The question I get asked most by visitors arriving in France is some version of: do I really still need paper charts, or is my tablet enough. The honest answer is more interesting than yes or no, because France does not actually require paper. It requires the official charts, in an accepted form, for the area you are sailing. Get that distinction right and you can leave the locker full of folded sheets at home with a clear conscience. Get it wrong and a maritime gendarme will be unimpressed, as a friend of mine discovered in La Rochelle.
Let me lay out exactly what the law says, where electronic charts count, and the setup that keeps you both legal and safe.
The rule: Division 240
French recreational boating safety runs on an instrument called Division 240, which sets out the equipment and documents you must carry according to how far offshore you go. The bands that concern visitors are roughly: within 2 nautical miles of a shelter (basique), within 6 nautical miles (cotier), and the semi-offshore band from 6 to 60 nautical miles (semi-hauturier).
For the semi-offshore band, 6 to 60 miles out, Division 240 requires you to carry, among other safety gear, the official nautical charts of the area, a summary of the collision regulations (the RIPAM, France's rendering of the COLREGs), and a document describing the buoyage system where you are sailing.
Two things follow. Charts are a named legal requirement once you pass 6 miles, not a nicety. And the regulation specifies the official charts, which in France means SHOM, the national hydrographic service.
Where electronic charts count
Here is the good news for anyone who hates folding paper. For recreational vessels under 24 metres, SHOM's official raster GeoTIFF charts are recognised as equivalent to paper and satisfy the carriage requirement when carried on a suitable device. The regulation also accepts the collision regs and the buoyage document on electronic media, provided you have the means to display them.
So a tablet absolutely can be your chart, as long as what is on it is the official SHOM charts for your area, not just a commercial app. The SHOM raster sheets cost around 38.80 euros each, you buy only the sheets covering your cruising patch, and you own them. Load them on a tablet, keep a backup, and you have met the legal requirement without a single paper chart aboard.
This is the nuance that catches people. It is not paper versus screen. It is official versus not, in a form the rules accept.
Why a commercial app is not automatically enough
This is where my La Rochelle friend came unstuck. He had a chartplotter with an old Navionics card and some phone apps, and he assumed that was that. Navionics, Aqua Map and the rest are excellent for actually navigating, and I steer by them every day. But they are commercial products, not the official SHOM charts the regulation names, so on their own they do not automatically prove compliance for the semi-offshore band.
The clean position is to use whatever app you like for day-to-day piloting and carry the official SHOM raster charts for your area for the legal box. If you want to weigh the apps against the official source properly, I went deep on Navionics vs SHOM in a separate comparison, and the legal point is the heart of it.
Keep them current, because that is required too
An out-of-date chart is barely a chart in the eyes of the rules, because buoyage, depths and hazards change. SHOM issues corrections and the electronic products update, and you are expected to carry a recent edition, especially for areas with shifting sands or altered buoyage. This applies as much to the official charts you carry for compliance as to the app you actually steer by. Check your editions before a season, not after a boarding.
The case paper still makes
I carry official charts electronically, and I also keep a small folio of paper. Not because the law forces me to, but because paper has virtues a tablet does not.
Paper never runs out of battery. It does not overheat in a sunny cockpit, fall overboard and sink, or freeze when the app crashes mid-channel. In a genuine emergency, with the electronics dark, a paper chart and a pencil still work. For key passages and harbour approaches I want that backstop, and a handful of sheets weighs nothing.
The redundancy argument is the real reason to keep some paper, not the legal one. Electronics fail at the worst moments, and a chart you cannot switch off is cheap insurance.
Buoyage and tides, the bit behind the chart
The buoyage document Division 240 asks for is not busywork. France uses IALA Region A, the lateral system where, entering harbour, red marks stay to port and green to starboard, the opposite of the Americas. Getting that backwards in a tight French channel is a genuine hazard.
There is a deeper reason to favour the official SHOM charts, too. Their soundings are referenced to the lowest astronomical tide, the same datum the French tide tables and the tidal coefficient are built on, so the chart depth and the predicted tide add up cleanly. On a tidal coast where a spot showing 1 metre might dry at low-water springs, that agreement is not a small thing.
How I keep the boat connected to all this
Charts need updating and forecasts need downloading, and the French coast is full of dead zones where you cannot do either. I download charts and weather before every leg, because mobile data vanishes 15 to 20 miles offshore in the Channel and across Biscay entirely. For the practical side of staying online to keep your charts current, my guide to boat internet in France covers the SIMs and antennas, and the best navigation apps for French waters sets out which tools to load before you cast off.
What I actually carry, and why
For a season cruising France:
- The official SHOM raster GeoTIFF charts for my whole cruising area, on a tablet, backed up. This is the legal requirement met.
- A working app (Navionics or Aqua Map) on a second device as my day-to-day navigation, because it is clearer and quicker for live piloting.
- A small folio of paper charts for key passages and harbours, as the battery-proof backstop.
- The collision regs and a buoyage summary aboard, electronically or on paper, to complete the Division 240 list.
- Recent editions throughout, checked before the season.
That layering means I am legal beyond 6 miles, I have redundancy if a screen dies, and I navigate on whatever is easiest at the time. The takeaway is simple: France does not demand paper, it demands the official SHOM charts in an accepted form. Carry those, keep them current, add a little paper for peace of mind, and the apps become the pleasure they should be rather than the thing a gendarme frowns at.
