Charts

 

  When my brother Mark moved to a smaller house a few years ago, he gave our son Ned his chart table. Ned and his wife Victoria had just moved to a bigger house and needed furniture. The chart table makes a good coffee table, but its three long, thin drawers are only good for holding charts.

  Mark is downsizing again. He's moving to a boat, where you'd think charts would be useful. But he's given his chart collection to Ned, or maybe they're just on loan. Maybe Mark will stay close to home. If he leaves his local waters he'll need his charts.

Clear the decks 

  Nautical charts are the opposite of road or topographical maps. A topographical map shows lots of information about the hills and towns, roads and buildings of the countryside, but gives no information about the lakes or the sea. A nautical chart on the other hand is covered with numbers showing the depth of the water, often in fathoms. It shows rocks and buoys, lighthouses and steeples, and anything on shore that can serve as a landmark from the water. The chart doesn't care about where all the people live. Once on shore the sailor will find the bars by a sixth sense.

   The early mariners kept the shore in sight. They coasted. Once out of sight of land they didn't know where they were. The discovery of the magnetic compass in the eleventh century made sailors bolder and inspired the making of charts. True north is at the top of the chart and a compass rose is printed on each chart showing magnetic north, so a voyage can be plotted.

Here there be wrecks.

  I pulled a chart at random from Mark's pile: "Cape Hatteras to Charleston". Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout, Cape Fear, and the Frying Pan Shoals. What storied names, rich with pirates and shipwrecks. The chart ends at old Charleston in the lower left hand corner. Charleston, where the great Civil War began when Rebels fired on Fort Sumpter. The fort is not even shown on the chart. To be fair, as the mariner entered the harbor, he or she would refer to chart 11524 which does show Fort Sumpter, to avoid another collision. But more likely, the modern mariner would refer to a marine GPS unit. This electronic piece of wizardry has made paper charts redundant, as long as the GPS works as promised, that is. Redundancy is a good thing on a boat.

"Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep..."