The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) would like to let you know of that the vertical clearances (bridges, etc…) on charts and equivalent BSB 1313, 1314, 4026, 4275, 2250, 2283-1, 2283-2, 4266, 4201 are inaccurate. Caution.
The MapMedia mm3d Charts concerned are:
Canada Chart – MWRMNA80MAP (only East Coast and Great Lakes)
Great Lakes – West Chart – WRMNA900MAP
Great Lakes – East Chart – WRMNA901MAP
Canada – St Lawrence River Chart – WRMNA902MAP
Canada – Newfoundland Chart – WRMNA903MAP
Feel free to contact us if you need any further information.
Experienced sailors often say that mooring is the most difficult part of sailing. This week, MaxSea partner Leon Schulz talks to us about how to anchor a boat, using MaxSea TimeZero.
Understand the sea-floor. Navigate around the anchorage area many times. This is done to record bathymetric information so you know what kind of sea-floor you’re dealing with. To record this data, I use my MaxSea TimeZero PLOT, integrated with a Furuno BBDS1 Sounder.
The BBDS1 sounder collects and sends bottom classification data to MaxSea TimeZero software. I can also share this new data-rich bathy chart with the integrated Furuno NavNet TZtouch system. Sand or clay is best for anchoring.
Check tidal range by displaying tidal data in MaxSea TimeZero. This is a really important step to know how much your boat will be raised or lowered by the tide, or vice versa.
You don’t want the boat’s keel to hit the ground during the night, just because the water has disappeared from under the boat. You must also avoid having the boat’s anchor break loose because the boat is suddenly 3 or more meters higher water than when it arrived!
Calculate your desired minimum depth based on my boat’s draught + safety distance under the keel + allowance for tidal changes. Try to find a spot where the boat can swing freely in all directions according to changes in the wind or the tidal current.
Take a last look at the Furuno BBDS1 sounder to check the depth and soil conditions and to see if the boat is in the tidal flow or in an area of strong wind and bring the boat to a complete standstill.
Lower your anchor slowly until it reaches the ground. You can check the markings on the chain or just listen to how the anchor runs more smoothly when it has reached the bottom.
Give the signal to the helmsman to reverse the boat slowly while letting out the chain. At a ratio of 1:4 to 1:5 (from the highest tides expected), stop the windlass.
Wait until the anchor sets and the boat turns into the wind. Then it’s time to stretch the chain by reversing the gear carefully. Do so cautiously, so that there is no residue in the chain.
Once the engine is stopped, set the snubber. This is the piece of rope that is hung with a claw hook into the chain and relieved with the help of a jerk. This also makes the disturbing noise disappear from the chain rubbing against the bow roller.
In windy conditions, put a mooring sail aft, so the bow always points into the wind.
The advantage of MaxSea TimeZero is that you can so easily switch charts. So I often use raster maps at anchor, because there is a lot more information that are interesting for the anchors located. For example, the underwater cable at Iona (see image below).
Anchoring the boat off Iona, Scotland
Even small anchors are located on the raster maps. In comparison, the vector charts give less information about the anchorage.
Now it’s done, you can sleep soundly, even if the wind should freshen up in the night or the wind direction changes.
Leon Schulz is a MaxSea partner and is a RYA Yachtmaster Ocean instructor. His yacht, the Regina Laska is also available for charter. Learn more about his services on the Regina Sailing website.
Joëlle & Janusz Kurbiel are members of the polar navigation expedition group IMERPOL and use MaxSea TimeZero software on board. They are currently in Newfoundland, heading northwards. Here is an update of their polar experiences:
Waiting for the ice to melt:
We are still in Newfoundland but can not go further north because we are currently blocked by ice. The icebergs are unusually large for the season in this specific location! We are therefore taking this opportunity to sail between the islands of the north coast to perform various tests.
Carpet in the propellers!
Everything is going well except for one incident we experienced when launching: the port staff had used pieces of carpet on top of the lift straps to avoid damaging the hull as it was being lowered into the water. However, these pieces of carpet were not securely attached and ended up getting caught in the propellers! This is how they looked:
This stopped the engine instantly. We needed to lift the boat out of the water again and painstakingly cut out all the stuff that was caught so tightly in the blades.
Since then, Janusz has been hearing a strange noise from the engine. Hopefully the shaft and propeller were not distorted, this would make us totally ineffective… we’ll have to wait and see.
Moving on
A storm from the southwest is forecast in a few days. This should clear the ice away allowing us to move a little further.
Thanks Joelle and Janusz! We wish you the best of luck for the rest of your expedition.
We will keep you updated on their travels.
Catch up on IMERPOL’s other MaxSea blog posts here:
This contest is perfect for anyone who fancies themself as a football pundit! Just tell us your predictions for the World Cup final, and you could get some great prizes.
The FIFA World Cup is in full swing at the moment in Brazil, and football fans everywhere seem to have an opinion on who they believe (or blindly hope!) will win. If you also like boating, then why not enter the MaxSea Predict and Win World Cup Contest?
The Prize
Good news – you have two chances to win!
Predict the final two teams who will go head to head for the World Cup on July 13th. If you guess both of them correctly, win a 15% discount for use in our webstore.
and
If you predict the outright winner of the 2014 World Cup, you will automatically be entered into a sweepstakes. The lucky winner will be chosen at random and will receive a voucher to use in the MaxSea webstore to the value of €499/$450/£397.
Rules
The rules are quite simple. You just need to be over 18 to enter, and one entry per email address will be accepted. You can see the full set of contest rules here.
Contest Deadline
You have until July 8th to enter, so start predicting!
The following 19 Jeppesen vector chart zones for various parts of North and South America have been updated and are available as of Monday, June 16th, 2014.
Download these nautical charts online from our Chart Catalog:
To visualise the coverage of each chart region, simply replace “CHARTREFERENCE” with the chart reference name at the end of the following link: maxsea.com/products/charts?zonename=CHARTREFERENCE
Enhancements
The chart data in these zones has been updated, and many areas now include additional details, which makes for the safest navigation possible.
Here are some examples of direct comparisons between the last version and new versions of the charts:
Old/new chart example: Los Cabos New chart reference: WVJNAM024MAP6.1Old/new chart example: Great Lakes – Erie Lake New chart reference: WVJNAM026MAP6.1Old/new chart example: Great Lakes – Erie Lake New chart reference: WVJNAM026MAP6.1Old/new chart example: Saint Laurent New chart reference: WVJNAM026MAP6.1
See more examples of the new chart updates in our Google+ and Facebook albums.
This week, Sandrine Abadie, MaxSea Inside Sales Manager, represented MaxSea at the Navalia International Shipbuilding Exhibition, which took place this week in the north-west of Spain.
When: 20, 21 and 22 May, 2014
Where: Vigo, Spain
Navalia Info: In 2013, over 25,000 professional visitors attended from 90 different countries. There were approximately 500 exhibitors. Read more about this exhibition here.
MaxSea Booth: MaxSea products were demonstrated at our partners’ booth: FURUNO España and Nautical.
Navalia attracted many professionals involved in the commercial fishing industry.
Sandrine Abadie – MaxSea Inside Sales Manager with Miguel Nogueira – FURUNO España Sales Manager
MaxSea TimeZero PLOT software is specifically designed for commercial fishing, and was demonstrated with the new WASSP Module, showing advanced compatibility features with the multi-beam sounders.
MaxSea TimeZero integrated with a WASSP multi-beam sounder
This event was very successful and MaxSea would like to thanks FURUNO and Nautical for their cooperation. See you next year!
MaxSea is proud to be a partner of The Ashram Fishing Team. This Australian-based team recently participated in the “Seasport Charters Marlin Cup,” using MaxSea TimeZero PLOT on board. Here is their account of how the tournament went.
The team is made up of Sangeeta Menon, Andy Ziepe, Mark Jarrett and Rhyss Whittred. The Seasport Charters Marlin Cup was hosted by the Perth Game Fishing Club in Jurien Bay, and ran from February 20-23rd.
Jurien Bay is approx. 400km north of Team Ashram’s home port and boasts some excellent game fishing species. The winner of this tournament receives an invite to compete in the Offshore World Championships in Costa Rica for 2015.
Rhyss Whittred gives us his account of the tournament:
“For our team this was the first major tournament we had competed in since I purchased my Wellcraft 270 and revamped the electronics to include Maxsea TimeZero PLOT and Furuno’s latest technology. I can’t say how keen we were to compete and in fact one of the teams there had the reigning world champion angler on board Valkoista (Craig White).
It was a 3 day tournament with your 2 best days fishing score counting towards overall championship points. The night before the tournament commenced I downloaded the latest Maxsea weather file and carefully worked out our fishing plan in line with sea surface temp, currents and plankton.
We headed out and had a cracker of a day. The Maxsea oceanic data was spot on and my team was fantastic with their art of angling and we managed Southern Blue Fin, Striped and Yellowfin Tuna to give us some great points of 2,850 points and our nearest competitors were on 375 points.
Saturday dawned and I planned to go to the same area north where we had done so well the day before. Alas, the water temperature was down 2 degrees, with no bait and no birds. We could hear others on the radio with great fishing results. Unfortunately I had left my mobile phone at the hotel and couldn’t download a current weather file. We were now at a complete low and did not turn a reel for the day.
The next morning I was up very early and downloaded the weather file and made a plan of attack. In fact the good water and temperature breaks we had 2 days before where now 40kms south of Jurien and we needed to get among it. With the early start we got down there in time for lines in at 6am and once again we tagged our limit of tuna and returned to port.
The scoring by other teams was very good and it was an absolute pleasure to have revealed that the Ashram Team picked up Champion Boat, Champion Female Angler, Runner Up Male Angler and Champion Tag and Release.
So my friends at Maxsea, I thank you all for your cutting edge technology and how it all worked in so well with my Furuno equipment and helping us to win this tournament.”
– Rhyss Whittred
Thanks Rhys! And best of luck for the World Marlin Championships in Costa Rica!
Henri Antoine is an International Race Officer at the International Sailing Federation (ISAF). This week, he tells us about a recent boat racing training session that was organised for newcomers to sailing racing: Racing for Dummies!
The first ‘Racing for Dummies’ training session was held in Dunkerque, Northen France on Saturday, April 5, 2014, on the premises of the North Sea Yacht Club.
A poster advertising “Racing for Dummies” training session
This event was designed to encourage boaters to take part in boat races. Boaters often want to race but are apprehensive about beginning. It is a fear of not understanding how it is done, or looking ridiculous in comparison to more seasoned competitors.
Thierry Maurick, Chairman of YCMN, (the North Sea Yacht Club) immediately found the idea interesting and fun. It was a way to bring a new audience to boat racing without any pressure in a relaxed setting. Hence the idea of the event title “For Dummies”.
The goal: to demystify and “play down” boat racing, which many people believe to be more complicated than it is.
Participants in this Dunkirk training session really enjoyed it and the event was very successful. To make it as accessible as possible, many concrete examples, diagrams and pictures were used.
GRIB weather files overlaid on the chart in MaxSea TimeZero
MaxSea TimeZero was used to demonstrate how coastal routes can be easily viewed. In coastal routes in areas where marine navigation is tricky, this helped participants to quickly understand how to approach this type of race. They learned how to read and understand nautical charts in a practical way.
The participants really liked how easy it was to integrate wind information (using GRIB files in TimeZero) and tidal current data. These types of information are of course, very important for boat racing.
There was positive feedback from participants, and another session in mid-May is planned.
This was a great initiative – thanks Henri!
For more information about ISAF, please click here.
To find out more about the North Sea Yachting Club in Dunkerque, France, see their website.
This stopped the engine instantly. We needed to lift the boat out of the water again and painstakingly cut out all the stuff that was caught so tightly in the blades.
“For our team this was the first major tournament we had competed in since I purchased my Wellcraft 270 and revamped the electronics to include 
