Over the past few decades, mariners have witnessed the rapid development, reliability, and availability of e-navigation components, such as the global positioning system (GPS) and electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS). These systems, and other technology, have fundamentally changed mariners’ reliance on traditional navigation services. In addition, the ability to manage data and information provided to the mariner through the automatic identification system (AIS) and cellular service has enhanced the interconnectivity between shore side information providers and shipboard users. These technological advances and data flow will help the mariner receive data, transmit data, and generally improve bridge resource management, situational awareness, and navigational safety.
Continue reading “NOAA Coast Survey, Coast Guard, and Army Corps of Engineers schedule public “listening sessions””
NOAA’s paper nautical charts are here to stay
New certified printing agents bring buying options
It won’t be long before mariners and the boating public will have a wider choice of options and special services when they purchase NOAA paper nautical charts, thanks to NOAA’s expanded “print-on-demand” chart production and distribution system, Coast Survey officials announced on April 4. Coast Survey recently certified new print-on-demand chart printing agents, and gave them the flexibility to offer different color palettes, various papers, a cleaner margin, and a range of services.
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Coast Survey unveils NOAA ENC Online enhancements
In November 2013, we introduced NOAA ENC Online – a continuous viewer for our electronic navigational charts. You can click on the web map and zoom to selected features or locations, to see the information contained in over a thousand electronic charts of NOAA-charted waters. Each zoom moves you through an ENC depiction that takes into account the ENC scale and other attributes that are encoded in the ENC, allowing features to become visible or invisible as you seamlessly zoom in and out of the data.
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Catch the digital wave in NOAA navigation products #Data4Coasts
This week, NOAA’s National Ocean Service is inviting you to explore #Data4Coasts that NOS provides to the public, to researchers and decision makers, and to the many industries involved in coastal resilience and maritime commerce. Much of Coast Survey’s data for the coasts is easily accessible by downloading or by using a web map. Other products, like our beautiful printed nautical charts, are available for purchase – as they have been since the mid-1800s – from chart agents.
We’ve been making charts for a long time – and we’ve never been more excited about it! A quickly evolving (r)evolution is transforming the way we plan voyages and navigate, and Coast Survey is reconstructing our nautical product line for the millions of boaters and commercial pilots who are catching the new digital wave.
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NOAA navigation response teams improve charts for ships transiting Miami and San Francisco
Coast Survey’s navigation response teams, which are 3-person hydrographic survey teams on small boats, have made a fast start on this year’s survey season.
In Florida, where Coast Survey is preparing to issue a “new and improved” Miami Harbor Chart 11468 to alleviate vessel congestion at the Port of Miami, a navigation response team finished final hydrographic surveys to ensure the new chart has the latest and most accurate depth measurements around several areas identified as critical within the port. In just ten days, team members Erik Anderson, James Kirkpatrick, and Kurt Brown acquired, processed, and submitted the multibeam survey data covering 64 nautical miles.
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NOAA Coast Survey to improve “magenta line” on Intracoastal Waterway nautical charts
The Office of Coast Survey announced today that future editions of nautical charts of the Intracoastal Waterway will be updated to include an improved “magenta line” that has historically aided navigation down the East Coast and around the Gulf Coast. Additionally, Coast Survey will change the magenta line’s function, from the perceived “recommended route” established more than a hundred years ago, to an advisory directional guide that helps prevent boaters from going astray in the maze of channels that comprise the route.
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Great Lakes mariners get new NOAA nautical chart for St. Mary’s River
Vessel operators transiting St. Mary’s River, between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes, have a new nautical chart to help lessen the dangers inherent in this narrow and complicated waterway. The first edition of Chart 14887 (St. Marys River – Vicinity of Neebish Island) is available this week as a paper print-on-demand chart, PDF, and raster navigational chart. The electronic navigational chart will be available by March, in time for the beginning of the shipping season. (UPDATE, 2/12/14: NOAA ENC US5MI50 is now available.)
Coast Survey has built the chart from original sources, providing the highest standard of accuracy for hydrographical and topographical features and aids to navigation. The chart provides large-scale (1:15,000) coverage of the up bound and down bound channels of the St. Mary’s River – one of the busiest waterways in the nation. Over 4,100 transits of commercial and government vessels move about 75 million tons of cargo through the 300-day shipping season.
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Happy holidays to chartmakers in the U.S. and around the world
NOAA’s paper nautical charts get a needed update – literally
Paper nautical charts hold a special spot in a sailor’s heart – and in the chart table. The October announcement that the federal government will stop bulk lithographic printing of nautical charts brought some understandable angst to boaters – but fear not! NOAA may be changing the chart production process but we will NOT stop the production of paper charts. We are working with private companies to make them better: printed in brighter colors and available for fast delivery to your door. Most importantly, they are up-to-date to the moment you order it. These improved paper charts are NOAA-certified print-on-demand (POD) nautical charts, created by NOAA Coast Survey cartographers.
While the lithographic paper charts will go away in 2014, anyone can order almost* any printed NOAA chart any time, from the comfort of your home, office, or boat. Just bookmark nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/pod to find the NOAA-certified chart seller who will print your chart “on demand” and ship it to you.
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Coast Survey unveils NOAA ENC Online Viewer
For more than ten years, since NOAA introduced its electronic navigational charts, you have needed to purchase a specialized chart display system to view the NOAA ENC® as a seamless chart database. Starting today, you don’t need a system to view the ENC depictions; you can use Coast Survey’s new web-based viewer called NOAA ENC® Online. (IMMEDIATE CAVEAT: You still need a specialized display system to use the multi-layered functional data that make ENCs so valuable. NOAA ENC downloads are still free to the public.)
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