As Christmas approaches, we extend a warm welcome to all our subscribers, including those who have recently signed up to these very occasional newsletters.
We hope that you managed to get afloat at least at some stage in what was not one of our better summers. My wife and I had five weeks afloat in total out and about on the East Coast and the Thames Estuary, although somehow we never managed to get further north than the Orwell. Garth too got some time afloat, but has changed his boat in recent months and is busy now bringing his new acquisition up to scratch.
Our new 6th Edition of 'East Coast Pilot', published in May this year, seems to have been well received. As a reminder, the entire book was reviewed again, and we personally revisited every venue (by boat when possible), updating the text and venue information with the hundreds of changes found. The vast majority of photos used were new as well. Our publishers, Imrays, excelled themselves with new layout ideas which have given this latest edition a rather different look from its predecessors.
Updates to the 5th edition have stopped, and indeed there are already a few updates for the new edition, available as usual through our website's Book Updates page.
If you have not already got a copy, it does of course make a great Christmas present! It is available as usual direct from Imrays, and of course from chandleries and online booksellers.
Many of you will have seen the news that Imrays will be finishing chart production by the end of next year. It's sad news, the end of a long tradition by the UK's only independant chart publisher, but as with the UKHO they have seen a huge drop in demand for paper charts, to the point where they are no longer commercially viable. Imrays have reassured us all, though, that pilot book publishing will continue, together with availability of their popular 'Explore' product which is a digital form of their pilot books' content.
On this point, the CA has a working party looking at standards for digital leisure charting, including timeliness of updates to digital charts, and have been interested to learn how our chartlets for the Deben and Ore entrances are produced. By the way, Imrays have assured us that those chartlets will still be produced despite the news about their wider chart products.
While we mention those chartlets, the Deben has changed little so far this year, the chartlet remains valid and the buoys are still in the positions shown. At the Ore entrance, as usual the Oxley and Weir buoys have been removed for winter and will be repositioned in the Spring when the new surveys are done. Again we have no reports of significant change at the entrance.
It just remains for us to wish you and yours a Happy Christmas and New Year!
Kindest regards,
Dick Holness
Co-author and webmaster
East Coast Pilot.
Header photo - a winter's day at Bradwell Marina, courtesy of Ian Ward.
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