All our yesterdays

[BrianH]

They also invented Consol, a 'hyperbolic radio navaid' and a predecessor to their embryo Decca. They used that mid range MF radio navaid for their U-boats' navigation. it was such a good, cheap system we were still using it well into the 70s. I still have one of their specially-overprinted charts kicking around, just in case....

Thanks, but no thanks.

I used Consol during my RAF Air Signaller days in the early 1950s - somehow the names of Stavanger and Bushmills lurk at the back of my mind in connection so I assume they must have been frequently-used beacon locations I would have used. I also remember it being a tedious business of counting the dots until they merged into dashes to relate to the charts, in very cramped and uncomfortable conditions.

RDF was a inventio0n fo the devil - totally so.

I suppose that it all depends ... I was very thankful for mine once, a long time ago.

I had converted a small transistor radio to extend the LW coverage to cover the beacons, with an internal ferrite-rod aerial that was acutely directional, and built a mahogany pelorus in which it could rotate and that I mounted on the cabin bulkhead of my small quarter-tonner. It actually worked quite well in the North Sea.

Returning to Whitby from Den Helder, Holland, some 200nm distant, in July 1972, we were six hours out and northwest of the Texel light vessel when the evening shipping forecast unexpectedly announced an "imminent" force eight gale from the southwest for sea areas Humber and German Bight, exactly where we were and where we were headed.

Long story short, after lying a-hull for 17 hours I resorted to my home-made RDF receiver to get a fix - with a cocked hat result from three beacons, it placed us just about in the center of the North Sea with Whitby due west some 100nm distant and constantly gave an accurate position to allow a course for a precise landfall.

We had drifted 42 miles northeast from our dead reckoning position before taking down all sail, an average leeway drift of 2.5 knots while lying a-hull. This was, of course, long before the North Sea became crowded with gas, oil and wind farms.

.

 

[fisherman]

In 1987 I decreed that we would no longer be buying Decca charts which were costing us £60K a year and told Masters to get down to the yacht chandlers in their next civilised port and buy a Decca Yacht Navigator instead. Nine years later I saw my last Decca set in use in the wheelhouse of an RN warship.

The Yacht nav would give a constant decca readout if you kept an alarm on the third, unused, station. It was a bit of a departure because of course everything decca before that was rented. When did we get the first GPS? 1987 for me I think.

 

[zoidberg]

I used Consol during my RAF Air Signaller days in the early 1950s - somehow the names of Stavanger and Bushmills lurk at the back of my mind in connection so I assume they must have been frequently-used beacon locations I would have used. I also remember it being a tedious business of counting the dots until they merged into dashes to relate to the charts, in very cramped and uncomfortable conditions.

'Twas but one of the many 'nav aid systems' I/we had to learn and use as appropriate, 'cept I don't recall being briefed about 'Reduction To Soundings' on the RAF Advanced Nav Course I did. P'rhaps that was for the Shackletons' crews....

I quite swiftly got invitations to 'crew' on one or another of the RAF's racing boats, for bits of the RORC Series, as I could always 'fix' our position - even in serious weather. That's where the huge benefit of Consol arose - one simply had to tune in to one or other of the nearer stations, count the characters, 'correct the count' out of 60, and there was your Line Of Position. Two of them gave a 2-Fix, and three of them gave a 'Confusion'.....

Being a pro nav helped in other ways. Unlike most, I was able to request a Route ( race )-specific detailed forecast from my RAF Station's 'CuNim Jim' on the Friday, which - with a modicum of interpretation - was usually valid for the duration. I had a good relationshipt with 'our guy' and he'd often phone met collegaues 'nearer the action' for their interpretations. In the early 70s, racing gold dust!

Here's some of the names:

Bushmills, Northern Ireland 55°12′20″N 6°28′2″W call sign MWN
Ploneis, France 48°1′16″N 5°37′54″W call sign TRQ
Varhaug/Stavanger, Norway 58°37′31″N 4°12′49″W call sign LEC
Andøya, Norway call sign LEX
Jan Mayen, Norway call sign LMC
Bjørnøya, Norway call sign LJS
Lugo, Spain 43°14′53.29″N 7°28′55.28″W call sign LG
Seville, Spain 37°31′17.44″N 6°1′48.06″W call sign SL
Nantucket, MA, USA call sign TUK
San Francisco, CA, USA call sign SFI

Some of the other radio beacons were helpful, too. There was a powerful 'NDB' station on Round Island/Scillies, for example, with a nominal range of 200nm. Similar aero-beacons in helpful places such as Valencia/Kerry and in the Azores were valued aids to navigation, as was Mount Pico ( 7713' ) for vertical sextant 'ranges off'.

 

[Greenheart]

Sorry to drift off the location/direction-finding theme, but I'm wondering what anybody thinks is the reason for our almost invariably happy memories of the simple old days, and for our relative sense of risk today, despite such a wealth of safety kit?

One hot July day in 1990 I sailed eight calm, foggy miles out of Chichester Harbour in a dinghy I could lift off the ground, without a compass, VHF, chart or wetsuit. I'd had only the previous day's Met-office telephone wind-forecast, yet I don't remember the remotest feeling of doubt or trepidation. Nor did I feel I'd accomplished much when St Helen's Fort emerged through the mist, and I arrived at Seaview as I'd hoped.

If I made the same trip today...well, I just don't think I'm likely to try.

How has my perception of peril increased disproportionately, alongside far better equipment and ability to deal with problems?

 

[fisherman]

How has my perception of peril increased disproportionately, alongside far better equipment and ability to deal with problems?

Experience tells you what might go wrong.

 

[BrianH]

How has my perception of peril increased disproportionately, alongside far better equipment and ability to deal with problems?

In many of my own personal cases, demonstrating the classic adage; 'confidence is what you feel before you understand the situation'.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Sorry to drift off the location/direction-finding theme, but I'm wondering what anybody thinks is the reason for our almost invariably happy memories of the simple old days, and for our relative sense of risk today, despite such a wealth of safety kit?

One hot July day in 1990 I sailed eight calm, foggy miles out of Chichester Harbour in a dinghy I could lift off the ground, without a compass, VHF, chart or wetsuit. I'd had only the previous day's Met-office telephone wind-forecast, yet I don't remember the remotest feeling of doubt or trepidation. Nor did I feel I'd accomplished much when St Helen's Fort emerged through the mist, and I arrived at Seaview as I'd hoped.

If I made the same trip today...well, I just don't think I'm likely to try.

How has my perception of peril increased disproportionately, alongside far better equipment and ability to deal with problems?

Experience tells you what might go wrong.

In many of my own personal cases, demonstrating the classic adage; 'confidence is what you feel before you understand the situation'.

I thin that we had a different attitude to time in those days. We set off knowing that if things went pear shaped, we would heave to if we had sea room, and head for sea room if we didn't. If the weather went bad, we wouldn't try and carry on with our plans as if nothing had happened, we'd go into a survival mode. For me, navigation consists at least 50% of thinking "Where is it safe to head if I can't make the course I want to?". If fog came down, there simply wasn't a safe way of making it into a harbour, so we didn't try! If the wind was too strong, at the worst we would lie ahull or heave-to, or if necesary, make slow progress in a safe direction.

 

[Seajet]

I thin that we had a different attitude to time in those days. We set off knowing that if things went pear shaped, we would heave to if we had sea room, and head for sea room if we didn't. If the weather went bad, we wouldn't try and carry on with our plans as if nothing had happened, we'd go into a survival mode. For me, navigation consists at least 50% of thinking "Where is it safe to head if I can't make the course I want to?". If fog came down, there simply wasn't a safe way of making it into a harbour, so we didn't try! If the wind was too strong, at the worst we would lie ahull or heave-to, or if necesary, make slow progress in a safe direction.

+1 absolutely, and we knew we were in moderately deep **** from the start with no satnav or VHF, probably no autopilots let alone mobile phones, digital watches were a novelty so we were basically screwed before we set off, ' Better Drowned Than Duffers, If Not Duffers Won't Drown '

 

[zoidberg]

basically screwed before we set off,

Don't recognise that.

Tens of thousands of seamen and fisherfolk managed quite well, thank you, by use of their God-given thinking skills, thoughtful observation, and making their luck work for them instead of just happen to them.

"If you keep the ocean on the outside, move the boat along, and steer it somehow, the rest just falls into place."

 

[Seajet]

I was really referring to the comically vague RDF, while no navigator of your standing I managed to get to and fro across the Solent and Lyme Bay as a youngster, sometimes in fog, 24+ times without electronics on DR.

 

[Robert Wilson]

I remember dad bringing the animals in up the gang-plank two-by-two. We would have got further than Ararat, but the pigeon started a fight with one of the two doves and dropped its olive branch - so we never knew which way The Lizard was.

 

[sarabande]

Roche Douvres and Hurn are engraved on my soul from using the Air Beacons as primary sources. I must have spent hundreds of hours with the painful Seafix earphones clamped to my head, standing in the spray well above deck level, while the gorillas sheltered.

Then on one racer, the owner installed an 18 inch Gonio loop for me. Luxury, and down to half a degree resolution and stopped me dripping half the Western Approaches onto the chart table. Yes that reminds me: having a big chart store ashore, and "for the sake of lightness" !!! only bringing the charts for the race on board.

Oh, I did like the B&G radio; I wish I had one now !

 

[Aja]

A PYE Solent rdf that we spent more time trying to get Radio One in Tobers and a Ferrograph paper echosounder that could only be turned on in extremis cos we couldn't afford the silver iodine(?) paper rolls it ate at a ridiculous speed.

Donald

 

[AntarcticPilot]

+1 absolutely, and we knew we were in moderately deep **** from the start with no satnav or VHF, probably no autopilots let alone mobile phones, digital watches were a novelty so we were basically screwed before we set off, ' Better Drowned Than Duffers, If Not Duffers Won't Drown '

OK, you are young - I was a teenager when the first quartz watches came along, and even older when digital displays became common! Getting your first watch was a rite of passage in those days; I still remember my first Smiths watch - it probably kept time to a minute or so a day! Pocket calculators simply weren't available at mass-market prices; I first used one routinely after I graduated, and that was provided by the company I worked for!

 

[JumbleDuck]

OK, you are young - I was a teenager when the first quartz watches came along, and even older when digital displays became common! Getting your first watch was a rite of passage in those days; I still remember my first Smiths watch - it probably kept time to a minute or so a day! Pocket calculators simply weren't available at mass-market prices; I first used one routinely after I graduated, and that was provided by the company I worked for!

I still have the TI-33 calculator I had to buy for S3 in school. It cost £33, which is around £180 in today's money.

 

[DownWest]

I still have the TI-33 calculator I had to buy for S3 in school. It cost £33, which is around £180 in today's money.

Got my first calculator in '74, also a TI, for £24 special discount from £34 via a GF who worked for Bayer Agrochem. It came with a charger and the display was those red bright numerals. Special feature was a constant function!
Re RDF, there is/was a good aerobeacon on the hill behind Faro, useful coming back from Gib.
First SatNav was fitted to our company yacht for the trip to US in '85. About an hour before it cast off, the SN forgot where it was...

 

[Biggles Wader]

Hoisting signal flags to request permission to enter or leave harbour before we had vhf.
Losing(heavily:nonchalancein a race involving Ted Heath

 

[Robert Wilson]

Non-boaty, but I once navigated a 32tonne artic, fully loaded, by observing the North Star/Polaris through east London to the North Circular via back streets and tower-block estates.
Panic rose when I approached a 10 tonne weight-limit canal bridge and couldn't turn around. I put my foot down and crossed as fast as possible Ooops!

 

[doug748]

Roche Douvres and Hurn are engraved on my soul from using the Air Beacons as primary sources. I must have spent hundreds of hours with the painful Seafix earphones clamped to my head, standing in the spray well above deck level, while the gorillas sheltered...
!

Guernsey and Plymouth were also very handily placed.

You are in luck, I have a very rare and collectable Sebeam RDF set for sale. You will recall this premium product has the luxury headphones and push button tuning. See here:

http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?450979-Seabeam&highlight=seabeam+RDF

It won't be around long at this price, though I might consider a swap for a sound Bowman 40 (no teak decks please).

 

[fisherman]

there is a 1970s trawler wheelhouse in the Maritime Museum in Douarnenenez, the charts seem to indicate that RDF was used for trawl tows several hundred miles from base out in the Celtic sea.