Nautical Charts

NOS, NGA and CHS charts can be ordered from Pilothouse, but not all are yet available as shopping basket items on this site.  If you have any questions just email or call us at Email Us or Call Us at 1-800-40-PILOT

*PAPER NAUTICAL CHART AVAILABILITY UPDATE*

NOAA as of 1/January/2021 has ceased issuing new editions for paper nautical charts as part of their five-year plan to transition exclusively to Electronic Charts (ENC).

Pilothouse would like to stress that paper charts are still available and will continue to be available even after NOAA has ceased its involvement in 2025. At which time NOAA will hand off paper charts to the private sector. These charts will continue to be updated and will continue to satisfy USCG carriage requirements.

Charts are now, and will continue to be, available as Print-on- Demand (POD) with all available corrections applied at the time of printing. 

Nothing has changed, except that new editions will no longer be released. 

We at Pilothouse strongly believe in the importance of paper charts either as a primary form of navigation, or as an accepted backup to electronic navigation.

“The Prudent Mariner will not rely solely on any single Aid to Navigation”

NOS charts

In order to provide charts with the latest available information, NOS every week transmits to its licensed printers updated images of the charts, and the printing is done only after orders are received. Thus these “print-on-demand” charts do not need correction at the time of purchase. Later on, users can make corrections by consulting the weekly Notices to Mariners. These Notices are available from Pilothouse by subscription, both in hard copy or on disc.

To order charts:

Email Us or Call Us at 1-800-40-PILOT 

To view a chart catalog, click here.

Canadian Hydrographic Chart Catalogs Atlantic Coast Pacific Coast Ontario/Manitoba including Great Lakes Arctic

THE STATUS OF US CHARTS IN FOREIGN WATERS

The US Government agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), formerly Defense Mapping Agency, publishes marine charts for waters outside the US. It is part of the Defense Department, as opposed to NOAA that does charts for US waters. Their mission is supporting the US military, not civilian users. Since the military is largely using digital navigation, NGA now gives much less priority to paper charts, and has discontinued distribution of paper charts to civilian chart agents like Pilothouse. The contractor that enables us to offer print-on-demand NOAA charts, corrected up to date, (as offered as POD charts on this site), has also obtained most of the NGA chart files, (except Regions 3 and 4) so that we can now offer print-on-demand NGA charts -- but WITHOUT CORRECTIONS from the current edition. 

Since NGA doesn't send survey ships to do its own surveys of foreign waters, they rely on hydrographic data from various foreign hydrographic agencies. Since, most of these foreign charts are copyrighted, and NGA charts are not, NGA has agreed to restrict many of its charts to military users only, and has withdrawn them from availability in print-on-demand. This is why all of regions 3 and 4 are no longer available, and whole areas of some other regions are not available. Pilothouse has originals of many, but not all, of these charts that were once in public distribution, but are now withdrawn. Users can obtain summaries of corrections from the NGA notice to mariners for most charts available in print-on-demand, unless a new edition has been issued, and make their own corrections, but often this summary runs many pages, and corrections may run over a hundred on a single chart. Serious mariners wanting up-to-date charts should use British Admiralty charts, or charts from the hydrographic agency of the nation in whose waters you intend to navigate, such as Canadian charts for Canadian waters, etc. These pdf files show the NGA chart coverage as it originally existed. Most of the charts shown are available print-on-demand in full color, full size, but not corrected from the last edition. It appears now, that print-on-demand contractors will not be getting new editions from NGA, even though new editions are few and far between. So we can no longer guarantee the print-on-demand version is still the current edition of the chart. Some offer photocopies, and some are not available any longer from any source available to us. You can use these index files to compile a list of charts you would like, and submit it to Pilothouse. We will get back to you with availability.