Navigating without a log

Minn said:
On a power driven vessel you calculate propeller revolutions and slip. Job done.
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Anecdote. On the tug I skippered now and then, I had a telegraph and no idea of the revs. Didnt matter though, it was always visual pilotage on the Clyde.

We had a pet duck too. :)
 
Graham_Wright said:
Son took a tug across from the Clyde to Northern Ireland. His nav was completely dependent on GPS.

When chastised, he told me no tugboats have logs. He had a compass but couldn't read it as the dome was obscured.

He became stroppy when asked what would happen with a GPS outage.
Views?
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He could have used the radar, assuming they had charts and a radar.
If it was a commercial vessel, it must have had charts, and the obscured compass is a bit surprising.
Almost all tugs have radar, except museum exhibits.
Although I haven't seen a tug with a mechanical speed/distance log, maybe some have them.
Are we allowed to know the tug details?
 
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I must admit that I lived for about 10 years without a functioning log.... it was the first of my circa '85 Stowe instruments to die..... I ended up with just my depth sounder and it was only when it became temperamental that I bought a new set of instruments about 5 years ago.
 
Minn said:
As she made her way ....... a fog came in. The question was when to alter course ........ The three casts of the sounding machine were used up. .....A few hours later, still in fog, she went aground, and sent a Mayday call giving an EP on the south coast of Cornwall. She was searched for and ...... found,
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Not all that different from another thread which ran for some weeks on here, and that individual was only about 100 yards or so out, trying to enter Plymouth.....

....There was a 'GPS failure' reported then as the cause.

And quite some years earlier, the famous tea clipper Herzogin Cecilie ran onto the South Devon coast and later capsized and sank in Starehole Bay, at the entrance to Salcombe. Again, fog ( probably 70 Proof ) was involved.... but they couldn't claim failure of the GPS.
 
I have been happily navigating around Wellington and the North Island of New Zealand for yonks without a log. The instrument is there, but it was such a faff putting the paddlewheel in and out (if you leave it in, round here the barnacles think it is part of the food chain). And if you take it out every time you are forever mopping up seawater from the toilet area (which is where the tube is located). But as someone observed above, it is mostly eyeball nav round here and at my age I try and avoid bad weather and restricted viz anyway. SOG is the important datum, really and I get that off the GPS. But I do have paper charts and do "proper" nav if we go across the Cook Strait, the only bit of serious sailing I do these days. I was recently crewing on a longish delivery trip, and before we set off, we determined that between the boat's equipment and our personal electronic devices, the three people on board had ELEVEN GPS's and five VHF radios! Not to mention the communications facility offered by the phones we had with us...
 
I sailed the East Coast for 15 years. The boat was on a drying mooring, so the log packed up within days. I probably used the compass half a dozen times, mainly to remind me how it worked. Most navigation was either by eyeball, GPS or echo sounder.

I could do this because of the cruising grounds I sailed in. Horses for courses.
 
birdseye said:
An accident waiting to happen with that attitude. Doesnt matter what other tugs do - he has a legal duty to keep a log and will lose his ticket if an accident investigation finds he hasnt done so.

GPS outage isnt a significant threat - only ver happened to me once since the system started and that was in an electrical storm off Ilfacombe at 0200 hours. Pi55ing rain, no vis so steer away from land and wait for improvement. The log wouldnt have helped - I knew where I was when the GPS failed and I had a paper chart. The latter is most important. Does your son have those?
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There are two sorts of log. The book with a pencil is the easy one.
 
Mark-1 said:
Like it and I hadn't thought of it. Obvious once you know.
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In the 1970's sailing with my father on a typical coastal trade size vessel, I remember they steamed the log out the back of ship.

My dad was Chief Engineer on Amber, which was the vessel my Mum, brother and I used to cruise all over the place on. http://www.coasters-remembered.net/showthread.php?t=9145

As a by-the way, the crew would put stops into the drains where the hatches fold into when open and convert the space into a swimming pool. What great days.
 
Top memory jogger, ta! Had forgotten all about streaming the log on yachts. Ive actually still got a Walker Log on the yacht somewhere but not used it for years.

Had also forgotten setting dived submarine speed to shaft revs.

These posts are really good for those reminders!
 
capnsensible said:
Top memory jogger, ta! Had forgotten all about streaming the log on yachts. Ive actually still got a Walker Log on the yacht somewhere but not used it for years.

Had also forgotten setting dived submarine speed to shaft revs.

These posts are really good for those reminders!
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This brings back memories of a trip I undertook to Antigua on a 40' trimaran. It had a Transit satnav which failed off Ushant (the antenna fell from the mast-head). The log was a Walker Knotmaster and we had no depth sounder.

The Walker log worked fine up to about 15 knots; faster than this and the impeller would take off on the crest of each wave, thus spending at least half its time in the air. The log therefore underread by a significant amount.

Another disadvantage manifested itself as we reached warmer waters: as much of our trip was spent sailing at high speed, it became apparent that certain big fish were attracted to the trailing impeller. We lost three impellers during the transatlantic trip.
 
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