O-Charts.org—Revolutionizing Nautical Chart Distribution

There is a revolution going on in international nautical charting, the significance of which is only slowly being recognized.  I refer to the chart distribution options at

o-charts.org, 

but we need some background to appreciate what is happening. An earlier introduction (Best International Chart Deal Ever) describes the types of charts being offered, but I want to stress now the revolutionary aspects of this program.

That introduction points out we are discussing electronic charts, not paper charts, and we are talking about international charts, not US charts of US waters—electronic charts of US waters are the best in the world, and they are free, not just to American mariners but to all mariners. So they are in a class of their own.

We are discussing charts for all the rest of the world, covering the waters most mariners sail in now and most American mariners want to sail in at some point, at which time they will face, abruptly, the fact that international charts are expensive and in many cases, it is not even clear where to buy them. Again, for background, we are discussing official Hydrographic Office charts, not third party renditions of official charts that may or may not be up to date or even correct in the first place. (One source of inexpensive global charts brags that they make 2,000 chart updates every day!  One of our instructors, after a solo voyage from Portland, OR to Glacier Bay, AK and back, during which he confronted “dangerous rocks” that were non-existent, and other truly dangerous rocks that were not marked, would suggest they are not "updating" often enough.)

So what is the revolution? 

...and what allows this revolution to take place at this time?

The first revolution, as noted in the introduction, is the price. For example, all charts, all scales of Australia for 35 euros; all charts, all scales of British Columbia, Canada for 20 euros, both being a tenth to a hundredth of the price of those from other sources.  These include updates for one year; after which the charts remain active on your computers, but you no longer receive updates until repurchased.

The second revolutionary step is the ease of purchase and installation. This can only be appreciated by those who have purchased, registered, and installed official charts (S-63 format) from other sources in the past. The O-charts procedure is well designed and easy to use, plus they have excellent instructions, including videos and support. The process takes just minutes and is even easier after the first set of charts has been installed. See the O-charts video linked in our Introduction and our new videos below on Use of O-Chart Dongles.

Third, and maybe most notable revolutionary step, is the ability to view the purchased charts on multiple computers using their new USB dongle system. Most sources of commercial charts allow for installation on two systems, where "system" is defined as the combination of computer and software. That is, use them with the same or different nav program on two computers, or two different nav programs on the same computer. After those two installations, the charts cannot be viewed on any other system.  To my knowledge, none of the sources for official charts offer anything like this, nor a way to "un-install" from one computer to free up a new install on another.

O-charts has the same limit of two installs, but they offer the unique opportunity to assign one of the installations to a USB dongle. Once that is set up, the dongle itself is an authorization to use charts registered to it. The dongle does not include the charts; they still have to be downloaded to the computer in use, but when the dongle is inserted you can view the charts. This means you could use the charts on two or more computers that you own, or you could take the dongle with you when sailing on another vessel using its computers. Or you could loan, swap, or sell the charts to someone else if you no longer need them.

If you cared to, you can use both of the allowed installations to go onto two separate dongles. The dongles cost 19 euros (~$25 with shipping to the US), but that could still be a cost effective solution. One dongle covers all charts you purchase.

Why is this revolution possible now?

First, these charts only work on OpenCPN. So, the fact that OpenCPN has matured to the point it has today, gathering support and use by thousands of mariners worldwide, is the cornerstone to the whole project.  There is now a large enough user set to justify the custom licensing, production, and support needed for this chart system. Once restricted to a specific nav program (OpenCPN) the charts can be distributed in SENC format, which simplifies the distribution.

Next, giving up the credential of "meeting carriage requirements" and not referring to these as "official charts" bypasses all the complexities of the IHO regulations on ECDIS, which in turn permits Hydrographic Offices to license the program-specific SENC versions without infringing on their sales and contracts with shipping companies.  Now recreational and smaller commercial mariners can be confident they are using charts equivalent to the official ones, and shipping companies with large budgets and staffs for handling these matters can carry on with their standard system of using "official charts."

The SENC format (called OE-SENC charts) use the same standards for content (S-57) and viewing (S-52) as the official ENC, and OpenCPN does an excellent job in adhering to the primary guidelines of S-52. ENC contain much more information than the corresponding paper charts and RNC, but there is a new approach to chart reading that is required.  Our book Introduction to Electronic Chart Navigation: With an Annotated ECDIS Chart No. 1 outlines the use of these new charts as well as providing a resource for symbols and a catalog of objects and attributes shown on the charts.

What's Next?

At this stage we can only hope that more nations join in to offer their charts in SENC format. There are quite a few which are nicely presented, interactively at the O-Charts website. Central America and the rest of the SW Pacific are notably missing. It will be interesting to learn more of why other charts are not available. If it is a matter of licensing fees, then the more we use the ones available, the more likely the system will expand.  Also, we are  trying to do out part by promoting the use of ENC charts. Our text (cited above) is one step, and we plan a series of videos on the use of ENC.

Related Articles with video illustrations.

    About SENC charts

    Assigning SENC charts to a dongle

Historic note:  For completeness I might add that several proprietary chart providers did at one point, many years ago, use a dongle to copyprotect their charts. This was then not an option; the dongle had to be installed to run them at all, and it was not a way to run them on different computers. It was more a belt and suspenders copy protection that was not at all popular, and did not last very long. The o-charts dongle usage is fundamentally different than these earlier systems.

FTPmail No Longer Includes Observations—Plus Alternatives

For decades, mariners had a convenient way to request near-live wind, pressure, and sea state observations from buoys, as well as data from land based stations. This was achieved via the NWS FTPmail service, accessing data in the folder

https://tgftp.nws.noaa.gov/data/observations/marine/latest_obs.

Using standard FTPmail protocol, we could then send an email request to ask for a file such as 51001.txt (a HI buoy), wpow1.txt (West Point Lighthouse, near us), or any other buoy or station operated by NDBC.  This would provide a short text report of the latest data from that station. These were updated every 10 minutes.

The process was explained along with a list of the stations in a file called buoydata.txt. The file is still there (at least for now), but the first part that explains the process is no longer valid.  The list of stations, remains useful, but the notes on "present conditions" is long out of date.

We learned today, however, that the NDBC is no longer updating the data files in the FTPmail folder. It seems they stopped doing this, more or less without notice, at the end of 2018.  This source was still listed at the Ocean Prediction Center until today, when they removed the information at our request because this source is permanently gone.

We are trying to learn why NDBC discontinued transfering the data to the FTPmail folder, ending access via FTPmail, and now post it only on their own server, without any direct reference to it.

Going forward... 

We can still get these data by email request, but we have to go directly to the NDBC for it, and we have to rely on the good help of saildocs.com, a non-governmental organization of sailors.

We have several options, all of which are tied to the new folder the NDBC is using to store the files, namely:

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/

One method is similar to what we historically got from FTPmail, namely latest report for just one station. These would be the same file names we used in FTPmail, namely, for example, wpow1.txt or 51001.txt, which include the following.

Station WPOW1
47° 39.7' N 122° 26.1' W 5:00 pm PDT 07/10/19
0000 GMT 07/11/19
Wind: S (170°), 14 kt
Gust: 15 kt
Pres: 30.05 steady
Air Temp: 65.1 °F
Dew Point: 61.2 °F 

and 

Station 51001
24° 27.2' N 162° 0.0' W 2:20 pm HAST 07/10/19
0020 GMT 07/11/19
Wind: E (80°), 9.7 kt
Gust: 13.6 kt
Pres: 30.07
Air Temp: 81.0 °F
Water Temp: 82.0 °F
Dew Point: 76.8 °F 

Wave Summary
1:40 pm HAST
2300 GMT 07/10/19
Swell: 5.6 ft
Period: 12.1 sec
Direction: NNW
Wind Wave: 1.3 ft
Period: 3.7 sec
Direction: ESE

This is the same as what we got before, but now there is no longer any government email source for observations—a giant step backwards in that observations are crucial to planning and email is the most common source of weather data offshore for a vast number of vessels. To get these observations by email we need to send a mail to query@saildocs.com with the following message

send https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/wpow1.txt
send https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/51001.txt

Then we get back two emails with the above text reports. You can ask for just one or multiple ones. It seems that the update times are not consistent from one station to another. The wpow1 lighthouse updates only every hour at this link, whereas the 51001 buoy in HI updates every 10 minutes. 

You can also put this link in your phone

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/mobile 

and you have access to something very similar, if you have cell phone connections.

Or...  just use Dial-a-Buoy on your phone and find the station by Lat-Lon: call 888-701-8992‬ and follow instructions. Every navigator should have that phone number in their address book!

Alternative Formats of Observations data

Most recent observations from all stations updated every 5 minutes are available at this link

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/latest_obs.txt

A sample of this file is below

This file is about 95 kB; it gives only the latest report, but lists all NDBC stations.

We can also get all data from a specific station updated every 10 min at this link

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2/51001.txt

where we attach the station name at the end, such as 5100.txt. A sample is shown below. Some stations only have data every hour; others every 10 min with wave data maybe every hour.

The data go back 45 days.  File names are in caps (if letters are included) for this folder, but lower case in the other folder, and that matters for this download or email request.  A typical file size is 104 kB, which is clearly larger than we want by satphone.

Alternatively, we can ask for  a continuous-wind file from the same folder, such as

https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2/WPOW1.cwind

#YY  MM DD hh mm WDIR WSPD GDR GST GTIME
#yr  mo dy hr mn degT m/s degT m/s hhmm
2019 07 08 22 00 160  2.6 150  3.6 2104
2019 07 08 21 50 160  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 21 40 157  2.1 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 21 30 158  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 21 20 164  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 21 10 157  3.1 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 21 00 156  3.1 160  3.6 2047
2019 07 08 20 50 162  3.1 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 20 40 165  3.1 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 20 30 158  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 20 20 166  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 20 10 171  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 20 00 165  2.6 170  3.1 1958
2019 07 08 19 50 167  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 19 40 163  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 19 30 157  2.6 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 19 20 158  2.1 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 19 10 161  2.1 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 19 00 163  1.5 160  2.1 1859
2019 07 08 18 50 178  0.5 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 18 40 268  0.0 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 18 30 308  0.5 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 18 20 000  0.0 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 18 10 319  0.5 999 99.0 9999
2019 07 08 18 00 326  0.5  40  1.5 1705
2019 07 08 17 50 328  0.5 999 99.0 9999

Here we get only wind data from only this station. This file lists the wind every 10 minutes at the station, updated every 5 min.  The file size is about 260 kB.  This is a text file, but without the standard .txt extension.  Once downloaded, highlight the file, and say open with Notepad (OC) or TextEdit (Mac).

Remember we can get any of these reports by email request to saildocs, i.e., send a mail to query@saildocs.com with one or all of these messages

send https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/wpow1.txt
send https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/latest_obs/latest_obs.txt
send https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data/realtime2/WPOW1.cwind

______________

The parameters for all of these files are explained at this link https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/measdes.shtml

You can find  the best stations for your application most easily with their graphic interface at the the home page: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/   then make a list of the ones you care about.

Alternatively, If you do not know the name of a station, you can find available ones based on Lat and Lon at https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/radial_search.php?

A list of stations and what products they have is here: https://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/data_availability/data_avail.php

Don't forget our powerful free email service to get live ship reports.  See starpath.com/shipreports. This provides all reports within 300 nmi of a specified Lat, Lon over the past 6 hr.

The navigation program Expedition has a unique feature of downloading and displaying all the latest buoy and ship reports, but they include only the latest data. Seeing the sequence of these is often instructive. The GPX file of reports we create in Starpath Ship Reports can be imported to any nav program.

Lat-Lon from Street Address

There is an online service that finds your Lat Lon based on a conventional address.   That service is found at

https://stevemorse.org/jcal/latlon.php

We have tested this for our own location, which was informative.  Here is the input

We then compared this to our actual location on Google Earth, which is shown below

We see that 3 of them are off quite a bit (143 yards east of our true position), but the other two are very close.  The Open Street Map solution is right on top of our front door at Starpath HQ.

We leave it as an exercise* to show than an equivalent international address for our front door is

///from.sticky.clip

My actual desk is located at ///agrees.pumps.libraries.  So much better than Lat-Lon—especially if your address is something like Wiggley Farm, Batchley.

________________________

* Hint.

Expanding Scales on Universal Plotting Sheets

Universal plotting sheets (UPS) are intended for plotting sextant fixes along with DR track plotting (we cover their use in Celestial Navigation), but they are also useful for marine weather routing as we show in Modern Marine Weather.  These sheets could also be used for solving standard maneuvering board problems if needed, but there are sheets better suited for those.

A typical plot of an ocean track is shown below using the default scale of 60 nmi per printed latitude parallel. The longitude scale is set up using the inserted diagram, after marking the central Lat on the Lon scale of the diagram.

An ocean voyage proceeds as a sequence of fixes with DR between them. These real sextant sights are from our book Hawaii by Sextant. We will be looking specifically at Problem 22, which is zoomed into below.

This is a good fix, but we can't tell how good using the standard scale for the plots shown here. We can expand the standard scale by redefining the Lon diagram. Below is how it would change if we go from 60 nmi per parallel to 30 nmi per parallel.

Or we can expand the plots to 6 nmi per parallel as shown below.

This is the type of expansion we used in practice during the 1982 voyage shown above. A typical procedure might be to do a quick fix with just two or three sights to find an approximate center point, and then create the new plotting sheet centered about that point using 6 nmi per parallel.

At the time of the voyage, we chose 24º 39'N, 151º 16' W to plot from, and below is an image of the actual plotting sheet from that voyage, 37 year ago.

You can see that we had a good fix.  Refer to Hawaii by Sextant to review our Fit Slope Method in action along with our automated LOP advancement technique, which is required for best accuracy. This makes a set of 15 sights of four bodies an extended running fix over a 30 minute sight session to get equivalent sights at one time.  Both yield notable improvements to the multiple sights analysis. In this sight session, Capella was the weakest with just one sight; the other three had at least 4 each.

Here is a short video discussion of the above process: