capnsensible
Well-known member
If you can see where you are going, who needs one?
If you cant, well, good luck it was nice knowing you!!
If you cant, well, good luck it was nice knowing you!!
no ships compass - am I silly?
- Thread starter dylanwinter
- Start date
onesea
Well-known member
In theory yes you can see the graduations and swing better, they also tend to be better damped. In practice I do not think it makes significant difference for most boats.
I must admit my compass has no set home, or proper lighting, I could make it work if I had to.
Remember if you find the edge of the world, just turn it over and you will come back again
or is that why your making a duck punt to make it easier?Anyway we will be waiting for the green flash
Seajet
...
If you can't, that's when you need a compass ! ( and in a perfect world a chart & depthsounder )...
fireball
New member
If your electrics failed then it's very likely that you wouldn't have any power to illuminate the compass. So in that respect it's no better than a hh one.
aquaplane
Active member
I once broke a nail taking the cover off the compass so I don't usually bother now.
prv
Well-known member
Since you spend 90% of your time drifting up and down rivers, I can't see that the slug has any need for a compass.
However, putting the issue of compasses to one side for a moment and considering only the second half of your question, I think the answer has to be "yes"
Pete
reginaldon
New member
I found with a GPS that was u/s and in v. thick fog (-50m vis) the Sestrel (and chart) was absolutely indispensable. Buoy hopped for 30NMs.
Last edited:
Sandy
Well-known member
I like my steering compass, but I also have a hand held one and a GPS and a wee hand held GPS.
Keen_Ed
Active member
No fitted compass means you can't do any RORC offshore racing. I do assume that you were going to do the next Fastnet on the slug (despite the fact she's too short)? I suggest you fit one of these forthwith.
dylanwinter
Active member
beautiful
I assume the compass is worth more than the slug
D
No fitted compass means you can't do any RORC offshore racing. I do assume that you were going to do the next Fastnet on the slug (despite the fact she's too short)? I suggest you fit one of these forthwith.
I assume the compass is worth more than the slug
D
Seajet
...
In fact a working main compass would have been much more useful than a hand bearing job, as I wouldn't need to hold the thing to my eye while also dealing with lead-line, tiller ( autopilot also out ), sheets etc.
Most compasses have legible cards in all but the darkest conditions, and I carry a variety of torches; in my little predicament not having a steering compass was just one of the ingredients of a c*** up which made things a lot worse, entirely my own fault !
Still, I and the boat survived to get something else wrong next time; but I would strongly advocate having a good steering compass, illuminated & in a perfect world, swung - or at the very least an eye on how headings on compass & GPS work out on trips, and a rough deviation note made...
Bobobolinsky
New member
ffiill
Active member
Whilst I have both a fixed and handheld GPS plus one of the old sestral handbearers with the mahogany drum handles and little perspex chinagraph pencil pad which when on its bulkhead mount becomes fixed(not forgetting my autopilot compass)- just love my binaccled sestral major in front of the wheel where I can see it and back lit at night-its mounted quite high in my deck house so can easily take an aprox. bearing from it without having to get the handbearer out.
Mind you admit to a love of traditional instruments-still regret selling my MAC sextant earlier this year but it had sat in its box for four years and money more use in my pocket!
Mind you admit to a love of traditional instruments-still regret selling my MAC sextant earlier this year but it had sat in its box for four years and money more use in my pocket!
LadyInBed
Well-known member
A ships compass is so 20th Century
PS but what does a ships compass have to do with your state of mind
PS but what does a ships compass have to do with your state of mind
Last edited:
Seajet
...
A ships compass is so 20th Century
Like an internal combustion engine & GRP hull, along with umpteenth century BC sail power then...?!
'He who would know what shall be, must first know what has gone before "
Or in my terms, ' a functioning steering compass tells me where the **** I'm going without electrickery which WILL fail when I most need it, rule 1 of s*ds' law !'
Like an internal combustion engine & GRP hull, along with umpteenth century BC sail power then...?!
'He who would know what shall be, must first know what has gone before "
Or in my terms, ' a functioning steering compass tells me where the **** I'm going without electrickery which WILL fail when I most need it, rule 1 of s*ds' law !'
claymore
Well-known member
Compasses, in my not inconsiderable experience, are invariably incorrect and one is better off without them.
In addition, I would suggest that charts are similarly misleading and would recommend the AA members handbook
In addition, I would suggest that charts are similarly misleading and would recommend the AA members handbook
Last edited:
Searush
New member
Why would Dylan ever need a compass anyway? He is seldom more than a good pip spit from land, his course is determined by withies or garden canes not by charts & bearings.
Come on guys, horses for courses, it is not Dylans style to sail where he cannot walk home if all goes Tullet style. Why do you think he is building a boat he can carry if not to be able to carry it home when the tide goes home?
Come on guys, horses for courses, it is not Dylans style to sail where he cannot walk home if all goes Tullet style. Why do you think he is building a boat he can carry if not to be able to carry it home when the tide goes home?
Ex-SolentBoy
New member
I know it is nearly Christmas, but is this not the most basic intelligence insulting troll of all ?
For the Slug, a fixed ships compass is only at best, marginally better and in some cases worse than a handheld one. Perhaps a trifle more accurate, but with a torch certainly no more easy to read or more reliable.
These days you an buy a GPS for less and most phones can be accurate enough compasses forwhat Dylan does. Surely he has a phone? If he doesn't he should buy one.
Come on Dylan, stop stirring the fossils. If you spent less time on the interweb you could get your punt in the water and get your strategy in line for ripping the hell out of the London Boat Show.
For the Slug, a fixed ships compass is only at best, marginally better and in some cases worse than a handheld one. Perhaps a trifle more accurate, but with a torch certainly no more easy to read or more reliable.
These days you an buy a GPS for less and most phones can be accurate enough compasses forwhat Dylan does. Surely he has a phone? If he doesn't he should buy one.
Come on Dylan, stop stirring the fossils. If you spent less time on the interweb you could get your punt in the water and get your strategy in line for ripping the hell out of the London Boat Show.
Seajet
...
a fixed ships compass is only at best, marginally better and in some cases worse than a handheld one. Perhaps a trifle more accurate, but with a torch certainly no more easy to read or more reliable.
OK S Boy, I'll bite, in a friendly way as I suspect it is you who may be the troll lurking under a flyover !
Electrics Out, at night in dense fog ; now try handling tiller against the torque of the engine with one hand, holding a compass up to the eye, casting a lead ( spanner ) line & judging the depth while trimming the sails & keeping a lookout, in thick fog at night...this could happen to anyone, and before you say it, I'm sure other people might even be as stupid as me and one day fall into the trap I did; I'd been sailing over 30 years summer & winter, qualified YM Offshore when my compass & electrical failure occurred.
A steering compass has the chance of being evaluated for deviation, either by a proper swing or at least observation.
A decade on I still think the same, I'd rather like a main steering compass and consider going on any boat larger than a tender ( and I do have a compass on the tender ! ) without one unseamanlike.
Re.Stirring up fossils, I'm approaching 50 so you may have a chronological point there, if not a navigational cardinal one !
Noting the time, Merry Christmas BTW !
OK S Boy, I'll bite, in a friendly way as I suspect it is you who may be the troll lurking under a flyover !
Electrics Out, at night in dense fog ; now try handling tiller against the torque of the engine with one hand, holding a compass up to the eye, casting a lead ( spanner ) line & judging the depth while trimming the sails & keeping a lookout, in thick fog at night...this could happen to anyone, and before you say it, I'm sure other people might even be as stupid as me and one day fall into the trap I did; I'd been sailing over 30 years summer & winter, qualified YM Offshore when my compass & electrical failure occurred.
A steering compass has the chance of being evaluated for deviation, either by a proper swing or at least observation.
A decade on I still think the same, I'd rather like a main steering compass and consider going on any boat larger than a tender ( and I do have a compass on the tender ! ) without one unseamanlike.
Re.Stirring up fossils, I'm approaching 50 so you may have a chronological point there, if not a navigational cardinal one !
Noting the time, Merry Christmas BTW !
Last edited:
BrianH
Active member
In my business days I once found myself on an inaugral flight of SwissWings (now defunct), from Bern to Stanstead on board a brand-new Dornier 328, short-haul aircraft. Soon after take-off the captain, on a PR exercise, came back to chat to the passengers - all three of us. I was the last and he eventually invited me to the flight deck to demonstrate something he had mentioned.
I seated myself on a jump-seat as we were approaching Paris, between him and the first pilot, a very attractive young lady, while he switched between all the various schematic services that could be displayed on the large instrument panel screen; hydraulics, electrics, fuel distribution, etc. Then my eye alighted on a small, manual compass, centrally placed above the windscreen, the sort that you can buy in an auto shop for a car - it looked totally out of place in the midst of fly-by-wire, digital display technology. The captain noticed my glance, smiled and wryly said, "yes, that's for when we get the blue screen of death."
Going back even further, when I sailed out of Whitby, I was returning south one day, about five nm off the Northumbrian coast in thick fog - no wind and under engine. I heard a shout so I turned off the engine and listened - more shouts, I shouted back. An outboard engine started up and out of the gloom emerged a small open boat with two anglers aboard. "Which way is land?" a broad Geordie accent asked. I was speechless for a moment, then I asked if they didn't have a compass, thinking with a sinking heart that I was going to have to lend (and perhaps never see again) my precious ex-WD hand-bearing compass. "Noah, man, never need one, just point out which way".
I offered to tow them to my destination, Blyth, some miles to the south, which they refused as being too far for them to travel back. Then came salvation, we heard, for the first time, the distant moan of the Blyth foghorn to the south-west. The outboard was started and they disappeared off in approximately the right direction to some Northumberland beach. I hate to think what might have happened if an off-shore gale would have blown up.
Both cases demonstrate the value of compasses - I would never be without a eye-level, mounted, lighted and corrected, magnetic compass.
I seated myself on a jump-seat as we were approaching Paris, between him and the first pilot, a very attractive young lady, while he switched between all the various schematic services that could be displayed on the large instrument panel screen; hydraulics, electrics, fuel distribution, etc. Then my eye alighted on a small, manual compass, centrally placed above the windscreen, the sort that you can buy in an auto shop for a car - it looked totally out of place in the midst of fly-by-wire, digital display technology. The captain noticed my glance, smiled and wryly said, "yes, that's for when we get the blue screen of death."
Going back even further, when I sailed out of Whitby, I was returning south one day, about five nm off the Northumbrian coast in thick fog - no wind and under engine. I heard a shout so I turned off the engine and listened - more shouts, I shouted back. An outboard engine started up and out of the gloom emerged a small open boat with two anglers aboard. "Which way is land?" a broad Geordie accent asked. I was speechless for a moment, then I asked if they didn't have a compass, thinking with a sinking heart that I was going to have to lend (and perhaps never see again) my precious ex-WD hand-bearing compass. "Noah, man, never need one, just point out which way".
I offered to tow them to my destination, Blyth, some miles to the south, which they refused as being too far for them to travel back. Then came salvation, we heard, for the first time, the distant moan of the Blyth foghorn to the south-west. The outboard was started and they disappeared off in approximately the right direction to some Northumberland beach. I hate to think what might have happened if an off-shore gale would have blown up.
Both cases demonstrate the value of compasses - I would never be without a eye-level, mounted, lighted and corrected, magnetic compass.