Easy way to see Admiralty updates
The Admiralty Information Overlay is available free of charge to all customers of Admiralty Vector Chart Service (AVCS) and Admiralty ECDIS Service.
There’s another simple way to view navigational chart data from the UK Hydrographic Office, as an optional overlay has been added to the SevenCs ORCA Master Electronic Chart System (ECS).
Mariners the world over use Admiralty updates every day to help them navigate safely, via the weekly ‘Notices to Mariners’ publication. It includes all Admiralty Temporary and Preliminary Notices to Mariners (T&P NMs), which are used to manually update paper charts.
The Admiralty Information Overlay does the same job automatically, displaying the same information directly over the ENC, bringing the latest navigational updates from Admiralty to an ECDIS or ECS to help make digital navigation safer, more efficient and fully compliant.
The overlay also displays updates from the UKHO’s unique ENC validation programme. To create the overlay, the UKHO’s cartographic teams checked over 11,000 ENCs against Admiralty’s paper chart equivalent, to make sure that both paper and digital charts are completely consistent.
Now, as new navigational or ENC updates are made available to the UKHO by foreign governments and partner hydrographic offices worldwide, the UKHO teams check them for any potential to impact a voyage. If there is, the update is validated by a detailed approval process before the chart is corrected, or an update is added to the overlay. The ENC validation programme leads the UKHO to claim the Admiralty Vector Chart Service as the world’s most accurate and up to date global chart series.
Admiral Nick Lambert, Chief Hydrographer at the UKHO said, “The Admiralty Information Overlay marks another significant step forward in digital navigation because it delivers a vital range of data to the mariner. It ensures they can instantly see any information which might impact their voyage planning or execution on the ECDIS, allowing them to sail with increased safety, compliance and efficiency.”
The Admiralty Information Overlay is available free of charge to all customers of Admiralty Vector Chart Service (AVCS) and Admiralty ECDIS Service.
The new version of SevenCs ORCA Master compatible with Admiralty Information Overlay is available as a free six month trial, and can be downloaded from the SevenCs website (www.sevencs.com).
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