Royal Yachting Association 'Manifesto'

[JARogers]

If the Royal Yachting Association is REALLY concerned about boating safety it would pressure the UKHO to allow boaters free downloading of its nautical charts!! http://www.jarogers.com/headlines.htm

[goboatingnow]

As the late great buddy Holly sang " that'll be the day..,"

Dave

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

As the late great buddy Holly sang " that'll be the day..,"

Dave

Quite, without getting too political, UK plc is broke and the Hydrographic Office (paid for by the Government) have a nice little earner from selling its information.

Pete

[cagney]

Rather than a UKHO approach, I think there are some very good arguments for a wider European Union approach.

...and resolve the situation so that mariners could use most up-to-date chart information for voyage planning and enhancing safety of navigation, rather than resorted to some commercially developed electronic products which were either prepared in proprietary formats, or containing unofficial data with very infrequent updating

I find that a lot of the arguing from The East Asia Hydrographic Commission fits very well into the scenario along the European Coasts. Making sure that all shipping, specially vessels flying a "flag of convenience", had access to free and up to date charts, would very quickly pay for itself. Start with charts necessary for coastal passages and for charts necessary to transit tricky areas.Dover Straits and The Baltic Entrance comes to mind, but there are many others.

As a side effect cruisers would have fine charts for offshore passages.

Thomas

[David M]

I think it amounts to who should pay for the cost of creating charts. The users or the taxpayers?