This is a page of resources that can be found on-line and most are absolutely free! My thanks to Michael Moradzedeh of the Passport Owners of America.
1. CHARTING RESOURCES
Print at home, FREE NOAA charts! The NOAA BookletChart™ is an experimental product that you can print at home for free. They are made to help recreational boaters locate themselves on the water. The Booklet Chart is reduced in scale and divided into pages for convenience, but otherwise contains all the information of the full-scale nautical chart. Bar scales are also reduced in scale, but are accurate when used to measure distances in a BookletChart. Excerpts from the United States Coast Pilot are included. Most chart notes are consolidated on a single page for easy reference. Emergency information for the charted area is printed on the back cover
SeaClear II – A free PC program that displays Electronic Navigational Charts from the U.S. Government. It works with GPS input, too, converting your laptop into a chartplotter.
Free Electronic Charts – Your tax dollars at work! These are the SAME source materials that go into your printed charts. You may download RNC (raster nautical charts: scanned images of the original charts) or ENC (electronic nautical charts: vector-based charts created from the originals and with much more information).
Light Lists. The descriptions and lat/long of ALL the markers the Coast Guard knows about. When leaving your home port, it's a good idea to know what lights you can expect to see, and not to see.
US Coast Pilot. All nine books of the Coast Pilot are now available FREE, on-line. The United States Coast Pilot® consists of a series of nautical books that cover a variety of information important to navigators of coastal and intracoastal waters and the Great Lakes. Issued in nine volumes, they contain supplemental information that is difficult to portray on a nautical chart. Topics in the Coast Pilot include channel descriptions, anchorages, bridge and cable clearances, currents, tide and water levels, prominent features, pilotage, towage, weather, ice conditions, wharf descriptions, dangers, routes, traffic separation schemes, small-craft facilities, and Federal regulations applicable to navigation. Coast Pilot volumes 8 and 9 covers Alaskan waters.
Distances among common anchorages grid. Our own John Baker (thanks, John) created this amazing grid that provides lat/long and distances among many common anchorages. Download a copy here.
2. NAVIGATION AND PILOTING RESOURCES
COLREGS. The official navigation rules of the road. These make for interesting reading, and are the ultimate authority on such items as whether the seaplane has right of way over the submarine. One MB pdf file.
Tide Tables for the entire United States can be found at NOAA. One of the more useful items is a graphing feature.
American Practical Navigator The classic and comprehensive reference on navigation. Updated yearly. Serious boaters should have a copy of this onboard.
Marine Navigation Calculators. Created by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, this is a complete set of on-line calculators for almost any navigational need. Learning celestial and need to check your answer? You can do it here.
The World Port Index (Pub 150) contains the location and physical characteristics of, and the facilities and services offered by, major ports and terminals world-wide (approximately 4300 entries), in a tabular format. Entries are organized geographically, in accordance with the diagrams located in the front of the publication. Planning a long cruise? You need this!
Radio Navigation Aids: Pub. 117, Radio Navigational Aids, is a list of selected worldwide stations that provide electronic services to the mariner.
Sailing Directions (Enroute) include detailed coastal and port approach information, supplementing the largest scale chart of the area. Each publication is subdivided into geographic regions, called sectors, which contain information about the coastal weather, currents, ice, dangers, features and ports, as well as a graphic key to the charts available for the area.
The Radar Navigation and Maneuvering Board Manual (Pub 1310) contains, in a single volume, information on the fundamentals of shipboard radar, radar operation, collision avoidance, navigation by radar, and a description of vessel traffic systems in US waters. Additionally, the publication provides a quick reference to specific relative motion problem solutions including both textual and graphic explanations. New editions are prepared and published by NGA on an as-needed basis. This publication is available in its entirety on the website.
The Atlas of Pilot Charts set is comprised of five volumes, each covering a specific geographic region. Each volume is an atlas of twelve pilot charts, each depicting the observed conditions for a particular month of any given year. The charts are intended to aid the navigator in selecting the fastest and safest routes with regards to the expected weather and ocean conditions. Pilot Charts depict averages in prevailing winds and currents, air and sea temperatures, wave heights, ice limits, visibility, barometric pressure, and weather conditions at different times of the year. The information used to compile these averages was obtained from oceanographic and meteorologic observations over many decades during the late 18th and 19th centuries.
This NOAA site provides aerial photographs of Alaskan coastline. Presently, it works only with Internet Explorer, so all other users are out of luck. When working for other platforms and browsers, this could provide substantial information for trip planning.
CHIRP (CHIRP for Maritime = Confidential Hazardous Incident Reporting Programme). CHIRP is a British program established to contribute to the enhancement of aviation and maritime safety in the UK, by providing a totally independent confidential (not anonymous) reporting system for all individuals employed in or associated with these (maritime) industries. The program has been in existence since 1982. These are well-written "oops!" incidents, submtted by professional mariners, that might provide a rationale for your own watch programs.
ARRL The American Radio Relay League is the organization that advocates for all American HAM enthusiasts. Need a HAM license to extend that new SSB? ARRL is the place to start!
4. Ripping Great Yarns of the Sea
The 1800s and early 1900s constituted a golden age of recreational exploration by sail. Jack London, for example, wrote many books based on his experiences. Guess what! Their copyrights have expired! Project Gutenberg (a non-governmental effort to digitize every book ever printed) makes them freely available. Every book published overseas or in the US prior to 1923 is probably on this site and can be downloaded at no cost. Shakespeare's copyright has also expired. Download any and read while at sea. Any text reader, iPod, Kindle, or word processor will work. Some even have audio files!
Cruise Of The Snark (Jack London) This one is charming and true. Jack, his wife, and a few friends build a yacht to sail to the South Seas. His diatribe against boatyards is classic.
Two Years Before The Mast. (Richard Henry Dana) Great story of an 1800s lawyer gone to sea as a common sailor. Interesting descriptions of California.
The Sea Wolf. (Jack London) A challenging captain....
The Cruise of the Dazzler (Jack London) Young Jack had a nifty voyage sailing around San Francisco Bay.
Sailing Alone Around The World (Joshua Slocum) It's about sailing. Alone. Around the world. For the very first time! And very well written.
Sea Fairies, A children's underwater fantasy book by L. Frank Baum, author of the Wizard of Oz.
Moby-Dick (Herman Melville) Often cited as the THE Great American Novel, it is generally regarded as a classic of world literature. Through the main character's journey, the concepts of class and social status, good and evil, and the existence of gods are all examined as Ishmael speculates upon his personal beliefs and his place in the universe. The narrator's reflections, along with his descriptions of a sailor's life aboard a whaling ship, are woven into the narrative along with Shakespearean literary devices such as stage directions, extended soliloquies and asides. A "must read".
The following growing list of periodicals is dedicated to sailing issues.
Latitude 38: This is a classic sailing magazine full of information useful to sailors on the Pacific coast of the US. There's a free electronic version, too.
Cruising World: One of America's premier sailing magazines, now with a great electronic version. Be sure to check out the extensive video section where you can watch videos taken from the world over.
Apparent Wind: a list of online sailing magazines from all over the world.
Sailing: Your webmaster's favorite sailing magazine. Sailing is a large format magazine with big photos and boat-design reviews by Robert Perry. Aimed at owners (or dreamers of) larger boats.
Practical Sailor: Practical Sailor is like a Consumer Reports for sailboat gear. They take no advertisments and if they don't like it, they'll say so. "Practical Sailor's gear and boat reviews take the guesswork out of your buying decisions."
Ocean Navigator: Ocean Navigator is the premier publication offering in-depth technical navigation and seamanship information to the most serious and avid offshore voyagers. It gives you essential, need to know information that will put you in control of your boat and make bluewater sailing safer and more enjoyable. The website also features web-only resources, podcasts, and links to yet other resources.
48 North is another magazine printed in the Pacific Northwest that addresses the sailing community. 48 North is an inexpensive magazine that also has a free on-line edition.
Sailing Anarchy is...well...an electronic magazine for the anarchist in you.
6. Cruisers Information
The following are items or resources specifically applicable to the cruisers among us.
Active Captain: Active Captain is a site that provides enormous amounts of information that is useful to a cruiser. The site boasts an interactive map of the world with reviews of facilities at marinas and harbors around the world.
Please e-mail our webmaster with any site questions.
Copyright 2002 - 2010 William H. Seward Yacht Club
