NOAA Navigation Services

The Office of Coast Survey has published a Federal Register Notice to request public comment on changes in the Nautical Chart Catalog Formats. The Office of Coast Survey is transitioning its nautical products to a wide range of digital formats and web mapping services to enable more frequent updating and allow easier uptake by users. With the end of lithographic printing of NOAA paper nautical charts in April 2014, we also stopped production of the five printed nautical chart catalogs which are created in the large paper format (35 inches by 55 inches).

We have now transformed the chart catalogs into letter-sized documents that users can print at home. Downloads of the “print-at-home” chart catalog in PDF format are free from the Coast Survey Web site (www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/catalog/). An interactive chart catalog is also available on the Coast Survey Web site (nauticalcharts.noaa.gov) for users who prefer to point, click, and download their charts from online. Coast Survey will consider making the front page of the large-format chart catalog. (We consider the reverse side, which lists chart agents, as obsolete and will not continue it.)

Before making the decision, Coast Survey wants to know if demand remains for the large-format chart catalogs, and if users are willing to purchase these from commercial providers, such as NOAA-certified printing companies. Coast Survey invites written comments about: (1) Maintaining the large-format paper catalog (with no reverse side) if they are available for purchase from commercial provider; (2) the new free “print-at-home” PDF chart catalog; and (3) the online interactive chart catalog on the homepage of the nauticalcharts.noaa.gov Web site.

Written, faxed, or emailed comments are due by midnight, April 30, 2015.

Email comments to frank.powers@noaa.gov, or fax to 301-713-9312. Written comments may be mailed to Frank Powers, Office of Coast Survey, 1315 East-West Highway, #6254, Silver Spring MD 20906.