Coast Survey News

A captain’s decision to navigate close to shore in an area with uncharted rocks led to the grounding and capsizing of a fishing vessel in Alaska last year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said.The Challenger struck a submerged rock while fishing for salmon along the shore of Kodiak Island, Alaska on August 7, 2022. The vessel began taking on more water than the onboard pumps could handle. The captain and three crewmembers abandoned ship and were rescued by a nearby Good Samaritan fishing vessel, and the vessel capsized soon after.

On July 17, 2023, senior leaders of the American Pilots’ Association (APA)  and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Ocean Service, Office of Coast Survey signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) that calls for the two parties to cooperate and share information so that APA and NOAA can better carry out their respective roles and responsibilities related to safe maritime navigation in America’s ports and waterways. Rear Admiral Benjamin Evans (Director…

In November 2019, the Office of Coast Survey (OCS), part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), announced the start of a five-year program to “sunset” all raster and paper nautical charts.NOAA has produced electronic navigational charts (ENCs) since 1993. In the 2019 notice, NOAA writes that “ENC sales increased 425% since 2008, while sales of paper charts are now half of 2008 levels.”For NOAA and mariners, a focus on electronic charts and publications promises many advantages. With a singular focus, NOAA can use its resources more efficiently.

NOAA is continuing with the sunset plan for paper and raster nautical charts in August and September. A set of 15 charts covering the eastern half of the North Slope of Alaska will be moved into last edition status on August 5, 2021 and will be canceled on February 2, 2022. Another set of 14 charts covering the western half of the North Slope will be moved into last edition status on September 2, 2021 and be cancelled on March 2, 2022.This set of charts has been fully supplanted by new electronic charts as part of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey Raster Sunset Plan…

NOAA will begin to implement its sunset plan for paper nautical charts this month, starting with the current paper chart 18665 of Lake Tahoe. After August, NOAA’s electronic navigational chart will be the only NOAA nautical chart of the area.This is the first traditional paper chart to be fully supplanted by an electronic chart as part of NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey Raster Sunset Plan, which includes a new process to notify mariners of the transition of individual paper charts to electronic charts.

The U.S. Coast Guard signed a memorandum of understanding in June with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Coast Survey, State of Hawaii Department of Transportation, and United States Army Corps of Engineers regarding maritime emergency harbor assessments within federal waterways in Hawaii.This agreement means the partners can work more efficiently and effectively to assess the State's harbors following disasters, such as severe weather events, to restore…

NOAA acting administrator retired Navy Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, Ph.D., has appointed three new members to the Hydrographic Services Review Panel, a federal advisory committee that gives NOAA independent advice for improving a range of services and products that support safe navigation and coastal resilience. Sean M. Duffy Sr., executive director, Big River Coalition, New Orleans, La. Retired USCG Capt. Julie Thomas, senior advisor, Southern California, Coastal Ocean Observing System, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, Calif.

The U.S. Coast Guard and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have teamed up on a consolidated publication that will help mariners save time and money. The Coast Guard Office of Navigation Systems and NOAA Office of Coast Survey will incorporate the amalgamated International Regulations for the Prevention of Collisions at Sea (72 COLREGS) and the Inland Navigation Rules into NOAA’s U.S. Coast Pilot publications. The U.S. Coast Pilot publications already include the Coast Guard’s Vessel Traffic Service regulations.

The USS Conestoga (AT 54) mysteriously vanished without a distress call nearly 100 years ago, with 56 officers and sailors on board. The nation was gripped by the puzzling disappearance. Now, NOAA and the U.S. Navy announced the Navy seagoing fleet tugboat has been found in the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary off San Francisco, 95 years after its disappearance. Conestoga left San Francisco on March 25, 1921 en route to Tutuila, American Samoa via Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, but never reached its destination.

Representatives of Cuba and the United States signed in Havana a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation in areas of hydrography and geodesy to improve the safety of maritime navigation. Ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, and Col. Candido Alfredo Regalado Gomez, Chief of Cuba’s National Office of Hydrography and Geodesy (ONHG), have signed the MoU. “NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has a strong interest in both improving navigational safety and in protecting the marine environment in the heavily travelled and vibrant waters between our two countries in the Straits of Florida,” said Russell Callender, Ph.D., assistant NOAA administrator for the National Ocean Service.

Coast Survey has issued provisional charts for barge operators and others traversing Alaska's challenging Yukon River, relying solely on satellite images to create the electronic navigational charts that only display shoreline and shoals (shallow areas). The ENCs, which display no depth soundings, will give the mariners annually updated information to help their navigation along the changeable river. "The Yukon was literally uncharted," Kampia told the group. "After some analysis and brainstorming, we decided to create a prototype ENC using only satellite data.

NOAA archaeologists have discovered the battered hulls of two 1800s whaling ships nearly 144 years after they and 31 others sank off the Arctic coast of Alaska in one of the planet's most unexplored ocean regions. The shipwrecks, and parts of other ships, that were found are most likely the remains of 33 ships trapped by pack ice close to the Alaskan Arctic shore in September 1871. The whaling captains had counted on a wind shift from the east to drive the ice out to sea as it had always done in years past.

NOAA Coast Survey gives commercial navigation systems better tool to receive updated nautical charts. Accessing up-to-date nautical charts on electronic systems and mobile apps is about to get easier, as developers start adopting NOAA Coast Survey's new Chart Tile Service prototype. Navigational chart users should not notice any difference in how their charting systems operate - except that service providers will be able to quickly update the charts with hundreds of corrections applied weekly by NOAA, so users will have the corrected versions faster than ever before. Coast Survey released the NOAA prototype chart tile and metadata service on December 7.

NOAA announced the official launch of its 2015 Arctic hydrographic survey season took place this morning, in Kodiak, Alaska, in a World Ocean Day ceremony which showcased the deployment of the NOAA ships Rainier and Fairweather. “Most Arctic waters that are charted were surveyed with obsolete technology, with some of the information dating back to Captain Cook's voyages, long before the region was part of the United States,” said NOAA deputy under secretary for operations Vice Admiral Michael S. Devany in remarks directed to the crews of NOAA ships.

NOAA plans increased 2015 Arctic nautical charting operations, coordinating with U.S. As commercial shipping traffic increases in the Arctic, NOAA informs it is taking steps to update nautical charts in the region. NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey will use data collected by two of its own ships, Rainier and Fairweather, as well as the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Healy and a private sector hydrographic contractor to cover nearly 12,000 nautical miles in the Arctic for use in updating its navigational charts.

NOAA administrator Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., has appointed six members to the Hydrographic Services Review Panel, a federal advisory committee that gives NOAA independent advice for improving a range of services and products that support navigation and coastal resilience. Capt. “Providing coastal communities, boaters, and the commercial maritime industry with timely, reliable, accurate, and authoritative information is essential as we strive to keep commerce flowing through our nation’s ports,” Sullivan said. Rear Admiral Ken Barbor (ret.), U.S. Lawson W. Capt. Gary A. Scott R.

David Evans and Associates, Inc.’s Marine Services Division commissioned its new 82-foot hydrographic survey and scientific vessel Blake in a ceremony held in the vessel’s homeport of Gulfport, Mississippi. At the ceremony, U.S. Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi broke a Champagne bottle across the Blake’s bow. In addition to remarks by the Senator, Rear Admiral Gerd Glang, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Coast Survey and the U.S. National Hydrographer, and Mayor of Gulfport William Gardner Hewes spoke to attendees.

NOAA today announced that Lake Assault Boats of Superior, Wisconsin, will build two small vessels for the Office of Coast Survey's navigation response program, part of a plan to eventually replace all six of the program's small survey boats. The combined cost of both 28-foot vessels is $538,200. "All of the navigation response team survey boats are nearing or have exceeded their designed service life," said Russ Proctor, division chief of Coast Survey's Navigation Services Division.

Mariners and the boating public have a wider choice of options and special services when they purchase NOAA paper nautical charts, thanks to NOAA's expanded "print-on-demand" chart production and distribution system. Coast Survey has certified eleven chart printing agents who have the flexibility to offer different color palettes, various papers, a cleaner margin, and a range of services. Under the program, NOAA's paper nautical charts are printed when the customer orders them - or "on demand." NOAA creates and maintains the charts…

The new nautical chart 11525 extends eastward, to cover an additional pilot boarding area for vessels headed to the Charleston Harbor. Ships entering the Port of Charleston will have a new and improved nautical chart that covers a larger area to ensure safer navigational approaches into the harbor. Available on the 4th of July, new chart 11525 (Charleston Harbor Entrance and Approach) replaces the old chart 11523 (Charleston Harbor Entrance). It expands chart coverage further east, covering an additional 345 square nautical miles that wasn’t on the old chart.

Knowing the locations of shipwrecks and other obstructions has always been important for safe navigation ‒ but mariners are not the only people who want to know about wrecks. They are also important for marine archeology, recreational diving, salvage operations, and fishing, among other interests. Now, Coast Survey has improved our Wrecks and Obstructions Database, giving everyone easy access to new records to explore. Historically, Coast Survey has maintained two separate sources of information on wrecks.

New data will update nautical charts around the country. As sure as spring arrives, NOAA vessels and independent contractors are hitting the seas for the nation's 180th hydrographic surveying season, collecting data for over two thousand square nautical miles in high-traffic U.S. coastal waters. "Nautical charts are the foundation for the nation's maritime economy, and NOAA hydrographers spend months at sea, surveying critical areas to ensure safe navigation for the shipping, fishing, and boating communities," said Rear Admiral Gerd Glang, director of the Office of Coast Survey.

NOAA announced it has found the underwater wreck of the passenger steamer City of Chester, which sank in 1888 in a collision in dense fog near where the Golden Gate Bridge stands today. The announcement was made during a press event at Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary’s San Francisco headquarters at Crissy Field. NOAA’s predecessor agency first located ship in 1890, two years after it sank. The story of City of Chester will be shared with the public in a future waterfront exhibit NOAA will place at the sanctuary office at Crissy Field. The office is the former U.S.