Does anyone still sail without a chart plotter?

[john_morris_uk]

Same here. If I was only allowed one instrument it would be the echo sounder.

I I was only allowed one instrument it would be a compass.

 

[john_morris_uk]

Someone should give it a shot and write it up...Depart from SW UK, pick one of the Azores to aim for. Not allowed to do anything other than look at the sky, mk1 eyeball, no fancy instruments. What can ppssibly go wrong?!

Sir Cloudsley Shovell might have made a comment of two (along with the families of several hundred drowned sailors).

 

[Daydream believer]

Any minute now someone is going to quote the method of sailing starkers legs apart, with the wedding tackle swinging to the motion of the swell & turning west as it changes.

 

[laika]

I and others have mentioned this in previous threads but an interesting read for those interested in pre-sextant navigation is Jack Lagen's "The Barefoot Navigator" (Adlard Coles, 2nd edition, ISBN 9781472944771)

If I was only allowed one instrument it would be the echo sounder.

I was going to say "What about a log?" but then remembered Heisenberg..

 

[Stemar]

Any minute now someone is going to quote the method of sailing starkers legs apart, with the wedding tackle swinging to the motion of the swell & turning west as it changes.

Bit chilly for that at the moment...

 

[Dan Tribe]

Quote
"I and others have mentioned this in previous threads but an interesting read for those interested in pre-sextant navigation is Jack Lagen's "The Barefoot Navigator" (Adlard Coles, 2nd edition, ISBN 9781472944771) "

Is that where he suggests resting your scrotum on the stempost to detect wave patterns?

 

[James_Calvert]

Is that where he suggests resting your scrotum on the stempost to detect wave patterns?

That's just bollocks.

 

[arc1]

Sir Cloudsley Shovell might have made a comment of two (along with the families of several hundred drowned sailors).

Puts into perspective how much we take for granted today. That only about 300 years ago, navigational uncertainty could lead to at least 1500 sailors drowning in the same incident is a fairly sobering thought.

 

[MADRIGAL]

In bad weather, small boat, cloudy skies ? Most would struggle with a sextant , tables and
an atomic clock

I think I'd pick Frank Worsley to do it though ?

Or Frank Dye, who found Iceland with astro navigation in a 16-foot sailing dinghy, pitching in the North Atlantic swell without even a dry place to lay a chart. He was eleven days out from Scotland and found Iceland right where he expected.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

Any minute now someone is going to quote the method of sailing starkers legs apart, with the wedding tackle swinging to the motion of the swell & turning west as it changes.

I think you will find that it was all about rise and fall .

Ancient mariners worked out that water was warmer near land than further out.

As the male "bits" were known to rise and fall according to temperature, and were measurable, men were probably dipped accordingly .An educated guess could then be made where the ship might be located . One assumes that a number of conscripts/volunteers were used to gain a mean average.

It really ought to be included in the RYA Yacht Masters Ocean training.