Fun or a lesson learned

[Guest]

Last w/end I had to deliver a 43' Grand Soleil from the Southampton show to the Medway. The boat was fully equipped, including a 10" Ratheon colour chart plotter with Ratheon ST60 instruments all interlinked. The wind was S.S.W 18-28 knts and carrying a full main and genny to say the least it was a lively sail, which made being below somewhat stomach churning. Now I would be the first in this forum to say that you should always use both GPS and paper charts, but I found myself in Ramsgate 14 hrs later with not one mark on the chart. I had relied completely on the GPS / autohelm / instruments to do the work for me. I found that the autohelm was more than capable of steering the boat and if I got bored I could use the XTE feature on the cockpit repeater to keep me on track. Now I pose the question, with the accuracy and reliability of GPS and so much information at our fingertips i.e SOG, TTW, TTG, DTW, XTE,Boat speed, true wind, App wind, are we in a position where we are (maybe) losing the art of navigation and has anyone else found themsleves in this position. After all I have to admit that it was a great sail, I was always "on track" averaged 9.7 knts, topped at 12.8 knts, never saw another boat after leaving the Solent and ate well because I had time to cook something knowing that the autohelm was keeping the boat dead on track?

 

[andrewhopkins]

hmmmm..

You pose two questions:

1. Are we in danger of forgetting the art of navigation.

I'd say the basics will always remain but when was the last time people out there did a secondary port calculation ? Would it trip off the tongue ? Probably not so yes, it is important to keep practising.

2. Can we forget about charts and use electronics ?

I'd say a BIG no to this. What would have happened if your batteries had all stopped and you had no electrics. On a passage out of sight of land, i think you should keep a fix every hour on the chart.

The best example of this is the chap in the last YM who chartered a boat going to cherbourg/alderney and the GPS was faulty and he hit fog. Not quite the same but it shows reliance on electronics.

 

[Twister_Ken]

ooh heck

Hello Mr. Coastguard, me electrics have gone pop, and I haven't an effing clue where we are.

I'm reminded of a trip back from Deauville to the Solent when the Decca put us three miles NORTH of Brighton.

 

[iangrant]

Re: ooh heck

You really can't compare the current fixed and hand held GPS systems to the old Decca system. The certainty is that the electronics will be far more acurate than a seasick navigator, bobbing up and down, in the rain trying to draw a cocked hat on a soggy chart calculating a fix from hand held compass bearings!
If the only electronics are a hand held GPS then that is enough with some spare batteries.

 

[Guest]

Re: backups?

Surely not just one gps out of sight of land? But then I'm a bit of a scaredy, and have minimum four independent gps, incl two handheld. I trust everyone marks up two copies, in case anything happens to one of the charts?

.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Consumer electronics

Point taken about GPS accuracy vs Decca, but GPS sets, chartplotters, autohelms et al go wrong (as my fluxgate compass has, at the moment). All this stuff is, after all, just consumer electronics, built down to a price, and not to milspec standards.

 

[AndrewB]

Re: backups?

Don't forget at least one EPIRB on each frequency, and you can never have too many VHF's, either. Check them all out with Solent Coastguard before leaving. Keep your St Christopher badge nice and shiney, and a chicken or two offered to Baal might be a good precaution. Its a risky business, sailing from Hamble to Cowes!

(PS As the Bavaria 38 'On-y-va' showed. Pictured laden down with all the latest gizmos in the Raytheon ad in YM last year, it was wrecked on the Brambles bank this August. You would have thought that somewhere between the interlinked GPS, ChartPlotter, Depth Sounder, AutoPilot etc etc a warning might have gone off.

A boat load of electronics still ain't worth an ounce of common sense - nor the price of a decent keel, come to that).

 

[Guest]

Re: hmmmm..

Writing as an electronic engineer with a boat, I have a dim view of total reliance on electronics, especially at sea. Contacts, connectors, switches, battery clips, cable joins - these are the most unreliable part of any electronic system and are specially vulnerable to a salt laden atmosphere. The processing power of microchips doubles every 18months, but just one flaky connection will stop them dead. I have gps and echosounder of course, but I navigate using compass, chart, fixes and EPs and then compare against the electronics. This keeps the skills alive for the day when the electronics lets me down. To quote my old instructor: 'Use it or lose it.'

 

[BarryD]

FUN (like I\'d know)

If it was risky or you failed to use navigation skills laid down in the 17th centuary. Who cares, you got where you intended to go and enjoyed a days sailing.

Barry D.

 

[PaulJ]

Would you have done the same if you had been going cross channel? I think your "mode" of navigation should depend on where you are, where you are going and the conditions prevailing at the time. Except perhaps for going round the Owers the trip you describe is pretty straightforward and navigation need only consist of ticking off the ports and landmarks as you go by. In the conditions you describe I think fog was pretty unlikely so if the gps etc had gone belly up I don't think it would have been the end of the world. I think I would call it "Practical Seamanship". It could have been a very different story had you been going down to the Channel Islands........

 

[Guest]

Re: fingers crossed

indeed, but when things go awry, the chart is often brought to the cockpit (Look -I'll show you where we are exactly!...) and then... Puzzles me that one paper chart and a pencil is somehow seen as "much better" than having four gps's, automatic 15-min positional log print, three vhf's incl two handhelds (guilty), and a following helicopter (not guilty). Seems from here that the marks on a paper chart is now another decent backup during passage, and an essential tool to aid passage planning.

As for brambles bank - when does "a lack of common sense" cross the line into "being stupid"? An even more extreme example was at 3-mile Island - the system was especialy set up not to instantly respond to panicky human inputs. But when they really really thought that they were right (they weren't) they got the passwords to turn that feature off and quickly ...

 

[pugwash]

Re: backups?

Surely four is a GPS too far. Two doesn't help much because if they disagree you don't know which one to believe. The aviation world uses three of everything, so you can see straight away which one is out of kilter. But four would only confuse the situation. Really, isn't just one plus a good chart plot all you need ?

 

[billmacfarlane]

Agreed

Agreed. Though I'd carry a back up handheld wrapped in foil in a perspex container.

 

[duncan]

Re: backups?

and a pencil - er and sharpener.......

;o)

 

[Guest]

Re: backups?

agreed- the boat has two, I have two handheld, one longlasting gps only, the other chartplotter handheld. I feel a bit of a ninny leaving the others at home, tho, so it's on board but switched off...

 

[Seafort]

Re: backups?

Are not worked charts plus deck log e.t.c. regarded as legal documents and as such admissable in a court of law as evidence?

On another note, I purchased a sextant (plastic, couldn't find a metal one) at SBS after dragging a non-boating friend around for a couple of hours. Most reactions to enquiries were along the lines of "What for"? I even had a stand full of GPS equipment pointed out to me.

At work I keep all sorts of electronic equipment up and running, it fails an awfull lot even in ideal conditions, I wouldn't have this job if it didn't, so listen to Winston above , he knows what he's talking about. Bear in mind that the military get the best ICs and even these have a mean time to failure rating.

 

[pugwash]

Sextant - what for?

Good question that, for coastal/channel cruiser blokes. Horizontal sextant angles? Maybe, but good hand-compass bearings are easier and almost as good. Vertical angles of lighthouse heights? Yes, if you're really keen. But why else would you need a sextant this side of Bishop Rock? Are you seriously doing sun sights in the Channel (unless it's just for fun and practice, of course, which is a good reason) ?

 

[Guest]

Re: FUN (like I\'d know)

Barry, never a truer word spoken. It was a great sail and the vis was good enough all day so that I knew my approx. position at all times (or at least where the land was). Now if it had been misty/foggy then I would have run a basic plot.

 

[Guest]

Re: ooh heck

No change there then.

"Three miles North of Brighton" as a calculated position happened regularly well before GPS came on the scene!!

 

[Guest]

Re: legal

yes. But, for example, so are any handwritten notes - such as a name and address, written down during a telephone conversation. As with any such evidence - the quality will be seen as a little higher, if (say) every such trip has a handwritten decklog, or (if printed by computer) will be similarly high if the tear-off prinout from each trip is also available -altho that wouldn't include sightings, names of other vesseles and so on.

The Court will see the quality as somewhat lower if (as I saw once) the notes (from a policeman as it happens) includes detailed recollections - but unfortunately left blanks where the dates and times were to be filled in later - to ensure that they matched everyone else's!!