New AcquisitionsADMIRALTY MARITIME COMUNICATIONS United Kingdom and the Baltic - NP291; UK Hydrographic Office, 2002; £17.95: CA URN 16160
NP291 completes the three volumes covering the most popular cruising areas from the UK: NP289 UK and the Med, NP290 Caribbean, and NP291 UK and the Baltic. Developed for yachtsmen from the Admiralty List of Radio Signals, these beautifully produced full colour books cover all aspects of yacht communications, from DSC to SAR and DGPS to Navtex. NP291 covers the entire UK (duplicating this part of NP289), entire Baltic, Belgian, Netherlands, coasts, Norway Oslo to Bergen, and the Swedish and German North Sea coasts. Starting with a comprehensive, but necessarily somewhat technical, communications manual, the bulk of the 402pp book covers Ports and Marina Information, giving for over 1000 ports and marinas telephone numbers, email and web site addresses, VHF channels and procedures for entering, bridging, mooring, etc.. Area chartlets show port limits, ports and marinas, and Vessel Traffic Service areas. Country sections give comprehensive information on all weather forecasts.
As a bonus excellent aerial photographs of 119 harbours are included, although these are insufficiently comprehensive to be of consistent use.
An important facility should be the ease with which this book can be updated from cumulative Notices to Mariners on the Internet. The service for all NPs has been delayed but should be available in January 2003.
To get the best value this book should be thoroughly studied, e.g. to understand the use of colour coding, before taking to sea.
NP291 should be regarded as indispensable for UK and especially Baltic (where information in Almanacs is sketchy) sailors. - RMG
Page prepared 11 January 2003
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