Nautical Charts and Publications

Kelvin Hughes' Charts & Maritime Services division is the world's largest distributor of nautical, legal and technical information that is required by modern shipping companies for the safe operation of ships at sea.

Offering a truly global service, we have stock holding locations in London, Glasgow, Southampton, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Singapore, Shanghai and an unrivalled record of supplying to diverse ships, wherever they are in the world.

From small beginnings at a shop in central London, which supplied nautical paper charts and publications to ship's Captains, we pioneered the introduction of new services to make the navigator's work easier, quicker and more accurate.

As part of this innovation, some fifty years ago, Kelvin Hughes introduced the concept of Outfit Management, an unrivalled service which monitors new editions and updates of the charts and publications carried by each ship. We then automatically supply these on a regular basis to the vessel - keeping the outfit up-to-date and legal. This has since become the standard is which all other chart agents have aspired to.

In 1970's  Kelvin Hughes introduced chart correction tracings for British Admiralty and US charts, and today supplies them to thousands of ships world-wide.

In the early 1990's the company pioneered electronic distribution of chart updates with the creation of ChartCo which was setup to deliver digital corrections and tracings directly to ships via satellite broadcast. ChartCo, initially a joint venture with Fugro, is now wholly owned by Kelvin Hughes.

Thanks to the close links with the bridge equipment manufacturing side of the company, Charts & Maritime Services was one of the earliest Nautical Chart agents to develop a service to support electronic charts on board ships.

Today Kelvin Hughes leads the way in supporting all available official and privately-made charts for commercial shipping, and has unrivalled experience across most ECDIS and ECS types.