Chart ping.
One of the few ACTUAL USEFUL PRODUCTS produced by the government, and they cut it.
Do they charge anything for the charts? If they don’t, then maybe they should. If they do, and still lose money, then some private business should step in...
Stupid! I always have paper charts as a backup.
Save your old charts they are going to be worth a lot of money.
Nowadays, most people instead use the on-demand maps printed by private shops, which are more up-to-date and accurate, Smith said.
Fedgov ought to be embarrassed, but it isn't.
This is reasonable.
The feds still do “charting”, just don’t provide the paper. Private enterprise comes into play to use the federales chart data, to provide whatever the public wants to pay for: table apps, paper, books, etc.
Similar is occurring in aviation. I no longer buy the paper charts for flying... an ipad app is all I need, and is “legal” to fulfill chart access regs. An older paper version as backup would suffice in a pinch.
Aviation charts were getting VERY expensive, what with being current you had to purchase a new set every few months (depended on the type of chart... some were every 56 days).
They’re still going to offer print on demand charts and PDF charts.
Even if they are there, all GPS satellites & electronic navigation aids tell you is WHERE you are, not WHAT ELSE is where you are, i.e., reef, shoals, rocks, channels, wrecks, navigation buoys, etc. Charts of some type, either paper or electronic, are essential.
Once the data is collected to make an electronic chart, essentially all that you have to do is hit the PRINT button. It is the collection of the data that is complex and expensive. Printing that data on paper is relatively simple. The cost of that printing & subsequent distribution can be passed directly to the purchaser.
Of course, turning the whole process over to one or more private companies, say Garmin or Jeppesen (for Air Navigation Charts), might be the best thing to do. Or we could buy them from the British Admiralty... or the Chinese.
However, there is one problem left. Once the business of charting is privatized and NOAA shut down, what wll they do with NOAAs SWAT teams and their share of the 1.6 billion rounds of ammo?
BOY Deadliest catch captains going be pissed