Navigation Style for Day Skipper - Advice from Instructors?

[CondorAA5A]

I learned to fly in the early 90s which was just pre-GPS being widespread (in planes and yachts) but the emphasis was just the same as with the RYA focus on learning the core skills manually – i.e. without electronics. So course to steer given forecast winds, ETAs and diversions were all planned on a chart (map in aviation!) and then adapted when flying based on the actual winds aloft; weather experienced etc. There were electronic aids but these were the focus for more advanced ratings (IMS/IFR) although, once qualified, most PPLs would use these radio aids (DME/NDB/VOR etc) when flying as additional assistance. When I have been on RYA courses, the thing they like to see is you on deck, sailing and using common sense/mark one eyeball as to where you are and how to know if and when hazards are approaching. Good luck with the Day Skipper.

 

[Iain C]

OP, I think what you are mentally doing is starting to drive the car into the sea because the sat nav says you need to take the ferry. Look out the windscreen and the ferry's not arrived yet. There's no point in working up a course to steer to then find you are asking the driver to somehow sail dead upwind.

Navigate the yacht...not the chart table. Before you do any nav, do a big arrow with "WIND" on the chart. It's going to be fairly pointless trying to steer within 40 degrees of this on either tack. I'd also say that you are focussing too much on the "now" rather than in 5, 10, 30 mins time.

I'm a huge fan of electronics...I have an SH CP180 down below and I'll often have my waterproof iPad velcro'd to the cockpit bulkhead. But I'll always sail with a paper chart on the table (unless it's very local) and mentally "passage plan" on that. I've yet to meet anime who I would consider a good sailor who passage plans on a screen.

Tides are critical, but so is the wind. I was coming back from Studland to the Solent over the bank holiday weekend. There was very little wind across Christchurch and several yachts motorsailed across, many taking the North Channel. The wind rose to a very nice 13 kts or so near the island, and I figured that if I went right out to the needles fairway (unnecessary, could have cut the corner a lot) and then bore off, I could sail it in one tack, which I did. North channel may have technically been shorter, but under sail I was going a knot faster, I was in more fair tide, and I was burning zero diesel and having a much nicer afternoon. Without a (mental) arrow on the chart showing wind direction, that's a much harder call to make.

 

[Deleted member 36384]

Thanks to all so far who all agree with this. This is the bit I had been missing really I think. Not really mentioned on the theory course but I will be more confident in my instructions this weekend.

I am not sure in the RYA courses, especially dayskipper, why there is such an emphasis on non electronic navigation. The idea of dayskipper I thought is to navigate during the day which implies no overnight passages. As it is now common to have at least 4 different electronic navigation aids I can not see how relying on them is a problem! Maybe I am not old enough to see the point, I think I am the opposite of a dinosaur! I fully understand the paper navigation stuff but in practice I wont use it much! As prices keep coming down everyone will have access to gadgets that calculate Course to Steer etc. I just bought a full set of charts for OpenCPN from the nice people at Visitmyharbour for about £50.

Should I tell my staff at work to print everything out and file it? The point of our paperless office to to increase productivity! I would have though on a yacht the fact that as a skipper I dont have to keep going below to check stuff makes it safer which is surely the point!

I cant see the emphasis on paper navigation in RYA courses still being there in 50 years. So surely just a matter of how long after it is irrelavent they keep the balance as it is in the syllabus.

You miss the point. Its easy and efficient to navigate with a plotter but clearly you don't understand how a course shaped (on a plotter or paper) cant always be sailed. So its back to basics, where calculating the stuff and drawing vectors on paper charts tends to instil understanding. Compare this with entering two waypoints and sailing along the rolling road.

In your paperless office you probably file the same data at different revisions in multiple places. Today I find that quality control is compromised because its just too easy and folks really don't understand basic revision/version data control and so willy nilly send out whatever was attached to the last email - which may be wrong. Many crusty engineers who grew up with paper filing systems have made the transition to paperless systems very easily, however, the young guns fek it all up.

I navigate easily both ways - you should be able to do so confidently, as both use the very same principles. If you cant easily navigate on paper, you really don't understand how to navigate.

 

[PhillM]

Rely on GPS only and any of these could really spoil your day

http://www.jammer4uk.com/car-gps-jammer-c-1.html

I seem to recall somthing in the press about adding a radio beacon for shipping in the Dover strait because there were so many cars on ferry and in containers that were using one. Could be an urban myth of course.

 

[StuE]

Human foibles. It's why the professions, and teaching, are always behind the curve. Those in charge, or doing the teaching, learnt and are probably quite skilled in the 'old ways'. They then construct all sorts of excuses why you need to learn them, otherwise their superior knowledge is devalued and their self-importance dented. It's a brake on progress, but it's just human nature.

I agree, I remember the same old **** being spouted when pocket calculators became available. My mum had similar views when the type writer was being replaced with word processors and my architect friend stating you will never replace a drawing board with a PC....
The whole single point of failure thing is just stupid, what happens if the ludite navigator falls overboard - oh wait I know we will have two, oh and incase the boat sinks we can get another one to follow us....

 

[Mark-1]

@ nobody in particular it seems to me that every input to a calculated EP has a low level of accuracy.

Consider the magnitude of errors in distance run, predicted tidal flow, heading, lee way, variation & deviation over even an hour run.

Distance Run often comes from an electronic log with a moving part.

GPS will actually tell you its HDOP.

 

[prv]

I seem to recall somthing in the press about adding a radio beacon for shipping in the Dover strait because there were so many cars on ferry and in containers that were using one. Could be an urban myth of course.

They're certainly installing the "beacon" - it's a kind of updated Loran. I haven't heard the idea that it's due to jammers on cars on ferries, though - more that due to the heavy traffic they have instigated traffic-handling systems that can only practically be followed using an electronic fixing system. Currently everyone is using GPS but if that is unavailable for any reason then they're stuffed. Hence the Loran as backup.

Pete

 

[[70521]]

I agree, I remember the same old **** being spouted when pocket calculators became available. My mum had similar views when the type writer was being replaced with word processors and my architect friend stating you will never replace a drawing board with a PC....
The whole single point of failure thing is just stupid, what happens if the ludite navigator falls overboard - oh wait I know we will have two, oh and incase the boat sinks we can get another one to follow us....

Perhaps, but if you want your RYA Day Skipper, you really do need to know how to use a chart.

 

[roblpm]

OP, I think what you are mentally doing is starting to drive the car into the sea because the sat nav says you need to take the ferry. Look out the windscreen and the ferry's not arrived yet. There's no point in working up a course to steer to then find you are asking the driver to somehow sail dead upwind.

Navigate the yacht...not the chart table. Before you do any nav, do a big arrow with "WIND" on the chart. It's going to be fairly pointless trying to steer within 40 degrees of this on either tack. I'd also say that you are focussing too much on the "now" rather than in 5, 10, 30 mins time.

I'm a huge fan of electronics...I have an SH CP180 down below and I'll often have my waterproof iPad velcro'd to the cockpit bulkhead. But I'll always sail with a paper chart on the table (unless it's very local) and mentally "passage plan" on that. I've yet to meet anime who I would consider a good sailor who passage plans on a screen.

Tides are critical, but so is the wind. I was coming back from Studland to the Solent over the bank holiday weekend. There was very little wind across Christchurch and several yachts motorsailed across, many taking the North Channel. The wind rose to a very nice 13 kts or so near the island, and I figured that if I went right out to the needles fairway (unnecessary, could have cut the corner a lot) and then bore off, I could sail it in one tack, which I did. North channel may have technically been shorter, but under sail I was going a knot faster, I was in more fair tide, and I was burning zero diesel and having a much nicer afternoon. Without a (mental) arrow on the chart showing wind direction, that's a much harder call to make.

Iain

I agree entirely, this seems to me why it is a better idea to look at my phone in my hand every once in a while than do below (and forward on the Hanse 411 I was on) to look at the chartplotter and paper charts!

 

[AntarcticPilot]

I agree, I remember the same old **** being spouted when pocket calculators became available. My mum had similar views when the type writer was being replaced with word processors and my architect friend stating you will never replace a drawing board with a PC....
The whole single point of failure thing is just stupid, what happens if the ludite navigator falls overboard - oh wait I know we will have two, oh and incase the boat sinks we can get another one to follow us....

I don't know about others, but I have been professionally involved with map-making and geographic information for over 30 years, and have used position fixing of many different kinds. I am long-time user of IT, have been responsible for Geographic Information Systems in a large organization and am a respectable software developer. I tend to be an early adopter of technology; I am no luddite.

But I believe that paper maps and Chart-plotters BOTH have a part to play in navigation. They do quite different jobs. Given that the paper chart is more durable and has fewer external requirements in the environment of a small boat, it makes sense that the set of skills required to use one is developed. That same set of skills will give better understanding of the principles involved, allowing better understanding of the chart-plotter's strengths and weaknesses.

Ultimately, navigation takes place behind the eyes of a navigator. Anything else that you use - chart-plotter, chart, GPS, AIS, radar, sextant, compass or whatever - is merely providing inputs to the navigational process that is taking place in an intelligent mind. Of course, if you have a chart-plotter (and I do), we make use of it! But I ALSO make use of the chart, my eyes (and local knowledge), and everything else that is available to me. Someone who is learning navigation needs to know the principles which inform the PROCESS of navigation, and not merely in case the electronic tools are not available. Chart-work teaches principles, which are essential to educate the navigational mind.

I tend to agree that some exercises are too artificial to be realistic - but at least doing the exercise will teach you something about limits of accuracy!

 

[roblpm]

You miss the point. Its easy and efficient to navigate with a plotter but clearly you don't understand how a course shaped (on a plotter or paper) cant always be sailed. So its back to basics, where calculating the stuff and drawing vectors on paper charts tends to instil understanding. Compare this with entering two waypoints and sailing along the rolling road.

In your paperless office you probably file the same data at different revisions in multiple places. Today I find that quality control is compromised because its just too easy and folks really don't understand basic revision/version data control and so willy nilly send out whatever was attached to the last email - which may be wrong. Many crusty engineers who grew up with paper filing systems have made the transition to paperless systems very easily, however, the young guns fek it all up.

I navigate easily both ways - you should be able to do so confidently, as both use the very same principles. If you cant easily navigate on paper, you really don't understand how to navigate.

I never said I didnt calculate the course first!! I did it all properly! Just really discussing how to carry it out!

 

[roblpm]

Perhaps, but if you want your RYA Day Skipper, you really do need to know how to use a chart.

As I posted above maybe I didnt make it clear, I passed the day skipper theory, I have spend 30 years orienteering, climbing mountains and exploring in remote regions (with **** maps!). So I can do the nav. And did it at the start of the passages. All I am really questioning is the process as I go along.

 

[SimbaDog]

I did mine a long time ago on a weeks cruise to the Isles of Scilly, I think I impressed the instructor by being able to avoid all the sticky up rocky bits despite spending half the day in the pub!

 

[Deleted member 36384]

@ nobody in particular it seems to me that every input to a calculated EP has a low level of accuracy.

Consider the magnitude of errors in distance run, predicted tidal flow, heading, lee way, variation & deviation over even an hour run..

When calculating EPs this is exactly what one has to account for usually by applying a circle of error drawn at each EP. The rate of error is not straight forward as its also subject to conditions, boat type and helmsman. For example, on large a OYC ketch of yesteryear, on a beam reach, above a Force 4, we applied 10 degrees from the last fix up wind to the course to steer as the boat tended to screw up in the gusts which the crew were always slow to respond to - usually. Thank goodness for plotters and GPS, I say at least the HDOP is still not likely to be that inaccurate compared to that good helmsman in the example above!

 

[Mark-1]

When calculating EPs this is exactly what one has to account for usually by applying a circle of error drawn at each EP.

To be honest, I've never drawn a circle of error or seen one drawn but I bet whatever values are chosen they are more than 5m which is the accuracy at which my phone deems a fix good enough to add to a track.

An accuracy which it has no problem achieving every second indefinitely, even on single track paths in valleys under wet trees.

 

[prv]

Someone who is learning navigation needs to know the principles which inform the PROCESS of navigation, and not merely in case the electronic tools are not available. Chart-work teaches principles, which are essential to educate the navigational mind.

I was trying to say this, but couldn't find the right words. Thanks.

Same reason that in day to day software development I do not sit down and work out the Big-O complexity of my algorithms, but having studied that stuff in the past shapes my thinking and means I don't write horrifically inefficient code through not knowing any better.

Pete

 

[roblpm]

To be honest, I've never drawn a circle of error or seen one drawn but I bet whatever values are chosen they are more than 5m which is the accuracy at which my phone deems a fix good enough to add to a track.

An accuracy which it has no problem achieving every second indefinitely, even on single track paths in valleys under wet trees.

Hmmm, I dont want to agree with you to avoid irritating the kind people who have replied with good advice. However I agree with you!!

 

[alant]

Hi,

I am currently doing my day skipper over 3 weekends out of Largs. Completed the first weekend which was fun and got quite a bit done. This coming weekend is the second weekend. As it is over 3 weekends I think I may have 3 different instructors!

All positive feedback from the first instructor apart from one thing that I need some advice on. What I dont understand is this:

On the theory course you learn how to plot a course to steer. However wind direction is not taken in to account.
Thus when you go on deck and instruct the helmsman to steer a particular course this course may not be possible if the wind has shifted so you may have to tack or gybe.
So what I was doing is keeping track of where we were on Navionics on my Galaxy S3 which works absolutely fine! However the feedback at the end was not to use it so much!

So my questions are:
a) How do you tell the helmsman which course to steer when you are tacking or gybing?
b) How often should I be going below to sneakily check my phone without the instructor noticing? As I find it much easier to use than the chartplotters (and before anyone tells me I shouldnt rely on it, I can assure you that when I am cruising with friends we have 2 phones with Navionics, a Nexus 7 with Navionics, a laptop with OpenCPN and raster charts and a seperate GPS and real charts!).
c) How should I impress my next instructor with my navigation skills!!!?!

Cheers,

Rob.

Didn't they mention leeway?

 

[Mark-1]

Hmmm, I dont want to agree with you to avoid irritating the kind people who have replied with good advice. However I agree with you!!

Of course if the vis is good you won't need either a GPS position or an EP in the Clyde cos you can see where you are!

 

[jrc1983]

This may be worth a mention: http://www.dft.gov.uk/mca/mcga07-ho...s/mcga-mnotice.htm?textobjid=13F6FC6E98771089