Print-on-Demand charts

[Doryman]

How do these print-on-demand charts compare to the NOAA-printed ones in terms of quality, size, etc.? And is there a corresponding Canadian company doing the same thing for Canada Hydro?

Thanks,
Warren

[Alok]

The OceanGrafix POD charts are essentially NOAA charts that have the latest notices to mariners incorporated. They carry the same infromation and the same chart numbers. The colors are brighter and easier to read. They cost about the same as the off-the-shelf charts.

All POD charts are printed on a standard sized sheet of paper, which is a pretty big sheet- so even small charts are on the big sheet. The excess space is either blank or filled with marine information- information on EPIRBs, hurricanes, PFDs etc. Personally, I have taken a sharp knife to some of these charts and cut out the excess paper. If you use chart tubes for storage, you will need the full-length tubes.

I have had my OceanGrafix charts printed at a local chandelry- perhaps the mail-order charts are on different sized papers.

Obviously, some people do not see the need for paper charts. I still like to have charts on board- I only have a chart plotter on the boat and just cannot get the bird's eye view of an area on the plotter screen without losing a lot of detail. I may just be partial to charts becasue I learned my navigation using paper charts in the old US Power Squadron courses.

Regardless, if one is going to buy charts, there is no reason to get anything other than a POD chart.

[Doryman]

[thataway]

NDI has the market on Canadian charts, which are copyrighted. So any chart which is printed has to have an NDI license. That is why there are no POD Canadian charts. Long story there--but the tax payer's product was sold.

http://www.digitalocean.ca/digitaloceane-store/recpaper.asp is the NDI page of Canadian charts.