This is to raise awareness and not alarm. NOAA is planning to discontinue printing/selling paper charts over the next few years. Charting options available today will be replaced with new electronic formats and new print-on-demand methods during the 2020-2025 time frame. The article is here:
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/noaa-plans-to-stop-producing-traditional-paper-charts
The details are in links embedded in the article. Since many of us are using electronic charts, you might think that the elimination of paper charts is not going to affect you. As one link describes, the electronic vector charts are going to be affected as the government overhauls the chart "quilting" scheme and introduces a new service, NOAA Custom Charts (NCC). A link is available to a prototype online application.
It will be worth watching what the various electronic chart suppliers will do and how existing dedicated chartplotters, PC-based navigation applications and portable handheld software suppliers will react. Most will provide new or updated software, I'm sure, but for older plotters they may not update firmware to accommodate the new format.
Thanks Ellen (msFootrope), for the heads-up.
Craig
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/noaa-plans-to-stop-producing-traditional-paper-charts
The details are in links embedded in the article. Since many of us are using electronic charts, you might think that the elimination of paper charts is not going to affect you. As one link describes, the electronic vector charts are going to be affected as the government overhauls the chart "quilting" scheme and introduces a new service, NOAA Custom Charts (NCC). A link is available to a prototype online application.
It will be worth watching what the various electronic chart suppliers will do and how existing dedicated chartplotters, PC-based navigation applications and portable handheld software suppliers will react. Most will provide new or updated software, I'm sure, but for older plotters they may not update firmware to accommodate the new format.
Thanks Ellen (msFootrope), for the heads-up.
Craig