
NOAA Paves the Way in Modern Chart Making
Making and updating nautical charts is a continuous process that involves many people from different disciplines and organizations.

Making and updating nautical charts is a continuous process that involves many people from different disciplines and organizations.

Successful navigation is really just answering three simple questions: Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there from here? Even when

In December 2013, I wrote stories about the “magenta line” on our nautical charts depicting the Intracoastal Waterway, and now lawyers want me to answer
Did you know that some areas of the U.S. coastal chart you’re using may only show land and bottom features accurate in position to +/- 1,600 feet, and you shouldn’t be confident about the depth soundings either?

Personally I have no problem going electronic-only when transiting familiar waters or inland waterways. But I love maps and charts. In fact as I typed those six preceding words, I looked up lovingly at the map of the Caribbean basin above my desk.
Yup, you’re going to be able to easily collect soundings as you cruise, if you want, you can watch the resulting high def sonar chart materialize in your wake.

With the help of Google, Torqueedo electric power, solar panels, and a specially designed multihull boat, the Baykeeper project is hard at work photographing some 500 miles of coastline around the San Francisco Bay area.

An estimated 70 percent of the trash sinks, and much of it is tiny bits of non-biodegradable plastic floating out of sight just below the surface creating what NASA calls the ‘Garbage Islands.’

NOAA’s quest to better understand the world’s seafloor continues, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has committed two of its ships to collect and update chart data in the Arctic.
For the past three years we’ve used electronic charting, combined with GPS, for navigation. For instance, on a recent overnight trip from New York Harbor

After overplanning for a Gulf Stream crossing on my refitted Grand Banks 47, I found myself in a scene that would have shocked anyone.

Your boat and its systems are composed of a wide variety of fasteners.

It’s smart to keep an eye on the boat’s emergency equipment, even between scheduled service intervals.

Discover how Captain Luuc Klop transformed a rugged, unfinished 44-foot pilothouse trawler into “Barabbas”—a stunning, family-friendly passagemaker.

A Veteran of Two Great Loops on Small Boats Considers a Third in a 25-foot C-Dory TomCat.

Setting expectations and communicating clearly can make time on the hard shorter and more fruitful.

It’s not every day that a builder and owner take Hull No. 1 for 1,200-mile, open-water shakedown, but the Demey 60 Spaceship is headed for new frontiers.

The concept process behind Croix du Sud demonstrates how to consider a future refit for a classic build.

Anchoring comes with a lot of variables. Here are the key things to keep in mind in order to stay put.

An Aspen Power Catamarans rally raises the adventure bar with a trip up Vancouver Island’s untamed west coast.