Scott ask: "So for the last time, you voyagers out there, do you REALLY have
a complete compliment of paper charts for your long distance voyages?"

We have most charts, although for the most part we use electronic
navigation, but always have the appropriate chart available.  With a couple
of exceptions I was able to  borrow, or buy used charts for most of the
places we visited.  For example we were given charts for the entire west
coast from a friend -- they were old, but the rocks and coast line were in
the same place.  When we reached Florida, a visit to a used gear place
"sailorman" in Ft Lauderdale, resulted in chart books from Florida to Maine.
A few years later a request on "rec.boats.cruising" got us a loan (for 4
years) of over 100 charts of the Western Isles in Scotland.

We had friends borrow our PNW to Alaska charts twice. We were able to sell
our "Greenland" charts (which we never used) on the trawler list and our
Central America Charts on "rec.boat.cruising".  My point here is there are
alternatives, often you only need to ask.  Perhaps George should have a list
"buy, sell or Borrow charts"!

We stored charts flat in the chart table that we were using during the
season .  The rest were kept rolled in 4 inch sewer pipes with caps.  Worked
pretty well.

Also keep in mind, you don't have to have every last chart.  We spent the
weekend on a cruise with a couple who showed us their slides of a summer in
Prince William Sound -- they had one chart for the whole sound which was a
B&W reproduction they made in Hawaii.

Robby & Dolores
"Dolores E." San Francisco

Scott:

A few last thoughts on the paper charts topic:

I believe, although I couldn't find it, that paper charts are a requirement
under Federal Chart Carriage regulations. I searched but couldn't find the
actual regulation. I did find a citation saying that this was in the process
of being changed, and that on military vessels, electronic charts are now
considered acceptable, but not yet on pleasure craft. If you were ever in an
accident, and didn't have paper charts onboard, your insurance company might
seek any window of opportunity to refuse to pay.

You mentioned spending $3,000 on a set of charts. Personally, I just buy the
cruising region we are going to one region at a time. As you mentioned,
charts can be bulky. Also, plans tend to change. Why buy paper charts before
they are actually needed?

Here's what I do, which is a compromise: I tend to have every single chart
for any region I plan to cruise on my computer, and on my laptop. Thus, I
don't feel I need all of the paper charts at every possible detail level for
a region. Oft-times there are reasonably priced chart-books available for a
region. Rather than buying all the paper charts for a region, perhaps 5-10
decent paper charts will suffice. Normally, I buy the zoomed in chart for
just the marinas I'm planning to enter, the wide area chart, cruising guides
and a local chart book. Blindly buying every paper chart can get expensive,
and as has been said - they are bulky.

A last thought on this topic...

Here's another "rule" which I'm unsure about...

One area that I've never focused on is chart updates. My understanding,
which may be wrong, is that we have a legal obligation to monitor the
"Notices to Mariners" for any region we will be cruising, and to apply any
corrections to our light lists and charts. I believe these corrections are
available in electronic format, and assume, but do not know, that there is
some process for applying these "patches" to our electronic charts.

Perhaps someone on the list with real information can comment on whether or
not this is really a requirement. I must confess that I've never updated a
chart and do not regularly read the Notices to Mariners (although perhaps I
shall in the future, subject to what is said in response to this email).

-Ken Williams
Nordhavn68.com