E-Mail Newsletter from the National Coop Charting Committee
January 2009
R/C Richard White
Chair Cooperative Charting Committee
Fair Winds and Following Seas
As my term as Chair of the Cooperative Charting Committee comes to its end, I’ve been reflecting on some of the things that have happened in the past two years and the year that I had the pleasure of being Ed’s assistant. Let me take this opportunity to reflect.
In the summer of ’06 we started working on the data for the Boating Guide to America. Under Ed’s guidance, members of the committee began to add information to a “wiki”; members of USPS were to add an article or information about their favorite boating destination- coastal, lake or river. The Boating Guide to America was to be like a boating destinations version of Wikipedia, but the sale and subsequent brake-up of Maptech brought an end to the Boating Guide.
There is the effort between the committee and the USACOE to develop a program much like CC Web whereby members of USPS would submit updates and/or corrections to the Corps Electronic Navigation Charts, this program is still in the works. Ed continues to work with the Corps developing the software so what we currently have will meet their data acquisition needs. This program has slowed as of late because of funding shortfalls, but it is still a viable program and will come to beta testing in the future.
The Geodetic reporting program, that program and the credits that were awarded were included in the Coast Survey Award. This award consisted of a Cooperative Charting Patch, and a working trip with a NOAA field party. NGS was unable to help fund the award so NOAA and the Committee agreed to suspend the program.
Now let’s talk about the main stay of the Cooperative Charting program and that is the CC Web program and our contributions to the safety of mariners that use NOAA’s charts. In January, 1963, RADM H. Arnold Karo, NOAA, then Director of the USC&GS, addressed the members of the USPS at our Annual Meeting, in Miami Beach Florida. He presented a paper entitled, “Charting – A Cooperative Effort”, and concluded by presenting the first Cooperative Charting Agreement to Chief Commander Charles Bradley for his signature. Since that time, USPS and NOS have worked hand-in hand to provide navigators with accurate and up to date nautical charts. The first year saw just over 300 USPS reports concerning suggested chart revisions that came in to C&GS as a result of the Program.
In summary, the relationship between the United States Power Squadron and the National Ocean Service has flourished. Since the first Memorandum of Agreement was signed in January 1963, the Power Squadron has submitted hundreds of thousands of chart corrections to NOAA that have served to updated its nautical charts that cover the coastal waters of the U.S. The USPS-NOS relationship is a model of what the Government and the non-profit volunteer organizations can accomplish. The United States Coast Guard, USACOE, the Department of Homeland Security and the NTSB are other Government agencies that are developing similar Federal/non-profit volunteer organization partnerships based on the NOAA and USPS successes.
Lastly but by far not the least, lets remember the two committee members that I’m aware of that passed away during my term, Ilene Grofman and P/C Shamus O’Flaherty
These past three years have passed quickly; it was with the help of each of the members of the committee and especially that of P/R/C Ed Summers, Stf/C Horst Boettge, and Stf/C James Strothers. Thank you, one and all.
If you ask yourself if the effort we put into submitting a report is worth the effort, the clear and concise answer is YES.
From Stf/C Horst Boettge:
New Co-op Charting Year Resolution
First, I wish to thank all participants for their good work in submitting timely and good reports during the past reporting year. Your contributions were very much appreciated. We are looking forward to another upbeat year.
Thank you again!
There is a rumor going around about a nasty recession, economic downturn, etc., stock market in the dumps taking all the fun out of boating, specifically co-op charting. Well, it might not be just a rumor. I have heard all kinds of comments why the participation in our efforts is down. It goes like this: “The cost of fuel is just too high”, “What is an inland squadron going to do after the demise of geodetics”, to “USPS/NOS/USACE just doesn’t care”.
Now let’s look at the positive side. There is a lot what can be done in spite of all the stuff mentioned above. Recently I received an email from a member in the Mid-West asking what could be done after geodetics went the way of the Dodo bird. My answer was that there are plenty of NOAA charts covering the Great Lakes to do co-op charting work. There are also plenty of NOAA charts available for rivers for squadrons located away from the coast, Hudson River and Savannah River on the East Coast, Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, on the West Coast the Columbia, Willamette and Snake Rivers come to mind. Take a look at www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/OnLineViewer.html and see that there is plenty of work out there. All those charts can be downloaded for free from the NOAA website www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster.
What about when the weather is just too nasty or cold out there? No problem!
With the local knowledge of your area, download the Coast Pilot chapter covering it and go over it to find errors, confirm them and enter it as a Coast Pilot report.
Another “best kept secret” is to do inspection on USACE navigable waterways & lakes and report your findings to the respective Corps district or lake management. After this is done, enter an inspection report in CCWeb and you will receive credit for the work done.
Last but not least, I wish to thank P/R/C Ed Summers and “almost” P/R/C Richard White for the guidance and assistance both of them gave me to be prepared for the job ahead of me.
From Stf/C Jim Strothers:
Feedback
In the last edition of the newsletter I touched on the area of getting feedback from the people in the field on the program. In order for the committee to address your concerns we need to get this information. As of this writing I have not received very much information. The following is what I received from one District Chairman.
Jim:
I would like to suggest the following changes in the CCWeb page
ENTER/EDIT A REPORT:
Change the spelling of Principle Observer to PRINCIPAL
When clicking on "Dates of Latest Chart Edition" a NOAA page appears
requiring extra clicks. The link should be identical to the link in the
left hand bar of the main page, which leads directly to the NOAA page
with the list.
Since this is the only response to date am I to assume that are no other issues that need to be addressed?
As you know our national meeting is coming up in a few weeks. Now it the time to give us your feedback so we can address your concerns.
Checklists
Last issue I mentioned we were developing Guidelines and Checklists to be used to have the reviews more consistent. I am happy to announce that the Cooperative Charting Manual is being reviewed for consistency and revisions are being made. Also as of this writing the second draft of the Checklists are being reviewed. We have developed a Checklist for each type of report. Each list covers the basic report information as well as specific report information depending on the type of report. It is hoped that these Checklists will be finalized by the national meeting for presentation to the committee members. When they are completed the plans are to distribute them to as many people as possible. Also we plan to include them as part of the revised manual.
I wish to thank Horst Boettge, Ed Summers, Ken Forster and Doug Harpine for their assistance in reviewing these Checklists. Hopefully with so many eyes reviewing the information very little revisions will be needed once in place.
Note
Newsletters are also posted on the USPS Coop Charting web page as they become available. Also, either an announcement or the letter itself will be distributed via the CoCh mailing list. If you are not already on the list, you may subscribe by going to www.usps.org/mailman/listinfo/coch and following the prompts.
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