Free Digital Charts Now Feature Cruising Guide

 

Global chart maker NV Charts is adding a new, dynamic dimension to its digital chart products and mobile NV App, all for free. Cruisers who download the free NV App for navigating with tablets or mobile devices will also be able to download NV Chart’s entire U.S. East Coast digital chart sets at zero cost from Maine and the Canadian Border to the southernmost tip of Florida at Key West.

 

In addition, NV Charts has teamed up with the Atlantic Cruising Club (ACC), an independent publishing company that offers guides with information on marinas and their surrounding areas. A subset of ACC’s information will be embedded in every free U.S. East Coast NV Chart, according to NV Chart’s president and CEO, Hasko Scheidt.

 

“Thanks to our partnership with ACC, up to 40 items of information about area marinas will be available to chart users when they check out a harbor or anchorage on their mobile device using our NV charts and App,” Hasko said. “No internet connection is required; information from ACC’s Guides is embedded in the digital chart and will always be available at the navigator’s fingertips. And if a boater is in a harbor with an internet connection, he or she can directly access even more information from the ACC website through embedded links in the charts.”

 

ACC's travel guides for cruisers are reports covering essentially all coastal marinas that welcome overnight and transient boats. ACC’s four-part ratings system focuses on facilities and amenities, boatyard services, megayacht capabilities and, where applicable, that something extra. The marina reports describe what’s on site, what's nearby and what it will cost including data on the marina and boatyard operations as well as boating supplies, restaurants, accommodations, recreation, entertainment, provisioning, general services, transportation and medical services. Each report also provides a marina review and up to 25 photos of each facility.

 

The NV App is free and makes it easy to download NV Charts’ digital chart regions to tablets and other smart devices, all iOS and Android platforms. “It’s a whole navigation and plotting system in one,” Hasko said. “Not only can you load and use your NV Charts, downloaded wirelessly from the NV Cloud, but then, with GPS input, you can navigate. The NV App provides a complete toolkit for navigation, including a route menu, range and bearing measurement tool, ‘man overboard’ (MOB) marking and return tool, a logbook, and a lot more. Cruisers can follow their vessel across the chart region in real time, plot waypoints, update charts, and take advantage of many other features and embedded information including data from ACC’s Guides to Marinas.”

 

NV Charts offer features such as more distinctive shore and shallows cartography, aids to navigation and light characteristics, tidal information and even four pages in the back outlining symbols, legends and other data that help the navigator interpret the information in the chart. The cartography is visually distinct; unique color differences make specific depths, shoals, reefs, exposed tidal areas stand out for quick, easy recognition. Also, lighthouses illustrate their light characteristics for better identification.