Transition from Paper to Electronic charts
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which publishes navigational charts for US waters, is making major changes.
As announced in 2019, NOAA is phasing out the publication of traditional nautical charts. This process began in 2021, and is expected to be completed by January 2025. Significantly for South Bay sailors, Chart 18651 “San Francisco Bay – Southern Part” was canceled on 10/5/2022. While the last version of this chart is still viewable online it is no longer being updated and won’t be available much longer.
The good news is that the old raster charts are being replaced by something better – NOAA Electronic Navigational Charts (ENC). Fans of traditional charts need not worry, however, because there is a way to create a printable PDF file from an ENC. Even better, you can customize the area covered by the chart, and save the specification so that you re-create the latest version, including all updates, at any time, using the online tools at NOAA’s website.
Tutorial: Creating a chart from a saved specification
As this process will be unfamiliar to most of you, and can be a bit confusing, here is a short tutorial exercise in creating a custom chart for the sailing area around Spinnaker Sailing in Redwood City. The tutorial uses the Safari web browser on Apple MacOS Ventura, but should work similarly on other contemporary browsers. You can click on screenshot images to view a larger version if necessary.
- This tutorial uses a previously saved chart specification. Download and save the file “SpinnakerSailing.geojson“, making sure that it is saved with the “.geojson” extension. Safari may add a “.txt” extension when you save the file, unless you use the “Download Linked File as” menu item.
- Open the NOAA Custom Chart application web page.
- Click on the fourth icon in the row across the top, “Export Functions” (highlighted in red in the screenshot here).
- Click the “Open Chart Catalog Viewer” button.
- Click “Open Existing Chart Catalog”.
- In the file open dialog, navigate to and select the saved “SpinnakerSailing.geojson” file, then click “Upload”.
- Select the “Spinnaker Sailing Area” chart, then click “Add Selected Charts to Chart Queue”.
- Select the chart and then click “Export Selected Chart”.
- It will take a few minutes to generate the PDF chart, showing a progress bar.
- When the export is done, click “Open”. You may need to allow the pop-up window to open (see red circled area in the browser toolbar) depending on your safari settings.
- Switch to the new tab/window and see the custom chart, which will have all corrections up to the time of creation.
And that’s it! you now have a PDF of your own customized chart that you can download, save, or print.
If you’re interested in exploring further, you should watch the intro video on NOAA’s web site, then download the User Guide. Once you are familiar with the process of chart creation, you may want to create and save your own specification files covering your preferred sailing areas. Happy charting!