As you switch on your chart plotter…..

W

Wansworth

Well-Known Member
Joined
8 May 2003
Messages
39,531
Location
SPAIN,Galicia
Visit site
Remember those early navigators like Vancouver who was charged with mappingNW Canada and the inside passage in a cumbersome square rigger of a 100 foot,taking sights to establish lat and long and correct his chronometers by use of Luna distances as apparently Harrison’s clocks were not all that good……worth reading Voyage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban
 
100% agree. To add something more recent. We have been to Brittany a few times, waiting for a weather window to cross Biscay. I normally say, the forecast is reliable for the three days we need and pretty reliable for another two. Not too long ago our forebears had the sky to look at before they decided to stay or go. We have it simple in comparison to even at few decades ago.
Allan
 
Wansworth said:
……worth reading Voyage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban
Click to expand...

Very much worth reading for that and so much more. Wonderful book.

Vancouver's journey (literal and metaphorical) was only one of the many diverse strands expertly woven together in Raban's book, but one of Vancouver's principal tasks was to find the entrance to the supposed 'North-West Passage' round the north of the American continent, if it existed, and most importantly to do so before the Spanish found it. So him and his (rebellious) crew had to survey every inlet, just in case - looking for a needle in a haystack, against the clock, not knowing whether the haystack actually had a needle in it.
 
Wansworth said:
Remember those early navigators like Vancouver who was charged with mappingNW Canada and the inside passage in a cumbersome square rigger of a 100 foot,taking sights to establish lat and long and correct his chronometers by use of Luna distances as apparently Harrison’s clocks were not all that good……worth reading Voyage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban
Click to expand...
He was lucky. No sailing forum to post about h8s endeavours on for loadsa armchair seat warmers to tell him he was doing it all wrong. :)
 
My thread heading was not a criticism or negative observation of modern navigational tools I would be the first to embrace GPSif I could remember the buttons to press.I recall being impressed when a French yacht arrived in Vigo just using a wrist watch and almost all the yachts I have looked at to buy have chart plotters installed.The cats out the bag and there is no going back unfortunately ,no being pleased and surprised by a lighthouse blinking over the swell approaching the Spanish coast or the relieve finding a harbour entrance open up on a dark night.The modern tools allowed us to go maybe where we wouldn’t ave dared.I recall a Dutch ship owner recounting how with Radar he could go flat out in fog in his coaster and the Racon beams were certainly a saving on a dark winters night
 
I agree, the modern kit is amazing and if I again sailed far enough to unfamiliar waters I would invest in some. My problem is I would need a fairly intense course on how to make proper use of such kit before I would trust myself to understand it and feel safe and confident using it. (y)
 
Wansworth said:
I expect the quarter deck had some comments to make out of ear shot and the midshipmen bound to have had an opinion😂
Click to expand...

One of the interesting strands of Raban's account of Vancouver was the ongoing tension between him and the aristocrat young men he was obliged to carry in 'officer' positions (for them an alternative to the 'grand tour'). Though he was formally their superior, they looked down on him for his lowly 'trade' background (his father was a customs officer in King's Lynn). But there was also a, er, gulf between their world views. He was an expert navigator etc. (which his why he'd risen through the ranks and been put in command of such an important mission) but quite old fashioned and oblivious to the ground shift emerging in Western thought. His charges, by contrast, were very fashionable, had read the Romantic poets etc., and were swept up by the new way of thinking and seeing that is so much part of our way of apprehending the world we are unaware of it.

Raban highlights this brilliantly, telling off when Vancouver was enthusing about gently rolling land by the coast (around what is now, er, Vancouver?) because it looked ideal for settlement, they were bored. Later they were anchored below looming cliffs, overhanging trees dripping in the rain, sunlight only ever occasionally coming through in narrow shafts. He thought it (and became) terribly gloomy, while the young aristos were enraptured - this was the 'sublime'!
 
veshengro said:

As you switch on your chart plotter….​


As I sharpen my 2B pencil I'm still not too sure where I'll end up...:ROFLMAO:
Click to expand...
A friend of mine who built a sucession of catamarans in his back garden ....huge.......used to DR and EP his way across the Cannel dozens of times using the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlas. Tip. Use a soft pencil.
 
Wansworth said:
. . . The modern tools allowed us to go maybe where we wouldn’t ave dared. . .
Click to expand...

On the other hand, we have so much information we'd never attempt to sail some of the places (and seasons) that Vancouver, Franklin, Cook, Magellan, and so many others went. (Some of them died so we don't have to!)

We don't just have info about navigation, but also facilities and whether the natives are friendly. We also have advice (one could even think them as instructions) about how be when we're there - instructions on how best to perform the role of tourist informed explorer: the sights, best restaurants, negotiate with the authorities, key language phrases for interacting with the locals, etc.
 
LittleSister said:
On the other hand, we have so much information we'd never attempt to sail some of the places (and seasons) that Vancouver, Franklin, Cook, Magellan, and so many others went. (Some of them died so we don't have to!)

We don't just have info about navigation, but also facilities and whether the natives are friendly. We also have advice (one could even think them as instructions) about how be when we're there - instructions on how best to perform the role of tourist informed explorer: the sights, best restaurants, negotiate with the authorities, key language phrases for interacting with the locals, etc.
Click to expand...
Apparently any old bit of iron was the green light to have your way with a dusk maiden in the pacific…hany tip🙂
 
Wansworth said:
. . .
I recall being impressed when a French yacht arrived in Vigo just using a wrist watch . . .
Click to expand...

Reminds of a magazine article by Shane Acton (of Shrimpy fame), who was doing astro (on his second Atlantic crossing?) and struggling because repeatedly some sights put him around one sort of position, while others put him somewhere else but somewhat consistently different to the previous ones.

He was using an alarm clock for timing. He eventually discovered its minute hand was a little loose, and so would fall backwards (slow) with gravity before the hour, then fall slightly forwards (fast) after the hour!
 
capnsensible said:
A friend of mine who built a sucession of catamarans in his back garden ....huge.......used to DR and EP his way across the Cannel dozens of times using the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlas. Tip. Use a soft pencil.
Click to expand...
I should think most of us are old enough to be pre GPS. We did channel crossings on our Strider cat by DR. I can clearly recall my sense of wonder on buying a Garmin GPS45 and connecting it to a Yeoman plotter, a few years later. Timekeeping pre GPS was a Seiko quartz watch. Comfortably good enough for what can be achieved nav wise from a 700kg 24ft boat.
 
Wansworth said:
Remember those early navigators like Vancouver who was charged with mappingNW Canada and the inside passage in a cumbersome square rigger of a 100 foot,taking sights to establish lat and long and correct his chronometers by use of Luna distances as apparently Harrison’s clocks were not all that good……worth reading Voyage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban
Click to expand...
He, like us, was using the technology of his time.

At least if a fuse blows deep in the heart of your electronics system knew roughly where he was as he had a note of it in a proper log book.
 
Sandy said:
He, like us, was using the technology of his time.

At least if a fuse blows deep in the heart of your electronics system knew roughly where he was as he had a note of it in a proper log book.
Click to expand...
Do people not keep a log? Must admit I don’t if we’re just going up Solent for a lunch. I still feel it’s a necessity when going in the actual sea. Along with carrying a few paper charts, a Breton plotter, dividers etc.
 
Stemar said:
On a much smaller note, crossing the Channel and knowing that I'm approaching the uptide entrance to Cherbourg harbour, that I chose 10 miles out, rather than being glad just to see land, and wondering if it's La Hague or the Val de Saire.
Click to expand...

I remember that sort of malarkey, and also trying to time the voyage so you approached the coast from a distance in the last hours of darkness, when one could see from lighthouses' characteristics* roughly where you were along the coast, but you soon had daylight to see what was required as you came inshore.

(* I used to write the characteristics of the main lights for my trip in pencil in big letters on the bulkhead at the front of the cockpit, adjacent the companionway, especially important single-handed, to save trips into the cabin to pore over maps. Haven't done that in a long while now.)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top