United States Power Squadrons Communications Committee

Communications Committee meeting at the 2022 Governing Board.

Great information, the surprise for me was the finial remark - IT MUST BE WORN TO BE COUNTED!

Infographic Available: New Life Jacket Label - Safe Boating Campaign Did you know there is a new life jacket label? The label is being phased in and you may see it printed on the inside of a new life jacket. The new label DOES NOT make obsolete life jackets with the old label. Always look for a life jacket that is U.S. Coast Guard approved.

NOAA is doing away with current paper charts
!NOAA invites public comment on ending production of
traditional paper nautical charts
NOAA is initiating a five-year process to end all traditional paper nautical chart production and is seeking the public's feedback via a Federal Register Notice published on November 15, 2019. Chart users, companies that provide products and services based on NOAA raster and electronic navigational chart (NOAA ENC®) products, and other stakeholders can help shape the manner and timing in which the product sunsetting process will proceed. Comments may be submitted through NOAA's online ASSIST feedback tool and are due on February 1, 2020.

Over the next five years, NOAA will work to ease the transition to ENC-based products while continuing to support safe navigation. NOAA will focus on improving data consistency and providing larger scale coverage of NOAA ENC, as well as providing access to paper chart products based on ENC data, either through the NOAA Custom Chart prototype or third-party commercial data providers.

Further details can be found in the announcement posted on the NOAA Office of Coast Survey website.

From the NOAA Quarterly

NOAA recently released its last edition of the downloadable print Tide and Tidal Current Prediction Tables. These tide tables are formatted by region and sent to publishers each year. They are also available to download online These predictions are produced in the form of six annual publications that cover discrete domestic and international regions, and were required by mariners to meet the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) requirements for 33 CFR 164.33 Charts and Publications and 46 CFR 28.225 Navigational Information. These publications have been printed and distributed by licensed commercial publishers, a practice started in 1996 to eliminate costly printing and distribution costs by the government.

Since 2008, NOAA has been able to provide more accurate, up-to-date, and location-specific tide and tidal current predictions via its website than can be provided in the printed documents. In consultation with NOAA, the USCG has recently updated its interpretation of its CFR requirements to accept digital tide and current predictions from NOAA's website to be used by mariners to meet carriage requirements. This follows similar updates that allow electronic navigational charts to be used in lieu of paper charts, and electronic copies of U.S. Coast Pilot® and other navigational publications to be used instead of printed copies. International predictions - apart from some Caribbean, Central American, and Pacific Island locations - will not be available through digital NOAA products or services after this change, though users may still get this data directly from the country of origin.

Access to NOAA’s online tide predictions can be found here and access to NOAA’s online tidal current predictions can be accessed here.