Chart work execises

tjanna

tjanna

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Hi,

Looking to refresh my day skipper chart work with some exercises. Its been a couple of years since and cant say I found it easy, would like to brush up. Any recommendations?

Thanks Gareth
 
tjanna said:
That's great Pete thanks! Not seen or even heard of that method. Is there much error with the GPS?
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Nothing novel about it except the long plastic ruler. It's taught as one of several techniques in the Yachtmaster theory class, but using a protractor or dividers to mark off the distance to waypoint. There should be no errors (except drawing ones) if the GPS has a good fix.
 
Twister_Ken said:
Nothing novel about it except the long plastic ruler.
Click to expand...

Indeed. It gets brought up here from time to time as the best thing since sliced bread, but I can't really get excited about simply swapping cartesian coordinates for polar ones. Imagine laying the big ruler along the longitude scale, marking the longitude onto it, then sliding it up to the relevant lattitude. Much the same process (you can even write the figures down in a notepad if you like, though I can't imagine why) and you also get to use the GPS's waypoint facility for its intended purpose.

Pete
 
prv said:
Indeed. It gets brought up here from time to time as the best thing since sliced bread, but I can't really get excited about simply swapping cartesian coordinates for polar ones. Imagine laying the big ruler along the longitude scale, marking the longitude onto it, then sliding it up to the relevant lattitude. Much the same process (you can even write the figures down in a notepad if you like, though I can't imagine why) and you also get to use the GPS's waypoint facility for its intended purpose.

Pete
Click to expand...

buy one of these and stick it on your destination then you can kill 2 birds with one long bit of plastic and a whiteboard marker!
 
Ah the stick on compass roses. Haven't used one of them since I started flying more than 30 years ago!

I find the setting the waypoint on a compass rose and measuring bearing and distance from there a quick and convenient method for checking progress on long trips such as x-channel. I have a GPS at the Nav table which I will set a waypoint as the centre of the compass rose before setting off. Every hour I'll note the lat/long in the logbook and look at the GPS bearing to the way point and distance. Line the edge of my Breton plotter from the centre of the compass to the bearing to and then draw backwards (i.e. reversing the bearing because adding/subtracting 180 is difficult - add 200 take off 20.) Use the dividers on the edge of the chart to set the distance and mark the fix on the line from the centre of the compass rose. Put time next to GPS fix.

I find it easier to do than directly from the Lat/Long, and it gives me something to do plotting curves on my charts :-)

Neil
 
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