Q.How will you select the charts for the passage planning and what are the things you should keep in mind while selecting the charts?

First things first. We need to select only the largest scale charts for navigation. This is because of obvious reason that these charts are in more detail. But does that mean that we do not need the small scale charts ? Absolutely not !!! We still need small scale charts for passage planning.

imagine we just have the large scale charts. It would be so difficult to draw and transfer courses on these charts. Instead what we do is, choose some of the small scale charts which cobvers our voyage and draw courses on these charts.

Once we have laid the courses on these charts, we will then have the waypoints and these waypoints and courses can be laid on large scale charts.

Now how do we select these small and large scale charts for our voyage ? There is an old way and a more modern way.

Old way involves using the chart catalogue.

With Chart catalogue you need to physically see the approximate planned route and then note down all the charts that the route of your voyage pass through. We can then check our inventory and select the one we do not have. Same need to be ordered before the voyage.

The more modern and easier way is using Chartco, digitrace or any other similar softwares that company may have provided on board.

I have written about process of selecting the charts on chartco on this blog.

How to Install ENCs on Furuno ECDIS- Step by Step Guide

Though this is for ENCs but the approach will be same.