NOAA's Experimental BookletChart™

[s/v Faith]

Good news for those of us who dislike reliance on electronic charts!

NOAA's Experimental BookletChart™

The experimental BookletChart is made to help recreational boaters locate themselves on the water. It has been reduced in scale and divided into pages for convenience, but otherwise contains all the information of the full scale nautical chart. Bar scales have also been reduced in scale, and are accurate when used to measure distances in a BookletChart. Excerpts from the United States Coast Pilot are included, and chart notes are consolidated on a single page for easy reference. Emergency information for the charted area is printed on the back cover.



Download and Print BookletCharts™ for Free! 

http://ocsdata.ncd.noaa.gov/BookletChart/

[Auspicious]

I've used three of these. They are great in the cockpit and easy to replace if they get damp.

[CharlieJ]

YEEEHAW- Gotta buy some paper and a new ink cartridge!!! Man- talk about neat for small boats- and you can file them in a looseleaf notebook and just turn pages.

Laura won't have to figure where one starts and the next stops when printing charts anymore!!

I have the site bookmarked- can't wait til she gets home and sees this.

By the way- they are asking for comments on this- let 'em hear from you.

[Frank]

Thanks Craig...that's a 'keeper' site for sure !!

[AdriftAtSea]

Even better if you get waterproof "paper" and use waterproof inks on them. :) A lot of the higher end photo printers use highly fade resistant and waterproof pigment-based inks.

[Tim]

Outstanding find Craig, I gonna have to buy a a good color printer now (only have a B/W laser}

Thanks Tim

[jotruk]

HI all I'm new here but this is proving to be a great site. Free charts sure make things easier when it comes time to set sail, Thanks for the link.

[CharlieJ]

;D ;D

Laura got home from work, I showed her the chart booklet site and she's already got half of our home bay charts printed. Now printing the other side of the paper with the other half so we can make a booklet. We were JUST talking last time we were out about needing an updated chart of Matagorda Bay ;D

[polecat]

Thanks Craig -- This is a real break through.
  Anyone know what would be the best (read - economical) printer for chart printing? We have one of those printer/fax/copier types that costs $82 for an ink reload - not to good.  Sure would like to get an 11X17 & waterproof ink....heh heh
jim

[Oldrig]

Thanks for the heads-up, Craig.

These little charts are super (though I wish there were compass roses on more pages)!

But I do wonder if NOAA's experiment will continue--especially as these chart booklets will compete with certain commercial ventures.

--Joe

[s/v Faith]

Thanks for the heads-up, Craig.

These little charts are super (though I wish there were compass roses on more pages)!

But I do wonder if NOAA's experiment will continue--especially as these chart booklets will compete with certain commercial ventures.

--Joe

I can only imagine the pressure NOAA is getting from the comercial market... probably not just in the form of complaints to them.  I think it is a good idea to downlod this and print soon.....

[Oldrig]

Thanks for posting this. (I found it on another forum, too.)

Working for a boating magazine, I was really intrigued by this site, and so I put on my reporter's cap and wrote an article (a scoop!) on the project. The piece will appear in the October issue of my magazine, which comes back from the printer about Sept. 15.

(If you want to know the name of the magazine, send me a PM. I don't want to be using this board to promote my business--that wouldn't be cool at all.)

Here's what I found out:

The guy in charge of the project--and the person who answers those comments personally--is named Dave Enabnit, and he and his office have been working on these free, PDF-formatted charts for several years.

Initially Dave was concerned about there being an article in an upcoming magazine, because the BookletCharts are currently "experimental." But he decided that my little article might be useful--since he would be getting more comments from people trying the booklets out.

The reason for the "experimental" status is twofold: The Office of Coast Survey is still working on the software that will allow the BookletCharts to be updated automatically every week. Also, there are bugs in some of the pagination (on some booklets, pages might overprint, or there might be some blank pages in some).

But, overall, the project is coming along well, and Dave told me he thinks the booklets might be ready for the general public as early "as the end of the calendar year."

Dave said he's received about 350 comments so far, mostly from people in the Chesapeake Bay-Delaware Bay areas, where the booklets have been available--but not publicized--for several years. He said he's received only two negative comments, one of which came from somebody involved in the sale of nautical charts.

I hope my article won't lead to an all-out attack by the industry, because these charts are really designed for small-boat navigation--the folks who probably don't have chartplotters (well, I don't either) and who might go out on the water without any charts at all. But they're really useful, especially for us paper-chart folks.

If you do download these charts, please let the folks at OCS (Dave in particular) know how much you like them. It's really an example of our government dollars being used well!

--Joe