To Navigate or Not to Navigate? That is the question. SplashMap’s latest nautical chart has us all-at-sea (as my Grandmother used to say). In fact it’s our first sea chart! This product has been derived in part from material obtained from the UK Hydrographic Office with the permission of the UK Hydrographic Office, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office for the Solent. Seamen, Military and Yacht types have been asking us for ages.
We’ve started with the Solent covering the seaward complement to our Isle of Wight and New Forest SplashMaps and surely a must for the 48 000 small vessels that are registered in Southampton water.
Naturally a sea-proof chart is long overdue!
But there’s new terminology I need to understand. Can someone navigate with it? As any map maker would think “I jolly well hope so!”, but I also notice that some charts of this area bear the notice “Not for Navigation”. So what does “Navigation” mean? Check the UK Hydrographic Office definition here , but generally navigation, like love, is in the eye of the beholder. In other words we need to work out if it fits this definition or not. In fact, more importantly for SplashMaps, we need to work out if having “not for navigation” printed on the map might put people off… well … navigating with them.
We decided to take both licenses and am pleased to report that more products will roll out shortly.
Now readers, any thoughts? Next places we should do? Watery or otherwise? Should a chart be To Navigate of Not to Navigate?
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