C Maps

Boaters lucky enough to be at the 2009 Fort Lauderdale Boat Show will be the first in North America to experience Jeppesen Marine’s new C-MAP 4D cartography — the latest advance in electronic charting technology that will change the way boaters see the world.

This innovative approach to electronic charting gives boaters control over their navigation solutions in ways never before possible.   Using one cartridge, customers can select the coverage area and the content segment that best meet their boating needs. Customers can select the Max segment which includes all the popular features of the existing C-MAP MAX product, or they can choose the 4D segment of C-MAP 4D which includes a variety of breakthrough features, including:

“4D” Charting — Take the most advanced 3D land and ocean mapping database in the world and add the 4th dimension of time.  Based on a continuous update process, C-MAP 4D gives boaters access to a personalized navigation experience with up-to-date data for safe navigation.

True View & Photos — C-MAP 4D includes a realistic navigational perspective with satellite photos and hi-resolution coastal imagery that can be overlaid on accurate and up-to-date 3-D vector data, plus thousands of extraordinary photos of popular marinas and areas of interest.

Nautical Paper Charts — For boaters who enjoy the traditional look of paper charts, C-MAP 4D delivers the exclusive ability to overlay electronic versions of raster charts onto multi-dimensional shaded relief cartography for a new boating experience.

This revolutionary charting technology will be available for use as soon as chart plotter manufacturers are able to implement it onto their units.

Check Out New C-MAP 4D and Other Charting Products at 2009/2010 Boat Shows.

Boat shows are a great way to catch up on all the latest gear, whether you’re looking for a new vessel, the latest electronics or the best boating and fishing accessories.

As usual, Jeppesen Marine will be out in force at some of North America’s biggest boat shows.  Starting this fall and running through spring 2010, we’ll be busy showing our wares and meeting with boaters like you to help with your electronic navigation needs. 

We have some big news to share with navigators across North America and around the world.   The 2009 Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show will be the North American public premiere of Jeppesen Marine’s revolutionary C-MAP 4D cartography. 

This advanced C-MAP cartography will change the way boaters see the world.
C-MAP 4D will be available as soon as chart plotter manufacturers are able to implement it onto their units. Visitors to the show can experience the 4th Dimension at kiosks in the Jeppesen Marine booth, which is located in the marine electronics tent, booth M21.

If you can’t catch us in Fort Lauderdale, we’ll be showing C-MAP 4D at other key boat shows, along with the entire line of Jeppesen Marine electronic charting products and accessories.   Stop by and visit us.  We’ll be happy to teach you about this exciting new charting technology, discuss the easiest way to update your charts (Club Jeppesen Marine) and help you with any electronic navigation questions you may have.  Find us at the following shows:

Most serious ocean fishermen wouldn’t dream of heading offshore without their high-tech marine electronics, especially their electronic chart plotter and digital cartography.  Why?   Because they count on their marine chartplotter and electronic charts for a wealth of information that helps them find and catch more fish.

In growing numbers, freshwater anglers are also “tuning in and turning on,” spurred by increasing availability of smaller sized, affordable electronic chart plotters and fishing charts for popular freshwater lakes and rivers.  For about the cost of a high-performance stainless prop, freshwater anglers can install a GPS/chart plotter and add satellite boating navigation and detailed waterway maps to their arsenal of weapons.

Today’s best marine GPS receivers can pinpoint your position to within three meters anywhere in the world, allowing you to navigate with accuracy and – most importantly – return to “fishy” areas.   And with the proliferation of inexpensive, hand-held GPS units that can fit in a tackle box, many fishermen are “steering by the numbers” to do just this.

Using an electronic chart plotter, however, adds a whole new dimension.    Electronic chart plotters add marine map technology capable of showing your boat’s position and movement over a digitized map of the lake or river’s bottom.  Depending on the level of detail, this digital cartography can include submerged creek channels, drop-offs, points, brush piles, sunken islands and other structure items that are critical to fishermen.

With a little imagination, it’s easy to see how a real-time representation like this can help the freshwater anglers.   By really knowing the layout of the lake and where your boat is positioned in relation to key structure, you can spend more time fishing where the fish are.  And by correlating what you see on the electronic chart plotter with information from your depth-sounder, you won’t have to wonder what’s under your boat.  In fishing, knowledge is confidence.  And confident anglers catch more fish.

Of course, an electronic chart plotter can only provide as much detail as is contained on the digital cartography it is running.   Companies like C-MAP have come a long way in the development of extremely detailed electronic charts for the nation’s most popular freshwater fishing areas.   The company’s MAX Lakes catalog of specialized freshwater fishing charts was developed with one purpose in mind — to help freshwater anglers catch more fish.  Today, C-Map MAX Lakes fishing charts are available covering  thousands of popular lakes and waterways in every U.S. state.

There are many ways savvy fishermen use this electronic chart data to their advantage.  For example, walleye anglers can use their electronic chart plotters to focus and fine-tune their trolling presentations.  Successful walleye trolling is based on precise boat positioning, boat speed and bait presentation, and a plotter gives you an extra high-tech tool.   If the fish are hanging along an edge or suspended over an underwater riverbed, you can position your boat precisely, track your progress on the map and make adjustments for wind and current.

Say you’re a bass fishermen, and you’re working a steep drop off a submerged point with a pig-and-jig or live bait.  Same idea – you can monitor your boat’s progress in relation to the shoreline and the bottom, and make small adjustments as necessary.   And with the accuracy of today’s marine electronic GPS, you can keep working productive water by marking where you hookup and returning to this area through subsequent drifts.

These are just a few of the ways an electronic chart plotter and specialized fishing charts can make a wizard out of any freshwater fisherman.   Whether the name of your  game is largemouth, walleye, trout, crappie or stripers,  C-Map charts will help you catch more fish.    Visit your boat dealer or electronics store and get turned on to the world of electronic charts.  

Electronic charts keep you on the right side of the line – and the law.

Anybody who fishes ocean waters off California is aware of the state’s Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) and what this law means to recreational anglers. In a very complex process, various groups have been working on ways to achieve the conservation goals of the act, which was passed to protect the state’s marine resources. What this will mean to the layman is a growing network of no-fishing and/or restricted fishing zones up and down California’s 840-mile coast.


Southern Californians are familiar with this already; Marine Protected Areas have been in place around the Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa and San Miguel Islands for several years. Closures are on the way for the rest of the state, as well as an even greater network of no-fishing zones for Southern California islands and coastline areas. Battle lines are being drawn right now, with a variety of competing marine maps vying for the approval of the state Fish and Game Commission.

However these marine maps end up coming out, it will be the fisherman’s responsibility to know and obey the law. There aren’t any floating warning signs telling you where you can or can’t fish, and printed charts with GPS boundaries of closed areas aren’t much use either. 

Without a doubt, an electronic chart plotter with updated digital cartography is the best way for anglers to remain inside the law — and outside closed areas. A marine chartplotter will allow boaters to graphically see their GPS position relative to specific closed areas (most electronic GPS units allow users to customize the electronic chart display to mark general boundaries on the marine map.

Since the first closures were put in place around the Channel Islands several years ago, C-Map charts by Jeppesen Marine have had existing no-fishing zones clearly marked in red. This means that boaters can fish with confidence that they won’t accidentally cross into areas that could cost them a hefty fine. By using the electronic chart plotter’s proximity alarm feature, they can be alerted if they get too close, even if they are off the bridge and busy fishing in the cockpit.

Another advantage C-Map charts offer is the confidence to fish in close proximity to these closed areas, while remaining legally outside. These areas were selected because they are productive fish habitat — and anglers without this electronic edge are often too concerned to take their boats anywhere near them. I’ve experienced this first hand, catching quality bottom fish in an area adjacent to (but safely outside) the Carrington Reef closure area at Santa Rosa Island while other boats chose to steer clear of the whole area.

Closures like these will begin expanding up and down the state in 2010. Additional Marine Protected Areas totaling as much as 400 square miles are in the works for the Southern California region alone, depending on which marine map gets approved. Other coastal states, as well as the federal government, are also looking at similar networks of protected areas and fishing closures to manage marine resources. Don’t think this trend only applies to the Golden State. 

Like it or not, more closed and restricted areas are in our future. Having a marine electronic GPS and quality electronic cartography will become increasingly important as the wide-open ocean becomes less open to anglers.  This is why I’m glad that Jeppesen Marine updates its navigational charts and fishing charts at least twice each year.  As a law-abiding boater and fisherman, I want to be sure I’m navigating with the most accurate electronic chart data available.

 

So what are you waiting for? Get equipped with Jeppesen's Electronic charts and go fishing. 

For more information on the Around the Americas expedition, and to follow the journey as it unfolds online, visit www.pacsci.org/aroundtheamericas. 

The Coastside Fishing Club Chart is another in the series of C-Map charts created from expert sources outside of official HO channels. In this case, the officers of the 10,000-strong fishing club volunteered to provide local knowledge of area fishing grounds in order to promote the recreational fishing experiences for members and non-members alike.

The Coastside Fishing Club Chart is a unique combination of navigation data, bathymetric data and local knowledge of the top fishing minds in Northern California.

A perfect example of making the most from fishing contour charts is the collaboration between Jeppesen Marine and the Coastside Fishing Club of California in creating a custom electronic chart for the Northern California recreational fishing community. Any interested angler may purchase this unique chart in keeping with the Coastside mission to enhance the recreational fishing experience of all who fish that area's waters.

This specialty chart combines coastal navigation data with detail offshore ocean-floor contour data. It features approximately 100 charted areas that the Coastside leadership with its vast local knowledge and experience has identified as the region's most productive grounds.

Chart Coverage Area
The coastal range is from Coos Bay, Oregon, to Point Conception, California — approximately 600 miles of coastline. It includes San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, the Delta and the Sacramento River to a point just south of Colusa, California.

The average limits of east-west offshore area coverage is approximately 300 miles overall. Bathymetric data (detail bottom contours) are maintained from the shoreline to an average offshore area distance of 100 miles.

General Specifications
The Coastside Fishing Card (CFC) is available in both MAX and NT+ charting lines: MAX for electronic chart plotters that are MAX compliant/MAX upgradeable and NT+ for electronic chart plotters that pre-date MAX. It is available on all standard  MAX and NT+ chart plotter card formats.

Exclusive MAX Features
The combination of a MAX class chart with a MAX-compatible electronic chart plotter means a suite of additional features beyond the special characteristics of the CFC chart. 


They include:

• Dynamic surface currents
• Flashing NavAids
• Reference images
• Photographs
• Perspective view
• Shore-based value-added data and more

Chart Updates
New releases of the CFC fishing card will produce updated charts that include new identified areas and expanded information for existing designated areas. They will also include additional bathymetric data (if available), all new aids-to-navigation that occur in the chart coverage area since the previously released version and all state-mandated Marine Protection Areas (MPA) at the time of the new release.

Custom Specifications
The Coastside Fishing Card features five categories of custom information:

• Recommended fishing and crabbing areas
• Fishing guidelines for each area
• Habitat and regulation information
• Marine Protection Areas
• Use of popular local names and references
• Local navigational guides

CFC Area Designations
The approximately 100 charted CFC areas include recommended fishing, crabbing and cautionary areas such as bottom trawling zones. Each selected area is identified by a fish symbol. Each area is entirely outlines by a border consisting of inverted T symbols. Multiple areas are identified for tuna, salmon, striped bass, rockfish, halibut, sand dabs and crabbing.

California MPAs
State Marine Protection Areas as of March 2009 for the 12 counties within the CFC chart coverage areas are identified by boundary markings.

Supporting Area Information
Each area name and type of catch is identified on the chart. The chart also lists additional information such as special CFC fishing guidelines. MAX charts also contain images of the species plus history and regulations whenever possible.

Local References
Local names commonly associated with each of the designated fishing areas and other points of reference are maintained in the charts and displayed on the chart plotter.

Special Navigation Guides
The chart contains several CFC navigational guidelines for areas that the CFC has identified as difficult or potentially hazardous to navigate and are not shown on standard charts. One example is the Pillar Point Reef area.

The 2009  CFC chart retails for $199 regardless of product class. Contact your local dealer.

Jeppesen Marine (1-800-424-2627) alos offers several cost-saving exchange programs for qualified C-Map customers.

• Upgrade an NT+ CFC chart to the 2008 MAX class chart for qualified electronic chart plotters
• Update older NT+ versions to the new 2008 NT+ version chart
• Exchange an existing NT+ or MAX chart for the special CFC chart

Wouldn't it be nice to know where the fish are likely to be beforehand, so you can spend less time searching and more time catching? Jeppesen Marine's Fishing Contour Charts put more data at the fingertips of recreational and commercial saltwater fishermen to help them target the drop-offs, ledges, canyons, sea mounts, shoals and ledges where fish congregate.


















Developed from NOS surveys, Fishing Contour Charts deliver the bathymetric information you need to find more fish, whether near shore or offshore.  Canyons, sea mounts, ridges and other subsurface bottom structures create upwellings, concentrating bait and the resulting game fish.

Focus your efforts around these shaded contours and you'll fish more efficiently and with greater success.

Key Features:

• Contour lines show up vividly on color electronic chart plotter displays
• Displays locations and popular names for top fishing spots
• Shows precisely where your boat is in relation to prime structures
• Provides large coverage areas from Maine to Alaska

Popular names given by professional skippers over the years appear right on the charts, making it even easier to fish like a pro, even if you aren't one.

Order a Fishing Contour Chart for $129.

The same Fishing Contour Chart sells for only $99 when purchased with any navigation chart.

Call Jeppesen Marine today at 1-800-424-2627.

Experienced offshore anglers know the importance of finding temperature breaks (lines dividing cooler and warmer water) when seeking out pelagic gamefish like tuna, marlin, yellowtail and dorado.

For reasons covered in Part 1, these constantly shifting, moving breaks are natural concentration points for baitfish and the saltwater gamefish that feed on them. On the water, smart boaters keep their eyes open for tell-tail signs that give away these prime fishing areas. Smarter yet is using available technology at home and on the water to pinpoint these temperature breaks and to fish them more effectively and efficiently once found.

Top-performing offshore anglers begin each fishing trip by doing their homework. They log onto subscription services like Southern California's www.TempBreak.com to review the latest available satellite sea surface temperature (SST) data. This website lets you view color-coded temperature maps overlaid onto coastline marine maps on your home or office computer so you can identify key areas to target. When you scroll the cursor across the screen at this fisherman's website, you can see how far a break is from your home port and also identify the latitude/longitude numbers for any point on the map. When you find a temperature break located around any of the offshore seamounts, canyons and ledges found on C-Map charts (especially the detailed bathymetric C-Map fishing contour charts), this is an area worth investigating. Temperature breaks gather fish. Sea floor fluctuations and contours gather fish. The two combined are like a neon sign saying, "Fish here!"

You can transfer this latitude/longitude information easily to your GPS marine chart plotter so you can leave the dock or launch ramp with both a plan for success and a visual guide during the day. Knowing where you're headed before you set out will put you ahead of the competition as well as save you time, fuel and money.

With the recent technology that simplifies integrating Sirius® satellite weather data (including current SST data) with select C-Map-compatible electronic chart plotters from various manufacturers, anglers have an even more powerful tool at their disposal. By overlaying real-time SST maps right onto your electronic chart plotter, you'll be able to stay on top of changing conditions as well as the fish.

That's good news for you and your crew — but bad news for Mr. Tuna.

In 2006 life-long sailor and recreational pilot James Bildner released A Visual Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast. This original boating navigation guide provided full-color, low-altitude aerial photographs of Maine's rugged shoreline. Anyone who has ever traversed that mind-boggling route knows that its beauty holds a myriad of thorny passages and hidden approaches. Bildner's 272-page guide included text descriptions of the Maine coast along with piloting instructions, labeled approach lines and chart segments from high-resolution navigational charts.

Now Jim is doing it again — this time extending his visual guide to encompass Cape Cod to New York City, including Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Block Island and Long Island Sound. For A Visual Cruising Guide to the Southern New England Coast, Bildner has gathered a network of local experts up and down southern New England to review and contribute to the piloting instructions offered.

Featured are aerial photos matched with the related navigational chart segments and text descriptions to guide sailors through channels and harbor approaches. The photos and navigational charts clearly label hazards, safe channels and key navigation aids. In addition, Bildner indicates the location from which the photos are shot and, on some charts, provides an overlay to show how the safest entry route actually looks from the water.

Bildner's newest contribution will be a welcome addition to any crew. Yes, you still need your electronic C-Map charts for cruise planning and to navigate safely on the water. Think of A Visual Cruising Guide to the Southern New England Coast as a welcome complement to your C-Maps and traditional cruising guides. I'm also thinking this will make a dandy companion for a relaxing off-season evening sail by the fire.

Watch for Jim Bildner's navigational guide to be released in November 2009.

"Safety first" is the wise boater's mantra. So boating navigation experts at Jeppesen Marine constantly explore ways to improve safety and to enhance navigator confidence for all cruisers, sailors and fishermen. To that end, a new wave of electronic navigation systems has broken onto the scene this boating season, offering boaters innovative new capabilities and unlocking the latest powerful features and enhancements found in Jeppesen Marine C-Map MAX 09 electronic cartography.

Several innovative features that are made available through the new marine electronic systems include Jeppesen Marine's "smooth zoom" and "turbo zoom" technology. Smooth Zoom eliminates visible jumping of the electronic chart display, providing you with uniform, seamless switching of the chart scale when zooming in or out. Turbo Zoom delivers extra-fast telescoping when the electronic chart plotter's zoom key is held down. Add to these enhancements a convenient feature that instantly prepares new chart objects — land contour, depth areas, names, NavAids, buoys, beacons, rivers, roads, etc. — in the background of the electronic chart. This gives you instantaneous display and "invisible" redrawing when panning or zooming.

Jeppesen Marine also has added a new Route Check feature. This addition quickly checks your planned route for a wide range of obstacles and dangerous objects along the way. Route Check offers a user-selectable minimum depth for the vessel, and each leg of the route is rated green, yellow or red to alert boaters to potential navigational hazards they might encounter. Shallow water, rocks, obstructions, wrecks, intertidal zones, dredge areas and shoreline obstacles are among the dangers noted by Route Check.

In addition to these new features, Jeppesen Marine is adding more than 2,000 new aerial photographs of harbors and inlets nationwide to its upcoming spring 2009 release of C-Map MAX electronic charts.

For more information about Jeppesen Marine or to view compatible electronic chart plotters, visit www.Jeppesen.com/lightmarine

Whether you want to do a little marine fishing in open waters or wade into streams for your catch, Alaska offers a great angling experience for every level of fisherman. This state is home to some of the best game fish — salmon, giant halibut, cutthroat trout and other species.

In southeast Alaska  — the panhandle — sport fishing is a way of life. Prince of Wales Island off the mainland coast, Ketchikan to the east, Petersburg, Sitka and Juneau all offer challenging angling opportunities. There are numerous streams and lakes for trout. Marine fishing includes the highly prized king salmon as well as coho, pink and sockeye. The waters in southeast Alaska also boast halibut, lingcod, Pacific cod and herring.

Southcentral Alaska — Anchorage, the Kenai Penninsula, Prince William Sound and Northern Cook Inlet — are awash with northern pike, Pacific halibut, silver salmon, Dolly Varden, rainbow trout and several species of white fish.

In addition to the marine fishing opportunities of the southeast and southcentral areas, Alaska's interior glacial rivers and lakes comprise a range of waters — from challenging rapids to placid pools. Here the angler will find burbot (the only freshwater species of cod found in North America), Dolly Varden, Arctic char, grayling, lake and brook trout as well as king, chum and coho salmon.

So for a satisfying encounter with some worthy aquatic opponents, consider updating your C-Map charts and heading north to Alaska. Regional information on marine fishing and fishing opportunities throughout Alaska is available from the Sport Fish Division at www.sf.adfg.state.ak.us/statewide/sfpubs.cfm

Electronic Chart Updating – Part 2
Is It Really Necessary?

Is updating your navigation charts really necessary? After all, charts that cover relatively stable areas may have relatively few changes from year to year.

Wondering whether you need to update your charts is akin to a skydiver asking whether he really needs to check his parachute before the jump. Not doing so could be disastrous.

Typically, an updated C-Map MAX or NT+ chart title contains hundreds or thousands of changes and corrections from the previous version. For example, the spring 2009 edition of the C-Map MAX Wide chart NA-M022 (U.S. East Coast/Bahamas) incorporates more than 10,000 Notice of Mariner changes and 95 new chart editions.

So, yes, it is necessary to update your charts on a regular basis for several reasons. 


We discussed the most obvious reason in Part 1 of this series — i.e., the annual “comings and goings” of thousands of navigation aids, buoys, markers, lights, etc. 


Recent events have elevated the importance of boater awareness of marine exclusionary areas formally referred to as security zones. The USCG web site describes it this way:

“The purpose of a security zone is to safeguard from destruction, loss or injury from sabotage or other subversive acts, accidents, or other causes of a similar nature (1) vessels, (2) harbors, (3) ports, and (4) waterfront facilities…”

The folks at Homeland Security take the issue of security zones pretty seriously. So once these critical areas are established, they are identified through the standard “Notice to Mariners” process and are added to appropriate electronic charts, as are all other NTMs.


Boaters need to keep abreast of the changing situation with Marine Protected Areas along the California coast. Jeppesen Marine’s electronic navigational charts include all 42 offshore areas and 12 inland areas listed by Fish & Game as of June 15, 2008, from Humboldt to San Luis Obispo County. The new recently mandated California MPAs will be released soon. 


Having accurate information on these no-fishing zones is critical to staying within the law. These chart entries not only keep you out of trouble, they allow you to safely “line-dance” the closure boundaries.


Updated charts provide some tasty extras like value-added data and expanded coverage.


Keeping your navigational charts updated makes you eligible for special safe-boater discounts like SeaTow’s Sea Insure.

There are five good reasons why it makes good sense to update your navigational charts on a regular basis. I could list a dozen, but they all boil down to one primary reason: out-of-date charts put you and your crew in danger.

Be safe. Update your charts.

Electronic Chart Updating – Part 1
What Is It?

What Is a Chart Update?
Updates to navigational charts comprise a wide range of situations. The update may involve something as common as a buoy or light change. It may be the result of a contour change or shoreline shift brought about by weather. It could be something as complicated as changes to channels, commercial shipping lanes or restricted areas. Updates also include new planning and value-added data such as marina facilities and port services.

Essentially, an update is necessary whenever there is any change in your boating area that could have a negative impact on navigation. It may be a single change to a chart or it could require replacing the entire chart. Charts that cover areas known to change constantly require a substantial number of chart corrections while charts that cover relatively stable areas may need fewer updates.

Considering the variety of situations that call for a chart update, the result is hundreds — if not thousands — of changes that occur from one year to the next.

For boating safety, it is imperative that your navigational charts reflect these changes as soon as possible. Much of this information is available to the public for free on line. These three publications provide updated information weekly for mariners using paper charts: the USCG Local Notice to Mariners (LNM), the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency’s Notice to Mariners (NM) and – for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway – the Canadian Coast Guard’ Notice to Mariners.

However, when faced with the daunting task of correcting paper charts or even updating electronic charts with an accurate interpretation of all these changes, most savvy boaters opt to delegate this task to the pros at Jeppesen Marine.


How Does an Electronic Chart Get Updated?
Jeppesen Marine uses numerous sources of information to compile its electronic chart data. However, each source must meet strict criteria to qualify as a legitimate resource. As a result, there are only a handful of private sources used to fill those gaps where governmental agencies lack the manpower, financing and local experts to provide accurate data. These private sources include the well-respected Coastside Fishing Club in the San Francisco Bay area, the Explorer Chart publishers in the Bahamas and localized coverage such as the Bizer charts for Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire.

Weekly updates, corrections and changes related to the Americas are funneled to Jeppesen Marine’s center in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The Quality Control Department reviews the information, tags it on their master charting system and forwards the data to their chart-production and maintenance centers throughout the world. The master libraries then are returned to Cape Cod where they are compared to the original “hard copies” and scrutinized for accuracy.

Jeppesen Marine makes the changes available twice a year. These spring and fall updates are timed specifically to help boaters get ready for the beginning of key boating seasons in the north and south.

There are more than 40 million anglers in the United States. That's more fishermen than there are golfers and tennis players combined. Many of these anglers enjoy participating in the excitement of tournament fishing.

In tournament fishing, time is money. Smart planning and the use of electronic cartography can save you both.

Ed Dinneen, a Division 1 Champion Southern Kingfish Association (SKA) pro who runs a Si-Tex GPS/chart plotter on his Contender 25 Open, depends on electronic cartography to help him navigate unfamiliar waters safely and quickly.

"C-Map gets me to the fish and back," says Dinneen. He uses his plotter and C-Map electronic charts to navigate through unfamiliar waters and plot an efficient course that will save him both time and fuel. "When I leave the dock, I have a good weather plan and a bad weather plan. Looking at my C-Map electronic charts and the fishing spots I've entered, I can see which areas will be easiest to run to, given the wind and sea conditions for the day."

It is just this type of smart planning that puts Ed in a direct line to his Division 1 Champion status.