Re compass earlier today

[cagey]

Hi
this is a serious request for advice, no matter how trivial it may seem to the giver it can only add to the sum total etc.
Please send hints no matter how trivial, basic, obvious and simple as they are bound to help someone somewhere
thanks
keith

 

[reginaldon]

Had to take my boat from N to S Kent c. 50 NM, in the one day & only one particular day was available to us that year; my son had borrowed a GPS & with charts & a compass we thought it would be OK. The day dawns & as we left wih visibility literally less than 50' & no wind - we couldn't see across the creek, we then found the GPS was U/S - we decided to buoy hop , a little over a mile apart at the start - we found the bouys coming up on the nose less than 40yards away - we were going in the same direction as the tide gradually visibility increased to 1/2- 1 mile during the day - but the compass got us through OK - no deviation and minimal variation.

 

[cagey]

cool,
should have asked for real experiences, can feel the skin tingle, that has been missing, that has been stolen by technology, please send more.
This not a luddite backlash just a quest to rediscover old skills.
keith

 

[ColinHuggins]

So how did you know there was no deviation?

 

[reginaldon]

No ferous metal anywhere near. bearing compass in agreement.

 

[pcatterall]

Best simple advice I can think of is to use your compass (and all other nav aids) as much as possible while you have the use of GPS. Check it against the GPS bearing to establish(a working idea of) deviation but remember the differences.
Also note the differences between your log and the GPS how much of the discrepancy is caused by any current etc?
In the same vein check your position from landmarks using transits/compass bearings (hand held).
I like to do this while passage making just as a bit of a game but it keeps the old skills going and gives you a good idea of how you would make out without (the wonderful !) GPS.

 

[trouville]

GPS is wonderful!!Since i bought my first one in 1985 i have never been totaly lost!!BUT the GPS tells you where your going and where you want to be and waypoints will take you around headlands and capes.
A compass will give you a positive reasurance youve allowed enough angle to round the cape and bearings will tell you if your keeping the needed course i have a small book by captain leaky the danger angle! that and a compass is all you need

Twice my GPS put my possition on land!!! Not very often but still twice to often!Two compasses have also lost their oil one danforth constelation and the other my curren c.path but i have a trusty back up hand bearing one from the French navy! I suspect that if i went to a back up GPS (which i dident have untill now) it would have shown the same possition as the first,in a field!!!!

I would never go anywhere without a good compass and "back up"handbearing one.