NOAA Stops Printing Nautical Charts

rufus1138 · Oct 21, 2013

the time was coming, still kinda crazy.

Bill1565 · Oct 21, 2013

Chuckbear said:
The surprising thing is there was no announcements or hints that this was coming until now. Chuck

Call me dumb or out of it or both, but I thought they quit years ago and turned printing over to private companies who printed on demand for worst marine and others?

Charlie Jones s/v Tehani · Oct 21, 2013

I've been printing and using the Booklet charts for some time now. Pretty handy- you can download and have them printed,or print them on your own computer printer and put them in a three ring binder.

http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/staff/BookletChart.html

Charlie Jones s/v Tehani · Oct 21, 2013

Chuckbear said:
We have also done this on occasion, especially harbor charts and they do come in handy. Chuck

Also ICW- and I've run the whole ICW 6 times now, Port Isabel to Norfolk. Nice for that. What they aren't so nice for is planning a long leg offshore or in a LARGE body of water like the Chesapeake (say Annapolis to Choptank R) or crossing the GOM. Hard to plot a full days sail on a booklet( or a chart plotter for that matter) No compass rose on every page ( which is aggravating) and lack the ability to cover a long leg on one chart.

Large paper charts are still nice for some things. So I buy chart books.

But for long straight routes, they are great.

Benny17441 · Oct 22, 2013

This sort of smells. Our tax dollars will continue to pay for NOOA to map the world but private companies are going to be profiting from the effort. This sounds like the Sartorum caper where he wanted to NOOA to continue to gather the weather data and analysis but wanted to stop the delivery directly to the public. He wanted companies that sell weather subscriptions to be the authorized purveyors. Of course the ruse was to be done under the guise of saving the Government money. We all realize the printing is not that expensive when compared to the charting.

higgs · Oct 22, 2013

It won't effect me. I haven't bought a NOAA printed chart in 30 years.

Doc_holiday · Oct 22, 2013

Show me a government agency that asks for a lower budget year over year. That's a pipe dream I am afraid.

As long as GPS works and a new chart book and Garmin map updates are released once in a while I am good but I don't go into big water either. Just the Chesapeake.

Benny17441 · Oct 22, 2013

Chuckbear said:
That's not quite correct. If private companies pay for the data provided by NOAA, the government will spend less money funding NOAA. It's only a problem if they give the information away. POD licensees have to pay for the equipment and for each chart they sell to NOAA. What's the difference? There will still be printed charts available from the POD sites. Chuck[/QUOTE

The licensing of chart printing and sales is but a drop in a swimming pool of NOOA budget and costs. There will not be any budget cuts as a result of this move. The POD's add a profit margin to the cost to the consumer and will have sole control of the selling price. Do not forget about the sales tax to be collected by the POD. These will all translate into higher per chart costs to the consumer. But the proof is in the pudding, we'll see what the difference may be.

Rick486 · Oct 23, 2013

Benny17441 said:
This sort of smells. Our tax dollars will continue to pay for NOOA to map the world but private companies are going to be profiting from the effort. This sounds like the Sartorum caper where he wanted to NOOA to continue to gather the weather data and analysis but wanted to stop the delivery directly to the public. He wanted companies that sell weather subscriptions to be the authorized purveyors. Of course the ruse was to be done under the guise of saving the Government money. We all realize the printing is not that expensive when compared to the charting.

Spot on. If one digs into this one finds out that the FAA used to print the hard copy for NOAA> Recently the FAA told NOAA that they would no longer provide that service because of....you guessed it..."sequestration budget cuts"... I'm surprised they didn't blame Bush.

Sailm8 · Oct 23, 2013

PDF charts for a limited time

http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/pdfcharts/

NOAA’s newest addition to the nautical charting portfolio is the new Portable Document Format (PDF) nautical chart, which provides up-to-date navigation information in this universally available file type. The PDF nautical charts are available for a three-month trial period, from October 22, 2013, to January 22, 2014.
For the three-month trial period, NOAA is providing about a thousand high-resolution printable nautical charts—almost the entire NOAA suite of charts—as PDF files. The PDF nautical charts, which are exact images of the traditional charts currently printed by lithography, will be available for free download on October 22. Coast Survey will then evaluate usage and user feedback to decide whether to continue the service.

StinkBug · Oct 23, 2013

Benny17441 said:
This sort of smells. Our tax dollars will continue to pay for NOOA to map the world but private companies are going to be profiting from the effort. This sounds like the Sartorum caper where he wanted to NOOA to continue to gather the weather data and analysis but wanted to stop the delivery directly to the public. He wanted companies that sell weather subscriptions to be the authorized purveyors. Of course the ruse was to be done under the guise of saving the Government money. We all realize the printing is not that expensive when compared to the charting.

I hate to nitpick, but your conspiracy theories would hold a lot more weight if you at least got the abbreviation correct. It's NOAA, not NOOA.

Dan Johnson · Oct 25, 2013

Weather reporting issue...

Being a Pennsylvanian, I was "miffed" at the Santorum proposal to cut out NOAA's weather info provisioning in favor of it being provided by a private contractor, who just happened to be located in State College PA and would have profitted by such a change.

Hardly a conspiracy theory but an example of the back-room dealings that go on in Congress.

Follow the money--campaign comtributios, PAC funding, etc.--it's usually the source of such bad ideas. MHO...

Rick Webb · Oct 25, 2013

Re: Weather reporting issue...

Santorum is a amateur compared to your fellow Pennsylvanian Murtha.

I do not think the big cost in the charts is the printing it is in the distribution, inventory and storage.

Anybody out there have a print to order chart? How do they compare to the government printed ones?

If the difference is like the AAA Triptiks when they went from having a wall full of sheets to printing them on demand we have a problem.

Scott T-Bird · Oct 25, 2013

It is funny how we get "miffed" whenever our free government "cheese" is threatened ... never ever questioning how the government would be funded if not for the profit of private enterprise.

Stu Jackson · Oct 25, 2013

Dan Johnson said:
Being a Pennsylvanian, I was "miffed" at the Santorum proposal to cut out NOAA's weather info provisioning in favor of it being provided by a private contractor, who just happened to be located in State College PA and would have profitted by such a change.

I went to Penn State and am miffed at Santorum for much more than just that.