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Old 02-14-2013, 08:58 AM   #1
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Default Mud Maps / Charts

I've been playing around with the Wiki for a couple of years now and think it has enormous potential. The use of Google Earth is good as far as it goes, but I feel that it doesn't really address the need for decent mud maps of anchorages.

I'm somewhat artistically challenged, so drawing publishable ones of my own seems out of the question. Most contributors undoubtedly will have favourite anchorages that are best described with a sketch.

An easy solution would be screen grabs from OpenCPN or whatever charting software is used, but this would throw up all sorts of copy right issues.

Has anyone got some constructive thoughts on this issue?
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Old 02-27-2013, 10:24 AM   #2
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Sorry, honeybee, to take so long to address this question/idea.

If you are grabbing charts published by the US - NOAA- there are no copyrights. The US govt. feels that its taxpayers have already paid for the charts so they're "owned" by all. I know the rest of the world isn't so generous, but they also aren't particularly diligent in protecting the copyrights of their charts except when used in commercial applications.

If you post/publish for general information and use annotated non-US originated maps copied from OpenCPN or whatever and aren't charging for them, I doubt that anybody is going to stand on copyright infringement issues. You are, after all, modifying and improving the original image and you are not being paid for the image. Hard for an entity to claim injury. BUT on every such mud map/chartlet done this way and published in either a newsletter or on the internet there is always the disclaimer "FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY, NOT FOR NAVIGATIONAL USE" (or similar words to that effect). That is important protection for everyone.

If you demand compensation for such work, that's another issue entirely, and copyrights have to be honored.

When we were beating our brains out sailing from the Solomons to Vanuatu we blew out our mainsail and had to seek shelter. Just before we left the Solomons cruising friends showed us a bunch of mud maps they bought in Australia, and they let me trace them. One of them was a little chartlet of a small bay along the coast that wasn't visible on our charts. In desperation we turned around and headed for it - amazingly it was the perfect shelter for us and gave us the rest we needed to clean up our salt-soaked boat and a place to comfortably wait out the nasty weather outside.
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Old 02-27-2013, 11:45 PM   #3
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Thanks Jeanne. I'll give that approach a go. It seems sensible, but sense, law and copy right are not a good mix!
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Old 02-28-2013, 01:31 AM   #4
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I didn't adequately explain the "For Information....Not for Navigation" caveat. It's to protect someone from being litigated should a user of one's mudmap or hand-drawn chart claim that they were injured/suffered a loss because there was an error in that chart by the provider of it. (as you can imagine, this disclaimer started to appear after someone had an accident and blamed it on somebody's hand-drawn chartlet rather than their own mistake/misinterpretation/inexperience).

And a story. We were sitting at anchor in the Caribbean one evening watching three bareboat charter boats come into the bay. This was one of the poorer islands with no navigation aids anywhere. The local cruising guide offered a sketch chart and instructions for the approach, but it was just that, a sketch, not to scale, no range, very little except warning of a rock on the starboard side close to shore, and a shallow coral reef in the middle of the mouth of the bay, which was to be kept to port. The bay was large, the mouth was very wide, it was a lovely anchorage once you got past the reef and into the bay proper since that reef broke any swell that tried to work its way into the bay.

First boat cames in giving the reef a wide berth - too wide - and hit the rock on the starboard side hard. The skipper reversed off the rock and made it safely the rest of the way into the bay.

About ten, twenty boat-lengths behind this first charterer was the second buddy boat in the group. Followed first boat blindly, RIGHT ONTO THE SAME ROCK. Reversed off, went on into the bay.

Right behind that one was the third bareboat. And he followed right onto that same rock!

It wasn't the chartlet's fault - the rest of us in the bay had the same information. But I would not have been surprised if the bareboaters, with their relative inexperience, blamed the chartlet and directions rather than their own mistakes. The first boat's mistake wasn't that surprising given the average bareboater's relative inexperience of the area and of coral reefs and no nav. aids. But the following two, who both saw the boat in front of them hit the rock, had no excuse at all, IMO.

Oh, and to add injury to insult, one of those bareboaters, on a ketch, set fire to the mizzen sail when his barbecue flared up. Lots of entertainment in the anchorage that evening.
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Old 02-28-2013, 08:11 AM   #5
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So, here is a first attempt:

File:Cid Harbour Whitsunday Island Mud Map.jpg - a Cruising Guide on the World Cruising and Sailing Wiki

Any thoughts?
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Old 02-28-2013, 09:34 AM   #6
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Good. YOu've got the idea. Can you add the longitude? And I think that the "for information...." disclaimer could be in red - very obvious then.

My memory is pretty bad - Island Harbour - is that the place where Australian military plays shoot-em-up maneuvers occasionally? And there are several very good shelters from bad weather? And the tide range is 3+ meters? We sought shelter there, anchored in the first little bay after the entrance and woke up at high tide to find we were in a puddle with sand hills surrounding us. THAT was an anchorage that needed a mud map. Must say, at low tide the wind wasn't a problem at all!
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Old 03-01-2013, 05:27 AM   #7
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Sounds like Island Head. Yes, that is an interesting anchorage. You need a copy of Noel Patrick's Curtis Coast for that area. I'll try to get around to doing some notes on that area.
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