SKETCHBOOK

Tips on the best ways to store and use your rolled-up charts

A Paper charts are best stowed flat, but rarely used ones can be rolled and stowed inside plastic tubes. You can buy capped ones, or you can fix some drainpipes into odd spaces that aren’t used much, such as cockpit coamings. Write the chart numbers on their end and remember to twist the inside corner tightly, so as to be able to remove the chart more easily.

B When needed, flatten your charts out under a bunk, or hold the curl down with drawing board clips.

C Elastic, curtain hem weights and supermagnets over varnished steel screws in the chart table can also be used to keep charts flat.

D Unruly ends can be tucked into slots in the chart table. Here the bottom one is in a trough that keeps wet foul weather gear off of it.

E Strong handrails have also been used to hold the ends.

F Tall, thin chart tables are often easier to fit in than wide ones. This one had a lifting lid, and the curled chart ends passed through notches in the desk sides. Knotted ends of elastic fitted into keyhole slots hold everything in place.

G A refinement was to fit the chart ends into split pipes and roll them up.

H Try to stow a roll of heavy tracing paper somewhere. This can be used to copy details from other sailors’ charts or pilotage notes. Lovely examples show coral atolls with palm trees as navigation marks! Or, less romantically, you can just update an old chart by tracing the details from a new one, rather than plotting the coordinates.