Blind Nav in Sailing Exam.

[Angele]

Sometimes the echo sounder 'breaks' and a lead line must be used, which livens things up a little.

So, the GPS has gone, the radar too. It is thick fog. Now, the echo sounder gives up the ghost. I think, at that point, I would declare to crew (and examiner) that a perfectly safe procedure would be to head further into the shallows and drop the hook.

I think I would give the job of ringing the bell every minute to the examiner, whilst the rest of us pop down below and have a cuppa and a biscuit, until the examiner announces that the fog has cleared or the GPS has sprung back into life again.

 

[webcraft]

So not precision nav and you can use the echo sounder. Nobody has ever mentioned that to me - funny how these things get built up in the recounting. Thanks all.

The echo sounder is the most important bit of kit for the actual navigator in an RYA blind nav exercise as it is the only thing that he has that will (if he has done the rest of it right) confirm his calculations.



- W

 

[capnsensible]

Sometimes the echo sounder 'breaks' and a lead line must be used, which livens things up a little.

I have entered a small bay in the US Virgin Islands with a broken echo sounder and murky water using a lead line. It livened things up a little.

 

[Tony Cross]

So, the GPS has gone, the radar too. It is thick fog. Now, the echo sounder gives up the ghost. I think, at that point, I would declare to crew (and examiner) that a perfectly safe procedure would be to head further into the shallows and drop the hook.

I think I would give the job of ringing the bell every minute to the examiner, whilst the rest of us pop down below and have a cuppa and a biscuit, until the examiner announces that the fog has cleared or the GPS has sprung back into life again.

I know someone who did exactly that on his Yachtmaster exam (headed for shallow water and anchored). He was failed because the examiner apparently told him that he should have known that it was a nav exercise and not "real fog"

 

[Barnacle Bill]

I know someone who did exactly that on his Yachtmaster exam (headed for shallow water and anchored). He was failed because the examiner apparently told him that he should have known that it was a nav exercise and not "real fog"

There's a name for examiners like that.

It goes to show what happens if you set up an artificial exercise, and expect everyone else to know the exact limits of the game.

 

[Angele]

There's a name for examiners like that.

It goes to show what happens if you set up an artificial exercise, and expect everyone else to know the exact limits of the game.

Agreed. And, to be clear, I would be very happy to demonstrate that I can take a sounding using my lead line and I would be very glad to continue with the blind nav exercise once the "fault" on the depth sounder had magically rectified itself. But, having shown that I was capable of taking a sounding once (perhaps two or three times to demonstrate an understanding of how far it was safe to proceed based on the gradient of the seabed and the proximity of dangers), I cannot see the point on repeating it over and over again for the entirety of a blind nav exercise.

I would be surprised if any examiner would fail someone for only that reason without at least warning them that was the direction of travel if they didn't complete the exercise. Perhaps in the case stated by Tony Cross there were other reasons for failing that particular candidate.

 

[jwilson]

I know someone who did exactly that on his Yachtmaster exam (headed for shallow water and anchored). He was failed because the examiner apparently told him that he should have known that it was a nav exercise and not "real fog"

On my YM exam we had real fog, exiting Weymouth for Poole. I turned back and said we were going to the Kings Arms. Examiner insisted I go somewhere, we negotiated anchoring in Lulworth Bay - contour job.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

On my YM exam we had real fog, exiting Weymouth for Poole. I turned back and said we were going to the Kings Arms. Examiner insisted I go somewhere, we negotiated anchoring in Lulworth Bay - contour job.

That's appalling! One of my complete no-nos is setting off in fog; I regard setting off in bad visibility (unless anchored in an unsafe location) as bad seamanship. Being caught out in fog at sea is another matter; that can happen and you get on with it; been there and got the T-shirt (though not recently!). But deliberately setting off - NO. I'm afraid I'd have said "So, fail me - we're not sailing if I don't think it's safe." And I'd have been prepared to argue it out on the basis that leaving a safe harbour to put the boat and crew into danger was bad seamanship.

So far, this thread has vindicated a rather suppressed opinion of mine that some - not all - of the RYA training is based on unrealistic scenarios. If I was in bad visibility and had instrument failures, I wouldn't pin my faith on the accuracy of a blind navigation exercise - I'd head for sea room, and wait it out, or alter my plans to reach somewhere where high accuracy wasn't necessary. NO dead-reckoning is reliable to boat-lengths, and to pretend that it is is foolhardy. The local current may be different from the averages shown on the chart, you may be in a coastal back-eddy or whatever. Your starting point may not be where you thought it was; how good is your departure? How accurately has the course been kept? No-one can steer accurately to a degree, and I doubt if many compasses are that precise anyway. A degree error is about 30 metres in a mile, so the error from that source alone soon builds up. How accurate is your log? I know mine reads differently on one tack than the other!

Surely, safe navigation doesn't mean proceeding regardless if your usual tools pack up - it means having a plan B that will take you to safety in the event of things turning pear-shaped! And plan B should NOT rely on precise navigation - it shoud be more on the lines of "If I head in this direction, I'm heading for open water and away from hazards".

A note that people may not know - the contours on a chart are derived information, and are indicative, not measured. In well surveyed areas they may be pretty good, but they are not primary data and may not be accurately located. Soundings are primary data, and it is true that the contours will usually be based on more soundings than the chart shows. Contours are useful in regions where there is a general slope such as edges of channels or approaching a coastline, but they aren't reliable position markers on a flattish bottom.

 

[mattonthesea]

Rather to my surprise I wasn't asked to do it for my YM (1993).

A good tip I heard for estimating tidal set was to get the helmsman to go alongside a buoy and stem the tide, i.e. keep station on the buoy. You can then read the speed and direction of the actual current from your instruments down below.

I wasn't asked either. But I suspect our instructor had a word with the examiner because all of us had to do something in the exam that we had not done to well at in the prep days. In those I took us from off Soton Water to the SHM at the first bend in the Beaulieu River via every cardinal, marker post and buoy that I wanted. I was so chuffed with that; then I was terrified in case I'd used up my luck and the made a hash of it in the exam!

BTW we called following the contour as 'bouncing off it" Find it, turn 40 degrees off into deeper water for a short while and then 40 off back towards it. Repeat

 

[Simondjuk]

The lead line isn't generally used by the person being examined at the time, it's given to the crew to use to make the soundings less reliable and less frequent in order to challenge a, usually good, candidate.

The examiners like to have fun and test people to the limits of their ability. If they fail these additional tests but meet the pass standard, then pass they will. It makes life more interesting for everyone and helps people, the examiners included, to learn things they might otherwise not.

On my YM exam, after the lead line blind nav, I picked up my first up wind 'MOB' in seconds with a hard, fast and brief bear away, then heaving to. We never went much more than a boat length away from the 'MOB'. The examiner decided this one was too easy, so threw and called the next before I was back on deck from a heads break whilst we were dead downwind with a poled out headsail. We got that one quick smart too. He also had me short tack the boat up a narrow channel and park it in a marina using the emergency tiller, which isn't easy on a substantially balanced rudder which most people struggle to use to point the boat in remotely the right direction.

I had fun, he had fun, the other candidates had fun. He verbally classified my pass as 'excellent' and the other people on the boat learned a few things. It also reinforced to all that there is always much to be learned by everyone and that a shiny new YM ticket doesn't many anyone any kind of sea god. All good as far as I was concerned.

I'm not telling this to be big headed, certain aspects of my sailing, weather knowledge and navigation were and remain rather lazy, lacking and sloppy to say the least, but only to illustrate why examiners do certain things.

 

[Old Troll]

" Blind Nav"

From the average age here, the overwhelming majority of us will have experience of feeling our way about in fog before GPS came along, myself included.

Somewhat fewer of us will have done 'Blind Nav' as a "test" and that's what my question was about.

Blind navigation in an RYA exam cannot be regarded as a test. Surely it is only introduced in the exam to see how the candidate reacts by using all his experience and knowledge to reduce error inso far as possible. Reduction of error is what navigation is all about anyway?

 

[capnsensible]

Blind navigation in an RYA exam cannot be regarded as a test. Surely it is only introduced in the exam to see how the candidate reacts by using all his experience and knowledge to reduce error inso far as possible. Reduction of error is what navigation is all about anyway?

Its ' Navigation and general conduct in restricted visibility' that a Yachtmaster should be able to deal with. So it is often part of the practical exam.

 

[Tony Cross]

I would be surprised if any examiner would fail someone for only that reason without at least warning them that was the direction of travel if they didn't complete the exercise. Perhaps in the case stated by Tony Cross there were other reasons for failing that particular candidate.

This is quite possible. I didn't know the guy at the time of his exam, I met him many years later and it's probably the selective memory syndrome.

 

[Barnacle Bill]

Its ' Navigation and general conduct in restricted visibility' that a Yachtmaster should be able to deal with. So it is often part of the practical exam.

Well we've already had an anecdote about someone who did what he would do in a real situation and was failed for it.

If you are dealing with restricted visibility, you should use all the tools you have available - including your own sight and sound, in the cockpit or on deck.

What you don't do is attach yourself to the chart table and work out EPs.

Contours work fine in some places, but try using them to get into L'Aber Wrach in fog (as I had to do once - not in an exam!)

 

[prv]

If you are dealing with restricted visibility, you should use all the tools you have available - including your own sight and sound, in the cockpit or on deck.

Indeed. If I'm in fog I'll be in the cockpit, watching the radar (which is also a plotter) and the AIS. The autopilot will be steering (holds a straighter course for radar plotting purposes, and frees up crew for lookout) and unless it's rough I'll have someone on the foredeck as an undistracted lookout/listener.

I guess the RYA's pretend fog is purely a device to allow people to be tested on their traditional nav skills (which we seem to want to keep alive) when the time constraints of the exam make it awkward to get out of sight of land before turning the GPS off (and the plotter, and the handheld, and the VHF, and confiscating everybody's phone...). But maybe it would be more sensible to simply frame it as an exercise - "to demonstrate that you can maintain a DR plot, I'd like you to navigate us from A to B without a GPS and without looking at the surroundings" - rather than invent a magic fog scenario in which you are not to behave as if there really were fog. Maybe some examiners do do this?

I have more GPS receivers on board than I do depth sounders, and I must be one of very few people who carry a portable auxiliary depth sounder. I also have more satellite constellations at my disposal than most people have sounders, since two of my devices can use a system separate from GPS.

Pete

 

[Babylon]

I can quite understand examiners wishing to have some 'fun', although not to the point of being unrealistic or brutally hard on leisure sailors.

On an advanced test of most disciplines, however, an examiner will want candidates to exhibit a good degree of responsiveness to unexpected or complex problems - not just provide mechanical solutions to simple tasks.

'Versatile/responsive thinking' is the notion I prefer: being able to seize upon or combine several core skills to achieve an effective or creative solution to a problem.

Maybe this sort of thing is frowned upon in the basic training of naval officers or the suchlike, but once mastered it elevates the thing from a 'discipline' to an 'art'.

 

[capnsensible]

Indeed. If I'm in fog I'll be in the cockpit, watching the radar (which is also a plotter) and the AIS. The autopilot will be steering (holds a straighter course for radar plotting purposes, and frees up crew for lookout) and unless it's rough I'll have someone on the foredeck as an undistracted lookout/listener.

I guess the RYA's pretend fog is purely a device to allow people to be tested on their traditional nav skills (which we seem to want to keep alive) when the time constraints of the exam make it awkward to get out of sight of land before turning the GPS off (and the plotter, and the handheld, and the VHF, and confiscating everybody's phone...). But maybe it would be more sensible to simply frame it as an exercise - "to demonstrate that you can maintain a DR plot, I'd like you to navigate us from A to B without a GPS and without looking at the surroundings" - rather than invent a magic fog scenario in which you are not to behave as if there really were fog. Maybe some examiners do do this?

I have more GPS receivers on board than I do depth sounders, and I must be one of very few people who carry a portable auxiliary depth sounder. I also have more satellite constellations at my disposal than most people have sounders, since two of my devices can use a system separate from GPS.

Pete

What if you are not on your own boat? Charter yacht, you left your toys at home??

 

[capnsensible]

Well we've already had an anecdote about someone who did what he would do in a real situation and was failed for it.

If you are dealing with restricted visibility, you should use all the tools you have available - including your own sight and sound, in the cockpit or on deck.

What you don't do is attach yourself to the chart table and work out EPs.

Contours work fine in some places, but try using them to get into L'Aber Wrach in fog (as I had to do once - not in an exam!)

Heresay. Worth nothing until you speak to the examiner, there us always more to it than casual 'I failed on one tiny thing'. Have heard all sorts from candidates over the years!

I deal with pilotage in restricted visibility as an exercise most weeks for many years. Just by virtue of turning up as often as that, anyone can do it under a variety of examples of equipment failure. The question is 'can you cope?' The good candidates who have practised most certainly can.

The usefulness of running an EP is clearly inadequate. Log calibration and real life tide streams will render any EP increasingly inaccurate. The principle of 'circle of probability' is outside the scope of this response.

I have found few places from Norway to Venezuela where I would have looked for alternatives to contour following as an aid to pilotage in restricted visibility and that includes torrential rain for some hours as well as fog.

Im very fortunate that I get to use these things regularly and have been grateful of the practice in real situations from the Solent, Atlantic coasts of France, Spain, Portugal and Morrocco as well as the Western Med.

If you or any other reader wishes to understand the conduct of a Yachtmaster exam, the RYA Cruising Instructors Handbook supplies all the relevant information.

Hope this helps!

 

[Bosun Higgs]

When I did my blind nav for my YM practical I was asked after the event why I didnt use the GPS - answer I thought it wasnt allowed. Anyway, I popped up out of the cabin and gave a course to steer and got some funny looks from the examioner. Before he could say anything I realised that I had got the course 180 deg out and corrected it. Still passed.

 

[snowleopard]

I wasn't asked either. But I suspect our instructor had a word with the examiner because all of us had to do something in the exam that we had not done to well at in the prep days.

I learned afterwards from the sailing school owner who was a mate of the examiner that he generally made up his mind in the first 15 minutes and the rest was just the mandatory stuff for confirmation. I didn't have to do any night work, probably because the school guy told him I'd done loads. I was also told that if it had gone on for a long time it would have been indicative of a borderline case.

I've also heard of all sorts of nasties, some of which I'm sceptical of. For example anchoring under sail and being marked down for reaching in and out first to scope it out.