Ritchie B52 compass

[BarryH]

I ripped out the dash on the boat to remake it, got a nice bit of real burr walnut veneer from a cabinet maker friend. Before I start planning all the nice new flash dials and start resiting plotter and sounders how effective are the adjustments for deviation on the Ritchie. They seem to do nothing while the compass is not on the boat. Do they actually do anything or are they just a gimmick?

I had the thing installed and adjusted by an "ol salt" who seemed to know what he was doing. Its been reliable over the years and only ever gave me trouble when I put the beer can down in the wrong place. Thats why I only have bottled beer now! Anyone got experience adjusting these compasses using the in built adjusters?

 

[Piers]

Whatever anyone may tell you, swinging a compass is complex, and an art - believe me, I had to pass an adjuster's exam many years ago in a different life.

The Richie is a great make of compass, and once you have everything back on board I would receommend a proper compass swing is carried out under two different scenarios.

First, will all electronics running. Second, with none of the electronics running for the (hopefully never to happen) time when all fails and you have to use the compass in ernest.

Remember the 1 in 60 rule - one degree error in heading will put you one nautical mile off track in 60 miles travelled....

 

[BarryH]

Never really being up to speed on whats needed I just looked at the instruction booklet that came with the compass. It says that you should line up with a known transit on the chart, take the bearing off the chart and adjust the compass taking into account the variation using the inbuilt adjusters. All seems rather too easy to me which is why I was wondering if anyone had done this in the past.

Theres two little brass screw heads at 3 and 6 oclock positions that are used for adjustment. Can't actually see what they do without taking the thing to bits. I presume they move small magnets or metalic lumps around the card. If all else fails I'll go back to the old fashioned way of things and draw up a deviation card and keep it near by.

 

[Ships_Cat]

<<<Theres two little brass screw heads at 3 and 6 oclock positions >>>

Those are the ends of the compensating rods which adjust the magnets. Turning any one of them should cause the card to rotate - if it doesn't, then you must have a problem in the compass.

Adjusting as per the instructions (against transits) or against the GPS is plenty adequate for most boats - especially when the compass is only graduated every 5 degrees as most small (and not so small) boat compasses are.

John