The unexpected commercial success of electronic charting systems has put an unusual pressure on the regulatory organizations to come up with some accepted international standard for this new technology. Unfortunately, the scope of this issue is far-reaching and touches the most sensitive nerves of maritime tradition and culture. This cumbersome legacy was noticeable from the very first US RTCM meetings on the subject and has conditioned the development of recommendations ever since.

This paper, written by an outsider, tries to look at the whole issue with an unprejudiced eye, arriving at a conclusion which casts heavy doubts on the wisdom of the current course and which advocates a different approach to take advantage of the incredibly powerful potential of this new technology – a technology which could radically change the rules and laws of commercial navigation to the benefit of safety and economy.

This paper was presented at an RIN meeting on ‘Air and Marine Radar Developments’ on Wednesday 16 January 1991.

During the last decade there have been significant developments in the civil marine radar field, resulting in: (1) Improved radar detection performance; (2) Improved operational facilities; (3) Improved reliability; (4) High brightness, daylight viewing, colour and monochrome displays with full ARPA performance; (5) Integrated radar and navigation systems; (6) Reduction in costs.