ADMIRALTY STANDARD NAUTICAL AND THEMATIC CHARTS
STANDARD NAUTICAL CHARTS
The UKHO produces an unrivalled series of over 3,300 Standard Nautical Charts which meet the requirements of professional, commercial and recreational navigation in accordance with SOLAS regulations, ensuring safe navigation at sea.
Admiralty Standard Nautical Charts are produced in a range of scales for safe ocean navigation covering passage planning, harbours and nautical hazards, anchorages, coastal and offshore navigation.
To ensure safe navigation, it is recommended that mariners always use nautical charts of the largest appropriate scale. In particularly busy seaways such as The English Channel, Gulf of Suez and the Malacca and Singapore Straits, the Admiralty SNC series is supplemented by Mariners Routeing Guides which advise on route planning and all necessary regulations appropriate to the area of navigation.
Admiralty Notices to Mariners, weekly editions, contain information which enables the mariner to keep his charts and books published by UKHO up-to-date for the latest reports received. New editions and new charts are listed in advance in Weekly Notices to Mariners in booklet format and via the website.
THEMATIC CHARTS
Specialist charts in series which can be used to supplement the Standard Nautical charts.
Load Line Regulations
Merchant Shipping (Load Line) Regulations cover the draught to which vessels subject to SOLAS regulations may be loaded in designated zones across the world. The Load Line Chart (D6083) reflects changes made in the 1998 Merchant Shipping Regulations and includes the latest designated zones and seasonal periods relating to Load Line Rules.
The World Time Zone Chart
These charts were originally devised so that any mariner, in any part of the world, could relate their local time to Standard Greenwich Mean Time. The latest edition was published in 2003, and shows the International Date Line as a central part of the chart.
Admiralty Routing Charts
These charts are essential for use in Passage Planning and ocean voyages. They include routes and distances between major ports, ocean currents, ice limits, load lines and wind roses, with expected meteorological and oceanographic conditions for each month of the year. Five Routeing Charts cover the oceans of the world; North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific and the Indian Ocean.
Admiralty Routing Guides
These charts provide important Passage Planning information in addition to details of Traffic Separation Schemes for the major shipping areas of the English Channel, North Sea, Gulf of Suez, Malacca and Singapore Straits.
Planning Charts
These charts are ideal as planning tools and can also be used for educational, travel and decorative purposes. They are a series of small scale charts covering all significant ports worldwide that are available in various scales.
Co-Tidal Charts
Co-Tidal Charts and Co-Range Charts are used primarily to predict offshore tidal conditions.
Astronomical Charts
Astronomical Charts, as used for traditional navigation, facilitate the accurate plotting of a ship's position from Astronomical observations.
Gnomonic Charts
These charts are used in Passage Planning to plot great circle routes as a straight line. They are useful for devising composite rhumb line courses. Fifteen charts cover the world at scales of 1:13,500,000 and 1:26,500,000.
Magnetic Variation Charts
These charts show the variation of Magnetic Fields. Whilst local information is shown on all charts, this series provides more detailed coverage on a worldwide level.
Meteorological Charts and Diagrams
These charts form a series of 27 Meteorological working charts.
