The U.K. Hydrographic Office plans to withdraw its paper nautical charts from production by 2026, citing “a rapid decline in demand for paper charts” relative to their digital navigation products. Press release.
Previously: NOAA to Move Away from Paper Charts.
A map showing the lighthouses of Europe has gone viral on social media. It’s a Geodienst project that actually dates back to 2017 or so. The map is generated using lighthouse data extracted from OpenStreetMap. “More specifically, it asks the Overpass API for all elements with an seamark:light:sequence attribute, decodes these, and displays them as coloured circles on the map using Leaflet. It also tries to take the seamark:light:range and seamark:light:colour into account.” (The above animation, taken from the project’s GitHub page, doesn’t show colours, but maps can be built that do, and the example going viral does.)
At Knowable, Cristy Gelling looks at new interpretations of Tupaia’s map of the Pacific Ocean. Tupaia was a Polynesian navigator who became attached to Cook’s expedition. His map, drawn beginning in 1769, has confounded observers because its islands do not line up with the actual geography of the Pacific’s islands. One 2018 study deciphers the map with an alternative, more complicated arrangement in which north is at the centre of the map. This proposal is not universally accepted.
Since 2013, Peter Bolt—whose company is called Landfall—has been making bespoke 3D relief models based on from nautical charts, Ordnance Survey maps and aerial photographs (see his portfolio for examples). The models are layered along contour lines—a process that can be seen in several of his videos. Everything is a custom job, made by hand; prices begin around £250 for an A4-sized model and go up from there.
Opening today at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History: The Kingdom of California: Mapping the Pacific Coast in the Age of Exploration, an exhibition of 16th- to 19th-century maps and books from the museums own rare book collection, the Map and Atlas Museum of La Jolla and the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library. The Santa Maria Times notes the inclusion of maps showing California as an island as well as 19th-century coastal charts. Admission included with museum admission, runs until 2 January 2019. [WMS]
The European Research Council has an interview with the first recipient of the ERC Starting Grant to work in the field of history of cartography: Dr. Joaquim Alves Gaspar, a former Portuguese naval officer who is exploring the origins of the first European nautical charts. [Osher]
Last month, the Boston Globe reported on a curious rivalry between two mapmakers and their boating maps of Lake Winnipesaukee, the largest lake in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. Bizer and Duncan Press, both family businesses, are locked in a bitter battle with one another, as each touts their own map of the lake as the best map. Bizer’s Map (above) claims to have charted more buoys, rocks and boating hazards; Duncan Press takes every opportunity to rubbish its competition on its website: see the comparison page and the FAQ. Some of Bizer’s claims seem unimportant, and so are some of Duncan Press’s critiques of Bizer’s map. All the same it’s fascinating to see such a rivalry on such a small scale. [Andy Woodruff]
Last month the New York Times had a profile of New York Nautical, a store specializing in nautical charts, publications, instruments and related goodies in Manhattan’s Tribeca district. If you’re wondering how they stay in business—because that’s inevitable when talking about a store that’s in the business of selling paper maps today—it turns out that most of their business comes from commercial ships buying charts required by the Coast Guard. [WMS]
The Baltimore Sun: “In a potential sea change for a nautical industry heavy on tradition, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s recent National Charting Plan suggested that, eventually, ‘the reduction or elimination of traditional paper nautical charts seems likely.'” (This is NOAA looking into the future, but note that private companies, rather than NOAA, already do the printing and distributing of paper charts; NOAA’s charts are, of course, available online and can be printed.) [WMS]
Iceberg Finder tracks icebergs around Newfoundland and Labrador, based on satellite imagery and on-the-ground (so to speak) reporting. It’s a project of Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism, which suggests that the bergs are seen more as tourist attractions than hazards to navigation.
Two books by John Blake on nautical maps that had heretofore escaped my attention: The Sea Chart, the second edition of which came out last May; and Sea Charts of the British Isles, a 2008 book that is getting a paperback edition in April. [WMS]
In a circular distributed earlier this month (PDF), the U.S. Coast Guard sets out rules allowing mariners to use electronic charts instead of paper charts to fulfil the requirements of keeping charts on board a vessel. “Due to the current state of technology, the Coast Guard believes that official electronic charts provide substantially more information to the mariner, and therefore may enhance navigational safety beyond that of official paper charts.” Commenters on the Practical Sailor’s Facebook page are by and large skeptical. [via]
These laser-cut wood bathymetric charts are unreasonably neat. Via Kottke.
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