Passage making - no fun now we've all got GPS

I must admit that having been brought up as a fundamentalist navigator, elctronics are but aids and only visual or astro fixes are 'real' ( I used to plot fixes at 6 minute intervals, and I still have my notebooks with harboiur entrances done with copius clearing bearings, wheel over bearings and distance to go marks) I really do prefer gps and chart plotters. Yes I can go back to paper, pencil and Mk 1 eyeball at the drop of a hat but equally I can do my prep for tommorrow in a fraction of the time and enjoy life more.

Yes I still have my paper charts and yes I do 'eyeball' fixes to double check just as I always have at least one standby gps unit running all the time. As well as the plotter we have two handhels, two laptops with dongles and to cap it all two IPhones. So we have belt braces and nicky-tams before I have to go back to 2b pencil and parrarell rulers, and I prefer rolling ones.
 
I think this question (no GPS) can only come from those who never sailed a significant distance to a low-lying coast with persistent cloud cover.

I used to regularly cross the north sea from the north-east coast to Holland and often hadn't a clue as to what part I had arrived at with flood and ebb tides that sweep one up and down and not always cancelling out. I carried a sextant but what use is that when the sky is so often and so long obscured?

Radio beacons played their part, of course, but they were not always so precise and a cocked hat could be awfully large sometimes.

Arriving at night was a good solution, the loom of lights can be seen from a good distance but the wind did not always allow that. It was always necessary to aim deliberately high (or low) from the destination to know to turn right (or left) on sighting the coast and travel parallel until a recognisable landmark appeared.

But that was a long time ago, perhaps one can now navigate from one oil/gas rig to another.

Go back to non-GPS navigation - perish the thought.
 
Sea_Spray said:
I used to think like that too. I now have a plotter, hooked up to an AIS unit. However, I always use paper charts on every passage. I work out CTS using pencil triangles, tidal diamonds or tidal atlas and plot a GPS position every hour. I'll often not bother with the plotter, but come the time when I'm in the cockpit and just want a quick glance at the situation around me it's great.
Just need to be sensible with it and not allow the crew (or yourself) to become dependant. I seem to have reached a happy accomodation with mine.
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I too still do the paperwork, just in case.

Our first passage to Brittany, sans electronics, was a triumphal success: we hit the Trieux estuary on the nose. My elation was somewhat dampened when I reflected on the prevalence of fog on that coast. So I bought a Decca. Then a GPS. Then Decca ended, and I bought a handheld GPS as backup.

I don't see any significant advantage in a chartplotter: I'd rather have radar as an enhancement.
 
If you don't practice . . .

Emerging from the sea lock after dark and finding flat calm in the outer harbour, when asked my destination I replied “Portsmouth” and set off. One problem: a tired domestic battery had not survived the cruise. Lights dimmed, radio faded – and the gps had given up the ghost.

So the return crossing was rather more taxing than the way over: paper and pencil were resurrected to draw vectors on the chart, tidal atlas consulted to determine offsets, course was calculated and we headed for home – back to school indeed!

This time there was a lot of traffic but all were prepared to take evasive action thanks to AIS (theirs not mine). One exception was a cruise liner slowly plodding towards Tilbury not wanting to arrive early, and very difficult to identify her red or green amongst that glare. Just before dawn St Cats was seen flashing to port, the Nab to starb’d, and in increasing wind and choppy seas the ferry Normandy from Caen overtook before we crossed the Bar and entered harbour to secure at 0840, eleven hours out of Le Havre.
 
dylan 'oldfarhtiesunite' Winter said:
boo hoo, modern life is rubbish, yadda yadda, in my day blatha blatha, sailing should be miserable or you're not doing it right chunner chunner, if you're not shattered and stinking of bitumen you're not a proper yachtie, all other sailors who use modern stuff can't even tie a hitch, I'm the best and young people can't think for themselves...

Bumma
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Stop, no more!
lol.gif
 
In the Good Old Days of the 70's, sailing as 'pier-jump' supernumerary on a Services 'Windfall' boat down to, around, and back from the CI's, it was rare that the engine worked and even rarer that the battered Seafix RDF was serviceable.

The navigation was 'lead, log and lookout', and the Hurd Deep on echo-sounder as a LOP. Until I pulled a Consol chart from my bag ( we still used that WWII system in the air ) and was able to produce a fairly reliable 3-Position Line fix every half-hour or so, if wanted, in good weather and bad. All that was needed was an MF receiver and the ability to count.

"Can you show me how to do that?" asked the skipper with the Services sustificates. "Yes, but on the next trip you take me on....." :D
 
I suddenly realised that passage making is no where near as much fun (nor as stressful) as it used to be. I had completely lost the thrill of scanning the horizon in the place where I hoped a bouy will soon be appearing and suddenly seeing it slowly rise out of the horizon.
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Perhaps you should try a new activity that reignites that lost thrill, because it sounds like you've tired of sailing.

Jamie
s/y Esper
 
activesail said:
My Dad gave me his old Sextant recently, so I am looking forward to a course on it's use.

I think maintaining basic navigational skills is still fun and really satisfying when it turns out right.

Best of all, when the electronics go down there is no panick..;)
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When did your GPS last "go down"? By comparison, how often round the UK do you have 100% cloud cover?

I wish you the best, but can't help but think its a bit like going back to wooden boats - romantic and impractical.
 
GPS is great for telling you where you are, and the stuff about 'What happens if it is turned off' is pointless.

Its biggest problem is the accursed Cross Track Error.

How many people do you know who fight to keep ‘on the line’ during a longish passage, first turning the bows one way and then other to stem the tide?
 
Lady Campanula said:
In the Good Old Days of the 70's, sailing as 'pier-jump' supernumerary on a Services 'Windfall' boat down to, around, and back from the CI's, it was rare that the engine worked and even rarer that the battered Seafix RDF was serviceable.

The navigation was 'lead, log and lookout', and the Hurd Deep on echo-sounder as a LOP. Until I pulled a Consol chart from my bag ( we still used that WWII system in the air ) and was able to produce a fairly reliable 3-Position Line fix every half-hour or so, if wanted, in good weather and bad. All that was needed was an MF receiver and the ability to count.

"Can you show me how to do that?" asked the skipper with the Services sustificates. "Yes, but on the next trip you take me on....." :D
Click to expand...

I would agree that Consol was as good or probably better than RDF. At least you didn't have to stabilise the antenna, I always found that a problem in any sea way wid the Seafix handheld, or often at times using a real HFDF set on a Pussers War Canoe. Just do not forget the numbers of dots and dashes.
 
dylanwinter said:
I have just finished editing a a film about the Andy Seedhouse brokerage at Woodbridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbMpODjvomo
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Dylan
Thanks for that
It must almost 30 years since I was in Woodbridge in Andy's place
Didn't realise He is still at it!

Back to the thread

Must admit
Although I instruct peeps about plotters etc.
I don't like them!
I know, I must be an old fashioned git.
Well, 'I don't like them' is a bit strong.
More like
' I don't trust em'
Gawd knows why:rolleyes:

However
RDF's etc, well, I,m glad those bits of kit are no longer used!

Anyway
Gotta go
Got to put some tallow on me lead:rolleyes:
 
Andy Seedhouse

Kawasaki said:
Dylan
Thanks for that
It must almost 30 years since I was in Woodbridge in Andy's place
Didn't realise He is still at it!

:
Click to expand...

It is def the best brokerage I have ever been to

how good would it be to live in woodbridge and catch that train in the morning where the station overlooks the estuary and the boat yard

sure beats Milton Keynes station

Dylan
 
Must admit that when my plotter went t*ts up during the summer two month cruise, I went back to paper charts and handheld gps almost with glee. I wouldn't dream of going back to EPs and DRs even though I teach them because their accuracy and reliability are far less than the gps, but the plotter somehow seems a step too far.
 
Bosun Higgs said:
Must admit that when my plotter went t*ts up during the summer two month cruise, I went back to paper charts and handheld gps almost with glee. I wouldn't dream of going back to EPs and DRs even though I teach them because their accuracy and reliability are far less than the gps, but the plotter somehow seems a step too far.
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My thoughts as well. I use the handheld GPS as a virtual compass so I can plot positions when out of sight of land, but it's only on long enough to get a fix, tell me if my eta is right, that sort of thing. It is only used for actually telling me which way to steer in extremis - trying to find Looe channel in a F6, with SWMBO declining steering duties due to maldemer springs to mind - doing that all the time would take all the fun out of the navigation.
 
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