NOAA Custom Chart Tool is worth exploring
Most GLCC members have been cruising for years. It’s safe to say many of us inventory a drawer or cabinet full of paper charts that have assisted in planning and timing safe courses and harbor or anchorage entry.
However, with the current ubiquity of electronic chart plotters (many of the newer products with “auto guidance”), we probably now use our paper charts more as a “security blanket” as we navigate. (After all, the electronics can fail.)
The decreased reliance on paper charts is now reflected in NOAA’s decision to no longer update traditional paper charts beyond the end of 2024. Instead, NOAA now offers and is refining an online app, NOAA Custom Charts, that allows boaters to customize and print charts needed for specific voyages segments.
This Ocean Navigator article from its January/February 2024 magazine explains this in some detail. It explains the evolution of paper charts to “raster charts” and “vector charts”, now more commonly referred to as “ENCs – Electronic Navigation Charts”. For those interested in learning more, the article references a booklet available on Amazon (of course), “ENC Essentials: Getting Started with Electronic Navigational Charts.”
To see the new NOAA app, go to https://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/updates/explore-the-refreshed-enc-based-noaa-custom-chart-tool/.
The NOAA Custom Chart webinar is available at the GLCCSchool
PermalinkOn January 25th the GLCCSchool offered the webinar NOAA"s Custom Chart Application. The webinar was presented by Lucy Hicks, the acting Great Lakes Manager for NOAA's Office of Coast Survey. It was attended by over 80 people and is still available for viewing. Click to see this webinar.