UKHO Launches New Routing Charts

The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office is launching a new large-scale routing chart covering the busy shipping waters of Vietnam, Indonesia and the Malacca Strait. Routing Chart 5141 is the latest addition to the UKHO's routing chart series and will be published on February 27, 2014.

As well as covering a very busy shipping area, Routing Chart 5141 has been compiled in a larger scale than the UKHO's existing routing charts and features more detailed and up-to-date meteorological and currents information. This includes a new method for displaying currents information, which has been designed by the UKHO to allow at-a-glance recognition alongside greater accuracy and resolution.

Routing Chart 5141 includes a number of features to support safe and efficient voyage planning:

• Larger Scale - 1:10,000,000 scale to provide greater resolution and detail than smaller-scale routing charts.
• High Density Currents arrows and wind roses are shown with an increased density over smaller-scale routing charts, providing a higher-resolution representation of the data.
• Up-to-Date Data - New currents information is derived from forecasts and readings taken between 2000 and 2010, and with meteorological information newly sourced from the Met Office.
• Currents Grid - Currents data is displayed on a grid to provide a more accurate and consistent geographic representation of the data.

Nick Dekkers, Product Manager at the UKHO commented, “The UKHO's routing chart series has proven to be very popular as a voyage planning tool, so it made sense to develop a new chart that covered the busy shipping waters of Vietnam and Indonesia, including the Malacca Strait. Routing Chart 5141 will support safer shipping operations by delivering greater accuracy, detail and more up-to-date information, which will give vessels a better overview of the likely navigational conditions. When used in conjunction with ADMIRALTY Standard Navigational Charts, this new high-detail routing chart will allow vessels to operate at the highest standards of safety.”

“What's more, by providing shipping companies with more detail and greater accuracy of data, they have the tools to make better use of sea conditions to plan fuel and time-efficient passages, which will help them to achieve cost savings.”

The publication of Routing Chart 5141 is part of a major enhancement of the UKHO's chart coverage of Vietnam and its suite of navigational charts and publications for Vietnamese waters. This includes new Electronic Navigational Chart (ENC) coverage for Vietnam available now in the ADMIRALTY Vector Chart Service; new and updated paper charts covering Vietnamese waters and updated publications covering tidal data, radio signals and sailing directions.