USCGAUX Boating Safety Education

HOW TO READ A NAUTICAL CHART

A three hour seminar course unraveling the mystery of charts.

When navigating on land you use a map. It depicts the various thoroughfares, their directions and names. Major areas such as parks, lakes etc. would also be noted. By selecting the prescribed route, you would be able to reach a desired destination.

At sea there are no streets, no separate areas, no differences from abutting or surrounding areas. With no land mass over the horizon, everything looks the same. For navigating at sea, we use a chart.

By knowing our latitude and longitude, we can locate our position anywhere on earth. Navigators must also be warned of dangerous areas, leading them through safe passages and directing them within set patterns to prevent collisions. For this, Aids to Navigation are depicted on nautical charts.

Other available information on nautical charts includes, but is not limited to, depth of water, bottom type, magnetic variations affecting the compass, chart scales, and inter-tidal information.

This course will provide the navigator with the knowledge to interpret the chart’s contents to navigate safely to their destination and return to port. Text and training chart included.