Tom Cunliffe
Recently, the United Kingdom Hydrographic office (UKHO) announced that it was now policy to withdraw their official paper charts by 2026. It seems that NOAA in America and SHOM in France have made similar decisions. For the record, I am advised by Norcom (Meridian Chartware), that the Admiralty Raster Chart Service (ARCS) is also to be discontinued.
As a man whose navigation pre-dates GPS by decades, I suppose my knee-jerk reaction to this was predictable. ‘Speechless’ was the quote my wife posted on her Facebook page. The response showed the benefits of social media when used responsibly and informed comment flooded in on both sides of the argument.
We navigators float on what might be described as an ever-flowing river of time. At the source, we have seen Ptolemy’s early efforts at a vector chart based on course steered and distance run, measured largely without instrumentation. As the stream swirled
