Information we get from Routeing charts
Essential for use in passage planning for ocean voyages, Routeing Charts include routes and distances between major ports, ocean currents, ice limits, load lines and wind roses. They also contain expected meteorological and oceanographic conditions for each month of the year.
We get the following information from these charts:
1) Ice limits & icebergs in relevant areas.
2) Load line zones for various oceans alongwith applicable dates, if any. Some areas follow different loadline zones during different months in an year. This information is also given in Routeing charts.
3) Shipping routes between major ports alongwoth distances written on the routes.
4) Wind force and direction at various points on the chart.
5) Sea currents at various points on the chart.
6) State of visibility where visibility is generally low.
7) Mean dew point temperature & mean atmospheric pressure at sea level.
All the above data is available for each month throughout the year. A chart for an area provides information for 1 month. So, for 1 area, there are 12 Routeing charts.
These charts comes in handy when planning the passage speed and helps in predicting what sort of weather to expect during the passage and hence helps the master of a vessel to predict the ETA to the next port.
Further information about updating of these charts can be checked here : Routeing charts: Updates and further information
