Symbols and Abbreviations Used on Admiralty Paper Charts

Here was a semi-costly lesson that hopefully will help you avoid the same mistake.

When we went on our Day Skipper Course, we weren’t smart enough to take anything with us from our CPS at-home courses. So when the instructor started asking us about certain symbols on the chart, that didn’t have a legend, we both had to guess or drew blanks.

He told us we needed to get a UK publication called the  Admiralty NP5011 – Symbols and Abbreviations Used on Admiralty Paper Charts.

So that, along with a few other items was our first purchase from the RYA Shop, since we had recently joined.

Well, we had both completely forgotten that along with the CPS items for the Boating Essentials Course was a Canadian publication called Chart 1 – Symbols, Abbreviations and Terms. We found it again when we started going through our courseware looking for the Maritime Radio Course material that I need to now finish.

The best part, and what makes this even more silly, is that it is freely available online through the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website in either html or .pdf format, which will allows you to use a search function on your computer or tablet, as an option to a print copy.

All I’ll say is that I didn’t place the order for the UK book…