A number of people have been contacting me about the fact that charts for  Lough Corrib are seemingly available from two different sites - only my old out-of-date (and dangerous) charts are being sold on the other site and its  probably time to explain the background...



I started creating a proper nautical chart of the Corrib using GIS (geographic Information system) software back in 2008, after a dalliance with a rock while navigating on the old Admiralty chart.



I use charts professionally, and had been rather surprised to find that charts from 1846 were the latest currently available. The base data for my own chart was practically complete in May 2009.

2011. As with any collaboration, equality of input ultimately becomes an issue, and sometimes a big issue……



I called it a day when I had had enough of being exploited. I had also had my fill of hearing that this young man claimed to have made the charts (something some members of the local IWAI branch still believe too) . To my amazement, when  I called an end to the "collaboration" I was told that they were (allegedly) no longer my charts - but were his, and (allegedly) always had been.


Allegedly he went on to circulate  that I was merely a 'contributor' to his project, and he was the person controlling and driving it. Quite an astonishing position to take for someone who openly admitted to having no knowledge of chartmaking.

Anyone who is bored enough read the old emails and postings relating to charts of the Corrib is probably aware of what followed.


The story was as inevitable as it was predictable.

The majority of the very small amount of sounding data actually contributed by him was gathered on my own equipment, in a borrowed boat.


I authored tutorials on map making which he now (amusingly) lays claim to. I created  sonar and map imagery, collected specialised data  with my own equipment on my own survey craft, all of which magically became his own work.


Paper charts that I alone created and produced (and even had an agreement that they were none of the other parties business whatsoever ) appeared no longer to be mine, and were openly on sale on the Corribcharts website


Since the change of the marking system, all of the charts on Corribcharts.com are now hopelessly out of date. I made them all, so am ideally qualified  to make that determination. They are also dangerous , but that hasn't stopped them continuing to be sold and advertised.


The website owner, now a senior officer with the Inland Waterways Association, Corrib Branch,  had never made a chart of the Corrib, and to this day still hasn't.



A lesson about trust learned....... Rant over.