer and cooler cans in a ski boat that crashed into a houseboat on Shuswap Lake last month, killing the houseboat's driver....Mr. Reinbrecht replied that he drank one beer after the crash -- while he was trapped inside the ski boat inside the houseboat because, he claimed, he was thirsty. Mr. Reinbrecht has not been charged with a criminal offence."

It is possible, but only speculation, that the skipper of the ski boat was not using the proper charts and that this may have impeded his navigation. Of course, there might have been some other factors, but it appears that those will be for the investigators and courts to determine.
 
#78 ·
Charts and lookouts

Brian,

Surely you wouldn't mean to suggest that a responsible motorboat skipper and his crew would have neglected to resolve the targets on their AIS screen or lacked any diligence in performing their horizon scan and observing good seamanship.

Isn't the punishment for that sort of criminal negligence being appointed as a deputy sheriff in Lake Co., California?
 
#80 ·
Shuswap

But wasn't the skipper of the powerboat was briefed on the special hazards of consuming alcohol on the water before he was allowed to receive his Pleasure Craft Operator Card?

I noticed that Shuswap is big enough to have a chart. Surely the boater in question was responsible enough to have the required paper charts.

Seriously, I do feel terribly sorry for the family and friends of the folks on the houseboat and the awful and needless tragic death. They have my condolences and best wishes and determination to do my share to try to eliminate the causes of needless loss of life on the water.
 
#81 ·
We all know the operators card is mostly a tax grab. After all the test is the same for an owner in Vancouver with a 50' boat as it is for the fisherman in Moosejaw with a cartopper with a 9.9 on the back. And remember all those idiots on the road have licenses too. Licenses and charts can't protect people from idiots.

I feel sorry for then as well, lucky only one dead as there was 13 on board.
 

Attachments

#82 ·
Operator Card and Charts for BC

In my home state, the Boating Safety Basics class is offered as a one-day class by the State Parks department and this class is FREE -- they even give out a few goodies and a two-for-one camping coupon.

The class is indoor-only and has very little material specific to sailing, but at least it does teach people their legal and common-sense responsibilities and some ways of staying out of trouble. And, even though the course book and test are written for about a twelve-year-old's reading level, it's still tough enough that some adults and many youth can't pass it in the first class. And even experienced and scholarly sailors usually miss a few of the 60 questions.

The course is a lot better than nothing. And, the people who take the time to take the course are pretty surely not the ones who cause the big problems.

They may even be obeying the rule to carry paper charts, grin, which goes back to the original discussion. I wonder what sort of legal language is printed on the charts in regard to copying. In the USA, there doesn't seem to be much practical barrier to copying the NOAA charts. Sure, there is a danger of people winding up with out-of-date charts, but these are still far better than nothing (or 150-year-old Admiralty charts!), especially if the GPS dies. Is there much of a bother for copying Canadian charts?

If we have a flotilla of several boats visiting BC next summer, it seems like we'd be spending a fortune to equip ourselves with a full suite of shiny new store-bought charts. It would seem more sensible for each of us to buy a chartbook for the area and supplement that with some copies of large-scale charts.
 
#83 ·
I doubt you would get in trouble for copying Canadian charts. I wonder though if any other countries charts of Canadian waters are downloadable, possibly British. I know the US charts are only of US and possessions (such as Puerto Rico) waters.

In Canada the operators card is now madatory but education is not. A quick read online is all a newbie really needs to get the card. But you pay for it - that's the tax grab part.
 
#86 ·
Thanks for the effort on these, although they were done on a one time basis and they will not provide most recent information.

Alternatively, NOAA provides a download for a simple reprojector program (windows only unfortunately) that can be used to convert any of their raster chart to TIFF format suitable for printing. This way you can download on demand and convert and print as needed.

Please make note that printing your own charts should only be done on a personal level and will not be accepted if your situation requires you to carry paper charts to be legal.

Here is an article about the process:

Reproject NOAA BSB Raster Navigation Charts And Export Them In TIFF Format

Here is the link to the NOAA download:

Coastal Remote Sensing (CRS) Program - Digital NOAA Nautical Chart Reprojector

Cheers
 
#88 ·
...they were done on a one time basis and they will not provide most recent information.
...
printing your own charts should only be done on a personal level and will not be accepted if your situation requires you to carry paper charts to be legal.
Good points. If you print your own charts, they're not valid for commercial marine requirements.

I've been updating these about once a year, so some are out of date already. The web site also has links for NOAA's site if you want the latest in BSB format.

In case you want to convert your own BSB files to PNG or JPG, I posted the application and source code for BSB Reader here. Last time I checked, it worked better than the one on NOAA's site.
 
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