The best way to buy enough charts for a circumnavigation.....

btfag0s · Dec 5, 2011

The NOAA charts of US waters are free, as are their sailing
directions (see Sailing Directions [1] )

C-MAP charts work with OpenCPN ... I believe there's lots of old
versions with worldwide coverage kicking around in cyberspace ...
search the sailing newsgroups for links.

There are also relatively inexpensive apps available for Android and
Apple phones that have charts, Western Europe for around 25 pounds I
think.

Alisdair

schult.cindy · Dec 5, 2011

Cruisers Forum has a ton of info on Open CPN:

Cruisers & Sailing Forums

Cruisers Forum is an online forum community of cruisers from around the world!

www.cruisersforum.com

I have used Navonics for Android along the coast, but am not sure it would
work if I traveled out of cell tower range.

johnadenney · Dec 5, 2011

Andoid is new to me and I have just been doing a bit of research and it looks very promising - the hardware is much cheaper than the Apple iPad and the maps (navionics) are also much cheaper... it may make sense for me to buy an android tablet and use it as a chart plotter and have my old laptop with the free OPENCPN software, and my phone with a set of navionics charts as well... belt and braces... I will still need to buy a wagon load of charts - but I could do this as I go along and maybe do a bit of swapping. Might work... thanks for the android idea...

SVFlyAway · Dec 5, 2011

I have Navionics charts on my old iPhone and they seem to work without a
cell tower. I haven't added them to my Droid yet. You can test them out by
going to your Settings and finding the Location screen (that is what
Samsung calls it). There you can temporarily turn off your cell reception
but still keep the GPS.

When I was out cruising I did a couple things. I found the many commercial
cruising guides were more help that charts (which I carried). On the west
coast of the US, Mexico, and the South Pacific books such as Charlies
Charts are great. I bought a couple cruising guides for the Pacific (my
wife insisted I bought one of them because the cover had a rather
attractive female on the cover and she was definitely dressed for the warm
weather

For crossing, charts aren't all that necessary since there is
nothing to hit one really small scale chart will suffice for the entire
ocean. The only time you need a chart (or chart plotter) is when close to
land and there the cruising guides are great.

But I did do some swapping as you mentioned. In Mexico I actually swapped
my west coast US charts and some Canadian charts for the S. Pacific. I even
swapped a CD of Canadian West Coast for the CD of the South Pacific. The
cruising community is rather large actually and once you get on a local net
it is amazing what you can get.

By the way, don't have only one computer. Computers and pads suffer in the
marine environment. I carried two laptops -- one I dedicated to charting
and other for communications, weather, etc. But I had the software for the
other computer's task on each. Early on, I found this out the hard way when
I was going up the inside coast of Baja California one dark night and my
computer just started acting up and I had to shut it down. I ran for
several hours on a DR and paper charts as I only had one computer at the
time. I did get that computer working again next day -- it just didn't like
having been on for several days I guess and needed a break. And at first
good opportunity I bought another laptop.

bobnlesafloat · Dec 6, 2011

Hi John,
First and most important, don\'t start spending money just yet:

To get as far as Turkey, we\'ve used these people www.chartsales.com who\'re based in Northants; their secondhand/cancelled charts have taken us all the way. I\'m something of a Luddite and prefer \'paper\', though as an earlier poster has intimated, we\'ve found the further that we\'ve travelled the fewer and smaller scale are the charts that we\'ve used, preferring instead to invest our hard-earned cash in the best and most up to date Pilot Books that we can find.

As we too prepare to head further afield we are making the change to electronic purely because of the cost/bulk/weight of the charts required, though in part that\'s a personal foible insofar as I prefer not to keep the charts I no longer need (just in case I return someday) so the heap tends to grow. In preperation we have now amassed three laptops (one was free one for the princely sum of £10) each of which is loaded with a seperate/different set of \'charts for the whole world\' and a suitable operating system, complete with spare CD/DVD copies - I\'m no Techie, but the \'Open CPN\' mentioned is certainly one of them; again, one set-up came already loaded onto the £10 laptop, another was free and for the third I insisted on making a £20 donation to the RNLI. We will still be carrying \'basic\' paper charts and in the first instance we\'ll depart with N. Atlantic/Carribean which have just cost me €50 for the lot, though I need to add some W Africa and
Brazil/Central America ones, they\'ll probably come from Chartsales and the latest Pilot Books - usually Amazon.

Certainly don\'t try to buy/stow all the necessary paper charts on day one, once you start cruising you will meet enough people on your travels willing to sell/swap/give away charts - both electronic & paper - for the next leg of your cruise; perhaps even us, as I\'m going to make a real effort to let go of the redundant ones! You\'ll get secondhand Pilot Books too, though theytend to be outdated and as I said, I like to have a recent edition. As a last resort, Chartsales will despatch overseas, though I\'ve never used that service or you will usually find in any major yachtie centre, somewhere able to photocopy a borrowed chart.

Good Luck, BobnLesley

________________________________
From: John Denney <johndenney1@...>
To: AlbinVega@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 5 December 2011, 23:43
Subject: [AlbinVega] The best way to buy enough charts for a circumnavigation.....

The answer is probably "with a credit card!" Anyway.....
I already have an old, hand held, Garmin plotter thing with the UK maps installed - they came on a card which is inserted into the unit plus a few local paper charts. The Garmin charts seem to be quite expensive but at least I already have the hand held plotter for them.

I know I will need paper charts as a backup but was horrified to see how much it will cost to buy enough to get me around the world! Is there an alternative?

As far as electronic charts are concerned I have spent most of today on t\'interweb and there seems to be a lot of free charts of the US which can be viewed via OPENCPN. Has anyone used it? ...and can I get charts for the rest of the world to run on OPENCPN?

I also have an iPhone with some Navionics charts installed from the App store. They work really well and are VERY cheap... I believe the same charts can be used on an iPad... maybe I need to buy an iPad and install the much cheaper Navionics charts? Anyone done it?

I was thinking about having paper charts and two electronic chart plotters so I had plenty of backups but its difficult to decide which route (sorry for the pun) to take ......

I am hoping someone has done it and has "the" answer! All comments/ suggestions welcome.

ps my wife has bought an 8ft by 4ft map of the world for £9.99 - maybe that will do!

John

mageekenneth · Dec 6, 2011

i used tidesend. they reprint black and white copies at a substantial savings. with p[roper route planning you can ge hat you need and have a few bail out charts to boot. the detail is good, but the colors used on standard charts indicating depth and so forth are grey scale, but i found this wasn't a problem. when using a redlight for navigation/chartwork the colors are useless anyway..it was the cheapest alternative I could find. you could always takaalong a printer/scanner and some quality paper and scan chart sections from other cruisers. and there are lots of chart reprinters locally at most cruising ports.K.L.Magee

From: Bob Carlisle bobnlesafloat@...

crazy4setters · Dec 7, 2011

Hi Bob , glad to see you "are on". By the way any news from MCA ? Greetings to Lesley as well.
Thanasis.

________________________________
Απο: Bob Carlisle <bobnlesafloat@...>
Προς: "AlbinVega@yahoogroups.com" <AlbinVega@yahoogroups.com>
Στάλθηκε: 8:35 π.μ. Τετάρτη, 7 Δεκεμβρίου 2011
Θεμα: Re: [AlbinVega] The best way to buy enough charts for a circumnavigation.....

Hi John,
First and most important, don\'t start spending money just yet:

To get as far as Turkey, we\'ve used these people www.chartsales.com who\'re based in Northants; their secondhand/cancelled charts have taken us all the way. I\'m something of a Luddite and prefer \'paper\', though as an earlier poster has intimated, we\'ve found the further that we\'ve travelled the fewer and smaller scale are the charts that we\'ve used, preferring instead to invest our hard-earned cash in the best and most up to date Pilot Books that we can find.

As we too prepare to head further afield we are making the change to electronic purely because of the cost/bulk/weight of the charts required, though in part that\'s a personal foible insofar as I prefer not to keep the charts I no longer need (just in case I return someday) so the heap tends to grow. In preperation we have now amassed three laptops (one was free one for the princely sum of £10) each of which is loaded with a seperate/different set of \'charts for the whole world\' and a suitable operating system, complete with spare CD/DVD copies - I\'m no Techie, but the \'Open CPN\' mentioned is certainly one of them; again, one set-up came already loaded onto the £10 laptop, another was free and for the third I insisted on making a £20 donation to the RNLI. We will still be carrying \'basic\' paper charts and in the first instance we\'ll depart with N. Atlantic/Carribean which have just cost me €50 for the lot, though I need to add some W Africa and
Brazil/Central America ones, they\'ll probably come from Chartsales and the latest Pilot Books - usually Amazon.

Certainly don\'t try to buy/stow all the necessary paper charts on day one, once you start cruising you will meet enough people on your travels willing to sell/swap/give away charts - both electronic & paper - for the next leg of your cruise; perhaps even us, as I\'m going to make a real effort to let go of the redundant ones! You\'ll get secondhand Pilot Books too, though theytend to be outdated and as I said, I like to have a recent edition. As a last resort, Chartsales will despatch overseas, though I\'ve never used that service or you will usually find in any major yachtie centre, somewhere able to photocopy a borrowed chart.

Good Luck, BobnLesley

________________________________
From: John Denney <johndenney1@...>
To: AlbinVega@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 5 December 2011, 23:43
Subject: [AlbinVega] The best way to buy enough charts for a circumnavigation.....

The answer is probably "with a credit card!" Anyway.....
I already have an old, hand held, Garmin plotter thing with the UK maps installed - they came on a card which is inserted into the unit plus a few local paper charts. The Garmin charts seem to be quite expensive but at least I already have the hand held plotter for them.

I know I will need paper charts as a backup but was horrified to see how much it will cost to buy enough to get me around the world! Is there an alternative?

As far as electronic charts are concerned I have spent most of today on t\'interweb and there seems to be a lot of free charts of the US which can be viewed via OPENCPN. Has anyone used it? ...and can I get charts for the rest of the world to run on OPENCPN?

I also have an iPhone with some Navionics charts installed from the App store. They work really well and are VERY cheap... I believe the same charts can be used on an iPad... maybe I need to buy an iPad and install the much cheaper Navionics charts? Anyone done it?

I was thinking about having paper charts and two electronic chart plotters so I had plenty of backups but its difficult to decide which route (sorry for the pun) to take ......

I am hoping someone has done it and has "the" answer! All comments/ suggestions welcome.

ps my wife has bought an 8ft by 4ft map of the world for £9.99 - maybe that will do!

John