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Paper charts are no longer REQUIRED

6K views 41 replies 24 participants last post by  fallard 
#1 ·
Have y'all see this?:

From: First-CG-DLNM [mailto:first-cg-dlnm-bounces@...] On Behalf Of First Coast Guard District LNM Notification
Sent: Monday, February 08, 2016 1:25 PM
To: First-CG-DLNM@...
Subject: electronic charts & pubs

U.S. Coast Guard approves official electronic charts

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Coast Guard published guidance that allows mariners to use electronic charts and publications instead of paper charts, maps and publications.

The Coast Guard published Navigation and Vessel Inspection Circular, NVIC 01-16, on Feb. 5 to provide uniform guidance on what is now considered equivalent to chart and publication carriage requirements.

Combining the suite of electronic charts from the U.S. hydrographic authorities and the Electronic Charting System standards published this past summer by the Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services, the Coast Guard believes official electronic charts provide mariners with a substitute for the traditional official paper charts.

This technology will also allow mariners to take advantage of information and data to enhance situational awareness during voyage planning and while underway.

"After consultation with our Navigation Safety Advisory Committee, the Coast Guard will allow mariners to use official electronic charts instead of paper charts, if they choose to do so. With real-time voyage planning and monitoring information at their fingertips, mariners will no longer have the burden of maintaining a full portfolio of paper charts," said Capt. Scott J. Smith, the chief of the U.S. Coast Guard's Office of Navigation Systems.

The new guidance applies to vessels subject to U.S. chart, or map, and publication carriage requirements codified in Titles 33 and 46 CFR and provides a voluntary alternative means to comply with those requirements.

"Mariners have been requesting the recognition of this capability for some time," said Smith. "When you combine the new expanded Automatic Identification System carriage requirement and the capability that an ECS provides, it should provide a platform to move American waterways into the 21st century."

"Together, with our industry and international partners, we are leveraging modern technology to contribute to the safety, security and prosperity of our nation," said Smith.

View NVIC 01-16 at: http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/nvic/pdf/2016/NVIC_01-16_electronic_charts_and_publications.pdf
 
#4 ·
You can use Amerigo Vespucci's charts for navigation if you want to. Having learned the hard way what a lightning strike can do to all the electronics on board, I'll always have backup paper charts with me. If they quit printing them because some government idiot says they can, I'll use the old ones.
 
#5 · (Edited)
About bloody time too.
It beggars belief that paper charts are not illegal.
Finally the USCG (et al) realise AIS us in existence:

"Mariners have been requesting the recognition of this capability for some time," said Smith. "When you combine the new expanded Automatic Identification System carriage requirement and the capability that an ECS provides, it should provide a platform to move American waterways into the 21st century."
It also appears the USCG might dismiss sextants for nav use too:
?Together, with our industry and international partners, we are leveraging modern technology to contribute to the safety, security and prosperity of our nation,? said Smith
Mark
 
#10 ·
I'm no Luddite but, I made a good living for years fixing electronics that failed. I use GPS but, also have a chart on the table or in the cockpit when cruising. I'd still be using my Kings 8001 LORAN unit too if the USCG had not blown up the towers. BTW USCG stopped transmiting LORAN signals back on February 8th in 2010:
THE BIANKA LOG BLOG: TO DO LIST: REMOVE LORAN
 
#14 · (Edited)
A friend who sailed his C34 from Vancouver, BC to Mexico wrote this about booklet charts:

- print as you go charts. I have two chartplotters, but cannot sail without hard copy. My concept was to print out the NOAA chart books as we go. Bad idea. Hate the little charts. Hate printing them, collating them and putting them into sleeves. I've bought chart books. I couldn't store or afford full size charts for the whole coast. Chart books are a good compromise.

I prefer the chart books, too. Much easier to "handle," although I've got all the original paper charts that the chart book I have for my sailing area includes. OTOH, it's nice to know they are available. It's truly unfortunate that our brethren in Canada don't have them available. After all, the governments made the charts, tax dollars paid for them, so they should be available FOR FREE, but aren't. Greed Fueled Unregulated Capitalism does have some downsides.

I don't think the Tin Foil Hat guys are gonna shut down the GPS system, and in all the years I've been sailing with a GPS (starting with an old Magellan Blazer with no maps) and before that with Loran (West Marine had a great unit, then we had a Micrologic 8000 which was a ton of crap programmed by a government worker who'd never had to use the damn thing!!!), as well as reading boating forums since they were invented, it hasn't happened yet, other than some local abnormalities.

Heck, if they turned it off, they wouldn't know where each one of us was at all times!!! My cell phone is so old...that it doesn't (gasp!!!) even have a GPS in it, and I use it so rarely that I feel free, thank God, free at last! :)

Navigate On! :)
 
#15 ·
This referering to ECDIS approved systems. read more here ECDIS Questions | ECDIS
From the site

Q. How do I comply with the regulations?
A. To comply with the IMO regulations you will be required to install an ECDIS with type approval from the recognised organisations or marine classification societies nominated by flag states within the timescale shown in the above timetable. The primary method for navigation will be ECDIS but a back up is required in the event of a failure. The back up can either be a secondary ECDIS (known as a dual system) connected to an independent power supply and GPS position input or the traditional paper charts.
If the GPS system is down you can still use the charts.

On the discussion about vector vs raster ;)
Q. What is RCDS?
A. RCDS is an acronym for Raster Chart Display System. A vessel is permitted to sail in RCDS mode if approved by their flag state for geographical areas where there are no ENCs available. For Flag state conformance, vessels must also carry up to date paper charts for these areas. Using RCDS mode in ENC available geographic areas is forbidden. If sailing in RCDS mode then paper charts become the primary form of navigation and the electronic chart is simply an aid to navigation.
 
#16 ·
I love chart plotters but trusting your boat and even your life to any electrical devices always functioning onboard is pretty stupid I'd say.

Wishful thinking at best.
 
#18 · (Edited)
This is where these arguments wander off the reservation.

Please tell me how ones life and boat is in danger using a chart plotter.

If a chart plotter stopped working (and there was no backup system), do thru hulls pop open and daggers fly through the air?

Are you suggesting that an infallible sextant, timepiece and up to date paper chart should be mandatory on all boats to prevent loss of life and floundering of the boat? Are you confident enough with your sextant use to coastal cruise in reef waters when your GPS goes out? Or are you really reliant on a GPS, but can't admit that to yourself?. Or maybe what you can't admit is that it is easily possible to navigate with neither a chart plotter nor sextant, and that loss of either possess no danger to boat or life.

We have 11 GPS devices on board, several of them powered by dry cells. Many have more than they realize when they look at their consumer electronics. We have point and shoot cameras that contain GPS.

We have actually took a lightning strike that blew the main plotter and pretty much all the rest of the electronics. However, we didn't die or lose the boat - in fact, we continued cruising for 3 weeks through reef strewn waters before it became convenient to head somewhere to fix things. We carry no paper charts on board, and didn't need them, yet somehow survived.

Just possibly your statement is more emotional than rational?

Mark
 
#17 ·
Of course there is a catch

Redundant Arrangement. For vessels using official electronic charts as the primary
means of navigation, an independent redundant arrangement is required in order to
meet the equivalency, and must be:
1. An equivalent system to the requirement in paragraph B, connected to a back-up
power supply separate and independent from the primary system, or
2. A full folio of official paper charts in accordance with 33 C.F.R. part 164 for the
intended voyage.
 
#19 ·
To all my gps reliant friends out there, us who do still dead recon say, you have never been near Martha's Vineyard when one of our Presidents were visiting nor near a bridge the week after 9/11. So I keep my paper charts with all the drawn and erased and redrawn lines just for practice and just incase.
That doesn't mean I won't come to a quick stop leaving some port with that little ship on the screen in twenty feet of water for I know things change and there is drifting sand,,,
 
#21 ·
This comes as no surprise to me. How can the Go'ment require paper charts, when they no longer print them?

Sailing without paper charts isn't for everybody or every area, but I'm happy without paper charts. In my case, my piloting is more accurate with GPS and a CP than I was piloting along the coast on paper(even when Loran came along).

But still, my groundings(yes, I've had a few...) have been caused nearly exclusively by the same dangers today(the first two in the CG list below) as they were 30 years ago when I first started sailing, with paper charts and tools.

Paper or pixels, you still have to look where you're going and pay attention to your navigation.

 
#26 ·
How can the Go'ment require paper charts, when they no longer print them?
The same way they require lights at night, in spite of the fact that they don't make lightbulbs.

Do you really think the government is supposed to provide everything for you? That would explain a lot...
 
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#23 ·
Sailing around here without any sort of charting means you are almost guaranteed to hit a rock at some point, probably sooner rather than later unless you are only in areas you know intimately.

To me, electrical devices on a boat are luxury items - not essential services.
 
#36 ·
Same here. If you draw more than about 4 ft and just go cruising around the TCI without some idea of where the navigable channels are, you'll have a short trip. And there are no maintained channels, just natural ones. But above all, the ability to read the water is critical. Vast areas of what charts exist here are marked "unsurveyed" and "Numerous coral heads".

The brand of chart matters, too. We see a lot of people come down from the US with whatever electronic chart they bought get them into trouble. Explorer charts for the Bahamas, and Wavey Line Charts for the TCI if you plan to get too far off the beaten paths. We like the ones that don't need electricity to operate.
 
#25 ·
Pardon my intrusion in this "discussion", but I think these types of threads go off course when someone responds with the accusation that "if you don't agree completely with my statement then you must believe the complete opposite and only the opposite". How about stating your opinion and letting the other participants state theirs without building a strawman argument for them????
 
#29 ·
As mentioned before, the requirement for charts or charting systems only applies to commercial vessels. No requirement for pleasure craft.
But also note that most commercial craft operate on "milk runs", they sail the same route(s) every trip and get very familiar with the area. The only variables are weather and traffic. We don't really use charts for that. The boats I run travel the same route on two to three hour trips every day and I hardly look at the plotter unless the fog closes in. Once and a while we do an out of town trip, and I do lay those out on paper first. I prefer the large format for the big picture, you just can't see a 100 mile trip in one view on a plotter with any detail no matter how large the screen. For actual navigation underway I use the plotter and make periodic updates on the paper as we go.
As for keeping the system updated, the USCG had always required the paper charts to be updated to the latest LMTM. They checked that every year on our annual inspection. I'm sure they'll be doing the same with the electronic version. We're in the off season now (Michigan) so we haven't made any changes yet.
 
#35 ·
I tried to parse your reply twice, then I got bored and put a movie on.
 
#39 ·
I think I've gone aground more often in home waters than off cruising. When you know exactly where the shoals are, you are more likely to cut a mark, cause you know better. Yep, that local knowledge has served me well!

I know many disagree, but we still carry paper and electronic. Have backup portable electronic stuff as well as the built in stuff. I can see the argument against it, particularly as your cruising grounds expand. It was hard to file all the Canadian stuff for a trip to Cape Bretton....lots of paper, particularly if you want the option to drop in anyplace along the way. As big as displays have gotten, there is still something useful about a big format chart IMHO.
 
#40 ·
I think I've gone aground more often in home waters than off cruising. When you know exactly where the shoals are, you are more likely to cut a mark, cause you know better. Yep, that local knowledge has served me well!
Funny how that works. A famous racing skipper for many years here bought himself a new cruising boat, a Beneteau 42 with a deep keel. Off the NW corner of Alcatraz Island is a buoy that marks a BIG hunkin' rock that sits above the water at low tide.

He'd sailed here for sooo many, many years, but his racing courses never got him too close to that particular area.

He cut the corner and ripped the bottom out of his brand new boat.

Unless you zoom into less than 1 nm on my Garmin software, that buoy and the rock do NOT show up.

The rock is ALWAYS there on all the Bay charts of a suitable scale if you're using one for this area.

Situational awareness is the issue.
 
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