Paper chart useage and storage

[ken003]

I have only sailed in areas covered by charts in nice neat booklets.  For this summer I have to buy full size paper charts.  Before I start folding and labeling them I thought I would check to see how other people handled them.  Do you fold them?  Any special way?  Where is a good place to store them?

Thanks,
Ken

[Joe Kern]

The few I have that are not in the large books I have folded and kept in the nav station.  Folded correctly the Chart label is on the outside and easily viewed so the different charts can be located.  Folding creates creases and such and I have thought it would look good to somehow mount a chart rack with 2 or 3 plastic chart tubes in the aft cabin or near the interior handgrab on the port side.  That way the charts could be rolled up and still easily accessible.  Just not something I have gotten around to.

Joe

[Stu Jackson]

We use our nav station as what I consider the easiest and fastest to access our toolbox (with a spring hinge on the top - we keep daily use tools and many other miscellaneous items inside), so we keep our charts elsewhere.

The PO had installed a teak magazine rack at the nav station, to the furthest left looking aft, at the edge of the head door.

It holds our folded charts, a chart book we bought for the area, our log book and sundry other files and reference materials.  It's reasonably deep.  We call it "The Library."

Chart folding is more an art than a science.  I have no trouble with folded charts, since the paper is so sturdy that they take folds rather easily and can easily be unfolded for use at the nav station, or on the saloon table.

I originally tried to fold them to cover areas most traversed, but eventually you'll find that the largest fold you can make to keep them where you plan to store them will work best - less folds is better.  And you almost always have to unfold them for that eventual time that you sail past the fold!  1/3 vs. 1/4 seems to work best, less flipping.  Fold carefully to easily lay the third side over the first side - try it with a piece of paper, you'll understand what I mean if you label a 1/3 fold parts 1, 2 and 3.  2 is always in the middle, but you want to fold it so either 1 or 3 can be on top, so a careful fold is important.  Once you get the first direction, the second direction folds can be 1/3, 1/2, or 1/4 depending on the chart size and where you're going to put them.

While the first fold is nice to have the name of the chart facing up, often you'll end up using the other side of the chart.  What we've done is label the edges of the chart for quick reference.  We've got about a half dozen charts in The Library.  None of them are on the same size paper.

Sooner or later you'll want to or need to use some scotch tape to strengthen the place where double folds come together.  I keep telling myself that by that time it's time for new charts!

While rolling seems to have some initial appeal, I've found that there really are extremely rare times when you need the whole chart open.  Yes, for long range planning, so that works on the saloon table or at home, but for sailing any given day, we flip the chart around the fold and just sail on.

I've found that noting the distance of 1 nautical mile, or 10 nautical miles as appropriate, on the latitude scale of one side of the chart is very helpful.  When you get a new chart you're usually interested in reading it, what better time to make sure you have "installed" a "scale" of the chart - sure beats doing it under perhaps less ideal circumstances at a later date.

I don't have a picture of the rack, but here's a folded chart in use:

[Jon Schneider]

Stu, I do what you do vis a vis folded charts, but I don't have a "library" to store them in, so I do use the nav table.  It's a PITA, because I also store sea-sick bands and ginger pills (for guests; I don't know from sea sickness), miscellaneous screwdrivers, mini-wrenches, blades, pencils, triangles, and what nots in the nav drawer.  At some point this year, I'm committed to converting the hanging locker into a shelved cabinet with the top shelf having a sliding drawer for all of the miscellaneous crap that gets in the way of easy access to the charts.  I do, however, like your PO's addition of a rack, but I currently have a double-sized fire extinguisher in that spot.  Since I never sit at the nav table (I use the settee table instead to do navigation work), perhaps I could move it to the opposite side (short side of the port settee) and install a magazine rack where you have yours.  I would love to be able to reach under and quickly pull out a chart.  Well, I'd actually prefer to reach under and grab a bourbon on the rocks, but that might interfere with navigation ;)

[Stu Jackson]

Jon, I hear ya.  A picture of our "nav station - toolbox" is here:  http://www.c34.org/projects/projects-aquavite.html

It was MUCH neater and cleaner back then (1998 photo).  We tend to also "collect" things.  If Cory could ever get me to take all the tools and parts out of the four drawers we have in the V berth...

[Jon Schneider]

Actually, Stu, I noticed a brilliant idea that I hadn't thought about in your picture: using a kitchen utensil drawer organizer in there.  Duh... but brilliant.  I'm just glad that I'm not the only one who uses the v-berth drawers for tools and parts, but I hate myself for doing so.  That said, those drawers, along with the pathetic hanging closet in the vee are among the only seriously flawed designs of the C34.  And why did they ever leave the space under the vee to be a land of chaos accessible only via the top.  Plus, why didn't they at least have the hanging closet in the main salon reach to the deadlight (or be drawers as I will do)?  And what's with that pathetic sort-of-hanging closet in the aft berth?  Okay, I feel better now.... (Ken, apologies for taking this topic so off-target.)

[Stu Jackson]

This is like a tennis match, back and forth and fun.

We dissed the hanging locker in the V berth and put shelves in there, too, although they're not movable like the ones in the nav station locker.  I don't miss a hanging locker at all, since they didn't drain anywhere, and the hooks we put in the head make that a much better place to hang wet stuff.

I kinda like the "closet" in the aft cabin - it's the only place we do actually hang stuff.  We keep extra foul weather gear in there, and one of these days (oh, no, not THAT phrase again!!!) I'll get around to getting some stuff off hooks in the V berth and aft cabin and start using the aft locker more often for stuff we don't use that much.

I assume you are aware of both Captain Al's and our nav station storage shelving mods...

Our fire extinguisher is below the nav station top, just aft of the trash bin in the picture of the nav station toolbox mentioned above.  That definitely would open up your nav station top for a library rack.  I bolted ours through the wall to the head to keep it "steady."

[Jack Hutteball]

Isn't it nice that Catalina left us all these nice little things to correct/finish/change on our boats?  If we didn't have them to do we would have to find some other excuses to get to the boat and play

Jack

[ken003]

Jon,  No need to apologize for going off thread.  I am trying to figure out how to make the area under the vee berth more accessible and useable.  I will be rereading these posts and right now will go and find the storage mods that Stu mentioned.

As for the charts, I need to decide if I ever plan on sitting at the nav table.  So far we have kept boxes of things there and it would be nice to build something in for storage.

[Jon Schneider]

I'm feeling pretty dumb for not having thought of the magazine rack solution.  I had been planning on attaching some kind of wire rack under the nav table for charts, but then I ended up installing my new charger under the table (the original charger had been in the adjacent hanging closet, which I was never comfortable with from a heat/ventilation perspective).  When Stu described his PO's rack solution, I originally misunderstood its placement, thinking that it was under the nav table on the outer wall of the hanging closet (even though you accurately described where it was Stu... I just had it in my mind that under the nav table was the right place for charts), but I have my fire extinguisher there.  I keep my flares and safety equipment in a wall-hanging organizer where Stu's chart rack is, but I think I'll move that someplace else (maybe the aft berth) and go with the rack in that place.  I would so love to be able to reach for chart without having to dislodge a whole bunch of debris first.  All this said, I'm going to install a new alternator and external regulator, bend on the sails, and go for sail for the first time in over three months before I do one more lick of work on this boat!

[Ken Juul]

I have one paper chart, a 1:40,000.  It hangs on on the wall of my office cube.  Stick a pin in it every Friday with my expected destination.  If I'm not at work on Monday they have a place to start looking  !

Seriously, for the area I sail a commercial map book works just fine.  Get a new one every other edition (3 years?).   For trips longer than a long weekend I use electronic mapping. I do much of the planning at home on the computer, make a float plan in excel (similiar to the one in Stu's picture) and print out the approaches to any unfamiliar harbors.  Can get pictures on Google Earth, Marinas.com and a few other sites if needed. Keep all the URLs in a "trip file".   The computer goes with us on the trip, if we need to adjust, can usually find a wireless feed or marina line to update the plan.  For the trip, make paper copies and place in a 3 ring binder, when we get home, the paper copies go in the YC Club house for others to use as needed.

Now that I have a chartplotter, will have to see how lazy I get.  But I'm thinking it just doubles the work, figure it out on the computer then input into the chart plotter.   I know it can be transfered electronically, but I'm still in the install portion of the project.  Not ready to tackle the operational aspect of it yet 

[Mark Wey]

Ken
Lots of good advice here. But further to Stu's comment about the scotch tape on the corners/creases of a folded chart. What I do is put the scotch tape on when the chart is new. There is a much longer life expectancy of the chart.
Also when we cruise. I often have to use 8 to 10 charts. Before departure, I organize them in the order that I will need them. As one we sail through one chart and on to another one. I put the one we just sailed off of on the bottom of the pile. Then on the return trip I just reverse the process.

Mark

[ebbers]

We have just signed a contract to purchase a 1992 34 Catalina - closing in a few weeks.  We're curious about what a "float plan" includes - referenced by Ken, & apparently shown in Stu's picture.  Can anyone tell us what data you put into your spreadsheet?

Thanks -
Tim & Melissa

[Ron Hill]

Ken : Back to answer your question.

I've always used the NOOA full size charts and still do.  Having 30 years in the military I use see-thru zippered chart cases that hold a NOOA chart that is folded in half.  I have a 3x5 card in one of the corners that list all of the charts in that case (5 or 6 charts to a case).  I have all the Chesapeake in 6 or 7 cases (with harbor charts). 

Biggest problem is the cost of the charts, so I only update a few charts every couple of years.  Just bought a Garmin 545 chart plotter, but the NOOA chart case of that area, is on the cockpit seat!!   

[Stu Jackson]

Tim & Melissa

A "float plan" is a formal list of your prospective destinations and times, usually left with someone, just in case...

This is a copy of the BoatUS form.

What was in my picture in the earlier post above was a simple spreadsheet with the waypoints list for our WAY OLD numerical only GPS.  It's not a "float plan" just a waypoint list.  The GPS only has #s for waypoints, so I list the #s and give them names in the spreadsheet, post the #s on my chart(s) and then find my way around by bread crumbs and braille.