MacSailing.net

For those that know way more than I (TTKWMTI), something is puzzling me. Have only recently gotten into navigation... but I think I see something very odd.

ENC charts come from NOAA, and from what I've read, started being "created" several years ago. Yet, for some reason I find certain significant holes close to home (NYC).

Imagine a rectangular area bounded by Wood Hole, Chatham, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard... mostly blank. Imagine most of the southern, ocean facing shore of Long Island. No ENC coverage. Without pouring over the whole set, I gotta believe there are other holes just as significant close to other areas than sailors visit.

I'm sort of shocked; for a variety of reasons, from a technology standpoint, vector charts are the way to go, but it's hard to convince anyone if there are such "holes." Anyone know more about this...

paulc Wrote:Imagine a rectangular area bounded by Wood Hole, Chatham, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard... mostly blank. Imagine most of the southern, ocean facing shore of Long Island. No ENC coverage. Without pouring over the whole set, I gotta believe there are other holes just as significant close to other areas than sailors visit.

I'm sort of shocked; for a variety of reasons, from a technology standpoint, vector charts are the way to go, but it's hard to convince anyone if there are such "holes." Anyone know more about this...

You might try charts
- 13006 West Quoddy Head to New York. Thats a huge extent but it might work.
- 13200 Georges Bank and Natucket Shoals to see if it works for the Cape at least.

I've specifically looked at the Georges Bank/Nantucket Shoals chart... it shows a blue area devoid of depth soundings for roughly the area I mentioned. South of the Martha's Vineyards-Nantucket axis, there are depth readings. The whole eastern end of the Vineyard seems blank... again, no depth readings. And no navigation aides... even around Edgartown (where I am assuming there must be some).