The UKHO intends to withdraw from paper chart production by 2026

[Gardenshed]

Reality is that Navionics, Imray, Raymnarine and others will use the source data from the Admiralty upload it into their own platforms with their own enhancements/features. Hopefully there will continue to be paper printed charts available at a reasonable cost, but few people go to the bother of regularly updating these.
This year, I bought a Raymarine Axiom + 9 chartplotter and I took the Raymarine subscription for their charts. Magically, everything updated using my mobile phone hotspot and I have all their latest charts in the magic black box. As all my other Raymarine kit is on the same network the system checked the software and updated everything at the same time. Great when it works but I will have a Navionics subscription on my phone and iPad as a back up!
Savvy Navvy and others will come along and offer more integration with forecasting and tidal predictions.....but its still good to have paper charts, an almanac and pilot books as back up/cross reference. No system is prefect

[stevepick]

Its a sad day, paper charts don't need a battery, and take a soaking better than an i-pad will. I may sound like an old grumpus, but I spent my career designing microelectronics, so I am no technophobe. It maybe my background, but I am fairly aware how limited the failsafes and backups are on my yachts electrical system. I have also had a chartplotter screen blow on me one evening 10 miles out from Ardrossan. Once I had dismissed the 3 mobile phones on board for their inability to match each others GPS position, I sat down, started a paper plot and realised that the Stephensons had given me a perfectly easy way to make my way around the MoK using their advanced light based tech system from the 19th century. One of the best trips around I ever had.

The good news is that Imray have stated on their website their commitment to paper ( in the news section ). So support them, I am already in the process of updating my portfolios from UKHO to Imray ones

[Gardenshed]

in addition to my Navionics and Raymarine electronics, I'll continue to have paper charts, paper tide tables & pilot books on board
plus Hamish Haswell-Smiths "The Scottish Islands"
Electronics have the habit of letting you down at exactly the moment when you need them most

[Bodach na mara]

We are the lucky ones who not only have Charts but also know how to make use of their information. It's later generations who have my sympathies. Even Spephenson's lights need a database of positions, which a chart is.

I agree with the comments about updating charts. Once, when I was young and keen, I used to follow the Notices to Mariners in magazines and only once saw a notice relevant to any of my charts. It gave the position of a newly discovered rock close to the west shore of little Cumbrae. I duly plotted it only to find the position was actually above the HW line on the east shore. The following month there was an amended Notice giving the correct position, which at least was on the west shore, but still where I was unlikely to hit it, being between the tide lines.

[Burst Boiler]

Once you work your way through the first third where Tom lets us all know how knowledgeable he is about the history of (redundant, out of date) navigation techniques which slightly undermines his actual point, he gets onto some relevant topics. But I don't agree that there's a tiny chance of all electronic things failing at once. A power loss on board means the boats systems fail, and then you cant charge your phone/ipad either, and these things gobble power when used as plotters. So after 12 hours say, you really have no backup. I'm not sure what might survive a lightening strike either. But I think UKHO is the wrong target - if leisure sailors and mobos did what Tom preaches and bought regularly updated charts, there would be plenty of business and they would not withdraw from a profitable enterprise. Maybe Tom should be campaigning for sailors to buy more paper charts as the way to keep them in production. Lets see if Imray gets a sales bump. My guess is people just don't bother with paper anymore (wrongly in my opinion), but having charts available that nobody buys doesn't really address the real issue either.

[Burst Boiler]

What happened to e-loran as an independent alternative to GPS? I heard they had gone as far as practical trials years ago, then nothing.

[Gardenshed]

An incident last year where a vessel hits an oil platform that was not on ECDIS but was on paper charts.

https://rin.org.uk
https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Acc ... IR2218.pdf

they had a paper chart with the rig marked on it and were using the chart to manually plot their position
they had a working radar
They saw the rig 10 minutes before they hit it

...... even without it marked on the ECDIS, there were many many opportunities to avoid hitting quite a large structure (73 feet above the water, the platform was 162 feet long and 81 feet wide and had three decks and a heliport. SP-83A was painted orange and equipped with eight flashing white lights with 2-mile visibility 53 feet above the water, and a fog signal with a 2-mile range.)

from the summary:
“navigators should always cross check ECDIS information with the other sources," and, if not used properly, “ECDIS may contribute to accidents rather than preventing them.” The inability to recognize the fallibility of technology, such as an ECDIS, can result in operator overreliance and overconfidence that degrades sound navigation practices and negatively affects situational awareness.

wise words we can all learn from

[stevepick]

So a small silver lining in my opinion. I recently purchased the Kintyre to Ardnamurchan and Clyde Folios from Imray. So the silver lining is that the quality is excellent. The paper heavy weight, the printing fine and clear, the charts are properly water resistant. Really impressed, the most recent UKHO folios really don't stand up to a comparison.

[Gardenshed]

So a small silver lining in my opinion. I recently purchased the Kintyre to Ardnamurchan and Clyde Folios from Imray. So the silver lining is that the quality is excellent. The paper heavy weight, the printing fine and clear, the charts are properly water resistant. Really impressed, the most recent UKHO folios really don't stand up to a comparison.

good to know, thanks

[mm5aho]

The Imray series of leisure folios is being extended to cover the same areas as the CCC Sailing Directions, roughly in order of popularity of the SDs.
At a recent meeting that included UKHO people, I learned that not only the cessation of the paper charts, but that a whole new grid system for the new "charts" is to be devised. So that will mean that the electronic versions of the new "charts" will have different coverage to the existing numbering system that largely "grew like topsy".

[stevepick]

Thanks Geoff. Good to know about the Imray coverage. Interesting about the complete revision of the UKHO system. Will all the chartplotter companies update their cards? Its going to take a while for this to permeate through the system. Were any issues or risks associated with the loss of paper and movement to an unsupported system ( ECDIS for yachts ) discussed ?

[mm5aho]

The meeting wasn't centred around this topic. (more about lighthouses and AtNs. hosted by NLB)
But the timescale is quite tight(IMO), 2026 to complete. The info UKHO produces is used by many (such as Imray) to produce paper charts. And yet others also print paper to order, from the source electronic charts, so I don't think there's a risk that those using paper will have nothing, just fewer supply sources.
The coverage of any chart is quite variable. UKHO ones are numbered, and so far universally recognisable from those numbers, but a new grid system will create some confusion to start with.

[Gardenshed]

from what I've seen, the chartplotter companies and charts don't use the UKHO chart numbers (Navionics, Raymarine etc).
not sure what the change in UKHO numbers will achieve. As noted above, the chart numbers are well known but as they are being withdrawn, then the new numbering system has to make sense for their new electronic commercial plotters/systems and a smaller user-group
future reality will be annual subscription to Navionics etc and paper charts and folios used occasionally, not undated in violet ink, until they are too damaged to use.
best use of old charts: wallpaper for the smallest room in the house