The box Helm uses for this region runs from 74.3 west to 71.7 west and 40.4 north to 41.5 north, so one pack holds the Connecticut shore, the Sound itself, the harbor, the lower Hudson and the bays behind Long Island. Depth is only half of what you are managing on that water. The same box carries 2,836 charted wrecks, 11,168 underwater rocks, 5,147 obstructions, 1,876 bridges and 1,500 restricted areas. Most of the work here is knowing what you are passing over and what you are passing under.
The pack is built from 234 official NOAA ENC cells and comes to 16 MB on the phone. Inside it are 201,800 individual charted soundings, 23,666 charted depth areas and 24,945 depth contours. Soundings rank first of the 18 US regions Helm builds, depth areas second, contours third. There are 3,538 lateral buoys and 2,580 charted lights in there as well, which is what a working chart of this water looks like once you draw all of it.
Helm builds 18 US regions from NOAA ENC data. Long Island Sound and New York comes out first in six separate counts.
| In the chart pack | Count |
|---|---|
| NOAA ENC cells | 234 |
| Charted soundings | 201,800 |
| Depth areas | 23,666 |
| Depth contours | 24,945 |
| Lateral buoys | 3,538 |
| Lateral beacons | 549 |
| Charted lights | 2,580 |
| Anchorage areas | 309 |
| Bridges | 1,876 |
| Overhead cables | 281 |
| Dredged areas | 1,178 |
| Charted wrecks | 2,836 |
| Charted obstructions | 5,147 |
| Underwater rocks | 11,168 |
| Restricted areas | 1,500 |
| NOAA tide prediction stations | 180 |
Counted from the Helm chart pack for Long Island Sound & NY, built from official NOAA electronic navigational charts. The pack downloads at about 16 MB.
The rest of the counts sit near the top as well. 23,666 depth areas rank second, 24,945 contours third, 11,168 underwater rocks third, 44 safe water marks second, 2,580 charted lights fifth and 1,178 dredged areas fifth. The pack is built from 234 ENC cells, which ranks only seventh, so all of that detail is packed into a middling number of charts.
2,836 charted wrecks is the highest count of any region in the app, and they do not sit alone out there. Add 11,168 underwater rocks and 5,147 charted obstructions and you are on water where a wreck is an ordinary chart feature rather than a landmark you learn by name. The question worth asking on a given leg is how close you are willing to pass one at the depth you draw.
Anchoring is where the count bites. 309 charted anchorage areas is again the most of the 18 regions, and a fair number of them sit over the same seabed that carries all of that wreckage and rock. Wrecks and rock under an anchorage are a fouling problem long before they are a grounding problem, so the chart is worth reading zoomed to where the hook will actually land.
1,178 dredged areas are charted in this region. Read as minimum charted depth, the median one carries 3.1 meters, a little over ten feet. The deepest carries 16.8 meters. The shallowest carries minus 1.1 meters, an area that stands above chart datum and dries.
That spread is the thing to hold in your head. A channel with 16.8 meters in it and a channel that shows ground at low water are drawn in the same style, and the number beside the area is what separates them. Ten feet is a fair expectation of what a dredged area here promises, which is plenty for most boats on the Sound and thin enough in the back bays that the hour you leave decides the trip.
The finer grain sits in the 23,666 depth areas and the 24,945 contours drawn through them. On a chart this dense the shallowest point along a line is rarely where you would guess by eye, because there are simply more numbers between you and the far end than there are on open coast.
NOAA has 180 tide prediction stations inside this box. They run from Alpine, N.J. and Beacon at Flushkill up the Hudson, across to Black Rock Harbor, Bridgeport and the Branford River on the Connecticut side, and down into the bays behind Long Island at Babylon, Amityville, Bellmore Creek, Bay Shore at Watchogue Creek Entrance, Biltmore Shores in South Oyster Bay, Bay Park in Hewlett Bay and Baldwin at Parsonage Cove in Hempstead Bay.
The back bay stations are the ones that tell you something. NOAA sites a gauge at Parsonage Cove and at Watchogue Creek Entrance because the water well inside a bay does not run on the same clock or the same height as the water outside it. Helm reads the station nearest the spot you are asking about, and in this region nearest usually means a few miles rather than the mouth of the bay you happen to be sitting in.
Rockaway Inlet has a station at Barren Island, Cheesequake Creek has one at the Garden State Parkway, and Carteret, Canarsie, Belleville and Carlstadt at Garretts Reach are all on the list too. That is the level of coverage you are working with on the creeks and back channels here.
1,876 bridges is the highest count of the 18 regions, and 281 overhead cables cross the same water. Air draft is a number worth entering before you boat here, and worth entering honestly, antenna up.
Several of the bridges are tidal instruments in their own right. Bayville Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge at Bergen Point, Beach Channel, the Amtrak swing bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge all carry NOAA prediction stations, so the bridge you are thinking about clearing is often the place the height is being measured.
The marks are heavy in the same way: 3,538 lateral buoys, 549 lateral beacons, 44 safe water marks and 2,580 charted lights. Then there are 1,500 restricted areas, more than any other region carries, and 85 marine farming areas. A route explanation that reports the restricted area a leg steered around has a great deal to work with on this water, and most of those detours cost a few tenths of a mile rather than a change of plan.
These counts describe what the chart pack carries, not the state of the water today. Charted data ages, channels shoal and marks move. Keep a lookout and verify locally.
2,836, which is the most of the 18 US regions Helm builds. The same box also holds 11,168 charted underwater rocks and 5,147 obstructions. At that density a wreck is normal chart furniture here, so it matters most when you are choosing where to drop the hook among the 309 charted anchorage areas rather than when you are running a buoyed channel.
There are 180 NOAA prediction stations inside this region, so the nearest one is usually close. Behind Long Island the list includes Babylon, Amityville, Bellmore Creek, Bay Shore at Watchogue Creek Entrance, Biltmore Shores in South Oyster Bay, Bay Park in Hewlett Bay, Baldwin at Parsonage Cove in Hempstead Bay and Barren Island at Rockaway Inlet. Helm reads the station nearest the spot you are asking about and tells you which one it used.
This region carries 1,876 charted bridges, the most of any region in the app, plus 281 overhead cables. Enough of them are navigational landmarks that NOAA names tide stations after them: Bayville Bridge, the Bayonne Bridge at Bergen Point, Beach Channel, the Amtrak swing bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge. Enter your air draft once and overhead clearance is checked along with the water under you.
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