tcm
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To be fair Micheal I did say that we have now found a small boat to learn with; we are certainly not considering spending the rest of our lives in such a small space. After much consideration we are intending to buy the 31'er, spend a couple of months in the Uk involved in concentrated sailing (taking lessons and gaining experience). We then are looking into taking her to the Med by means of the French canals so as to avoid the BoB which by all accounts would be foolhardy to try to cross without a good deal of experience under one's belt (or boom).
Three facts:
1) boats are much less costly in the Uk than in Italy
2) we live in Italy and so will have to return there as some point
3) although I hold a 'Patente Nautica' (a motore entro 12 miglia) which I studied for in Italian (I earn my living by means of the Italian language) I would prefer to be taught how to sail in my mother tongue
Anyway, thanks for the offer of the book, the link doesn't work btw. I shall indeed endeavour to contact you via e-mail.
Now on a different point, I'm confused.... Time for a stupid question. Most of my power boat course was centred around navigation and reading charts. The point of the rose is to allow you to compensate for the fact that the earth's magnetic field doesn't stay put. Fine, we're all fine with that, the rose tells you what the magnetic field was up to when the chart was drawn. And from there you can do two calculations in order to arrive at a compass bearing. Now then, here's the stupid question part, I was interested to look at modern ways of navigating using an Android tablet for example. I downloaded Marine Navigator and bought .kap file chart of the Gulf of Naples. The graphical quality of the chart is simply wonderful but there's no bloooomin' rose. How the **** am I supposed to plot a course when I don't know where the chart thinks magnetic north is? Now then, at this point I must make an admission. The tablet I'm using doesn't happen to have GPS. This means that the compass in the app doesn't turn itself on. I'm just wondering therefore whether perhaps there is data embedded in the .kap file which with an enables compass automatically causes it to adjust the chart. Or is that idea complete and utter cobblers? Feel free to laugh at the idiot, I have broad shoulders and I can take it.
You need a GPS input to that tablet. Then if the chart/map has some navigation features, it tell you where you are (on the map) and you tell it where you want to go, and it tell you the course to steer. Just like car satnav, but without the pesky streets getting in the way. Except that there might be rock in the way, so make sure you stay away from rocks, hopefully nicely marked, or if not quite sure, and in the med, other boats will be tearing around so it'll be fairly obvious.
Dinghy-wise you just park it anywhere, but generally there'll be okay places identifiable by other dinghies there too. Take care not to park on ferry docks etc, of course.
Lots of English speaking people in boats, so they'll let you know where's nice and where isn't.
Um, the Bay of biscay gets a bad press, but it is bordered by lots of ports/marinas every few miles, each with boats in, and all the 30ft ones (or quite a lot less) can easily make it to the next port, so yerknow, not that horrendous is it? Just hop along. The main thing you need is enough time to wait out the bad weather, rather than have a schedule which means you just HAVE to go etc. There's a lot of unspoken fear amongst boating types, not always obvious and often shrouded in wise "safety" stuff, some of which is valid, but a lot of which validates doing something less, or something not very ambitious at all. It's not a piece of cake to do the french canals, always something to hit, whereas the sea gives you more time to think. Yeah, it also gives you time enough to think OOOPS i wish i hadn't come out today, but anyways.
Actually, it's a nice idea to get the boat in UK and sail it down to the med, and lots of people will offer to come along too, maybe even from this forum.
Best would be to get the boat, and keep it in the same marina from where you bought it... and then others who know the boat can show what's what. Or, if you hire a training bod, (very good idea) they can show you around it no problem, how the loos work, how the sails go up/down, bit of engine maintenance, all that.
You are getting a bit hung up about SSR. There's a UK registry of ships called "Part 1" and the ownership of these boats (and all ships) is checked very thoroughly. But there's no law regulating the registration of small private boats in the uk, up to at least 80 feet, which is qite huge. In the same way as you can buy a lawnmower or a bicycle, same with a private boat, you just buy it and sail off. Yes really. In the boat, not the lawnmower, hah. BUT other countries have massive regulation, so to make it so you have a bit of "official" paper when you get there, you can register on SSR, altho it is very lax and there's no checking of if the boat is really yours. In fact, you can go to the website right now and register the boat name "LuckyLucky" and make uop all the info, 25 quid credit card, and they'll send you the doc, so it's rubbish really. Check that it's the owner's boat more than anything else, from how they show you aground and from some invoices or whatever. Lots of boats aren't registered cos they just stay in the uk. So no big deal if it's not registered with SSR. Someone further up said SSB which is a typo, and relatesd to single sideband radio, long range radio communication, not really of interest to you yet, if ever (use a satelite phone)
