46 seamanship secrets
Ta p e i t. Tape each track with removable Scotch Magic Tape (or dull-sided
tape). Use continuous strips on short legs and multiple strips on longer legs. Make
sure the tape adheres fi rmly.
Mark and label it. With the fi ne or medium felt-tip marker, draw over your
penciled lines. Add more tape above and below the line where you can write in
your trackline information.
How to make changes. If you need to remove the old tape for a course change,
simply peel away the old tape, erase the penciled lines beneath, and repeat the
steps above.
MARK DANGERS, AIDS, AND ANCHORAGES
ALONG THE WAY
You’ll need your colored pencils for these next steps, which involve marking, or
annotating, the chart to highlight shoals, danger bearings or boundaries, and
natural ranges. Try using a dark blue pencil for shoals and magenta or crimson
for danger boundaries and bearings. Customize any annotation, but keep it
simple so that the crew understands its meaning.
Mark shoal-limit lines. Use a dark blue pencil to highlight shoals or contour
curves less than twice your draft. Contour curves show depths in increments
of 6 feet. If your draft is 8 feet, you should mark any 18-foot contour curves on
the chart (2 × 8 = 16'; for safety, round up to 18'). If you have a depth sounder
with an alarm, set it to trigger at your shoal-limit line.
Dashed lines for ranges, bearings, and turns. To highlight a natural
range, draw a dashed line from the more distant aligned object through the
nearer object and toward your trackline, out to the stop point. This is the
point where you must stop using the range to avoid standing into danger.
Coast Guard–maintained ranges change from a solid to a dashed line at the
stop point. Mark each stop point with a distinctive X or circle.
Draw danger marks and bearings. Use the magenta-colored pencil
to draw in danger bearings (or danger arcs, if you are using radar—see
Chapter 4).
Designate emergency anchorages. Study water depths and seabed char-
acteristics on either side of every trackline. Pockets of white indicate deeper
water off the main channel. Use a dark-colored pencil to draw an anchor symbol
surrounded by a circle for possible emergency anchorages, then highlight the
nearest bottom characteristics.
More information to come. After reading Chapters 4 and 5, you’ll want
to add other valuable annotations to your charts. Try to keep things simple
to avoid clutter or confusion. Always remember that everyone aboard should
be able to understand your information, in case you are incapacitated.