A friend and professional mariner passed this on to me. Maybe it's old news
here, I haven't been following the issue. But, just in case anyone hasn't
heard:

MapTech's agreement with NOAA for raster charts has expired and NOAA has now
made its raster charts available for free online.

This means that you can get entire raster chart collections for free from
NOAA. There 1,016 BSB format charts online at NOAA's website, but the
maximum that can be downloaded at one time is 100. So if you're intent on
suddenly accumulating a complete chart library of the U.S., it may take you
some time and effort. But if you're only looking for a few specific areas,
or for updating your existing library, this is the easy way to do it. The
gov't continues to update these charts electronically as necessary.

Several private firms -- MapTech, Nobeltec, Richardson's, etc. -- are
repackaging these raster charts for sale on CDs and DVDs. Sometimes you can
get such a disk free as a sales premium, if you buy another navigational
product from the same vendor.

For more information and downloads:
http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/Index.htm

The gov't is also making vector charts available for free on-line down-load,
but the available number is less, and the vector charts are for some reason
more difficult to download. The vector charts are also more difficult to
use, but that's a personal opinion. To me, vector charts just don't look
real; on my computer console a vector chart reminds me of a video game.

--
Roger Long