The apprenticeship

[Wansworth]

Having more or less mastered getting a boat to sail I went to evening classes and battled with the tides off the Casquets and the Alderney race to get to Cherbourg,never really succeeding from one week to the next although in later years I plotted my way round Gibraltar for my Spanish certificate.It seems to me and I am probably wrong that it’s much easier to put to sea as the major stumbling block,navigation and DR etc are replaced by a knowledge of how a chart plotter works,one of the major fears of setting out on the sea is immediately solved no more worrying about entering a port in the dark as it’s all presented neatly on the screen.Maybein the slower gaining of navigational knowledge new sailers might be more wary of other skills that need to be learn.

 

[Greenheart]

Alright, I'll bite.

I recoil from position indication on a screen, whenever I'm on a boat. I can see it's daft not to have it at all as an option to check, especially in new places or for fog or other states of disorientation. But if I've seen the chart and am familiar with an area, nothing is less appealing than a constant display saying You Are Here, as if otherwise I couldn't remember to work it out, or how to work it out. Am I alone, finding GPS dulls the self respect one develops, sailing a boat to a destination using just brainwork, observation and paper and pencil?

Sailing into open water with a diminishing view of the coast and only the knowledge of the departure point and likely track and speed since, logged and marked on a chart, is immediate immersion in responsibility - one has to form a reasonably accurate view of one's whereabouts, and reflect often on whether the passage plan is being maintained. If one has a plotter, barely any once-essential considerations of position or lookout for marks en route, matter. Plotter says we're here...so go back to discussing Netflix.

It really hasn't been very long since we had to know what we were doing. Most of the skippers on this forum learnt how (I hope). Did they almost all ditch the brain method and defer to the electronic alternative, as soon as they could?

Why would men who pay so much to enjoy the challenge of sailing (rather than using diesel all the way, which needs a fraction the skill or effort) not also decline the backlit screens and enjoy the reward of exercising their grey cells?
.

 

[Wansworth]

Alright, I'll bite.

I recoil from position indication on a screen, whenever I'm on a boat. I can see it's daft not to have it at all as an option to check, especially in new places or for fog or other states of disorientation. But if I've seen the chart and am familiar with an area, nothing is less appealing than a constant display saying You Are Here, as if otherwise I couldn't remember to work it out, or how to work it out. Am I alone, finding GPS dulls the self respect one develops, sailing a boat to a destination using just brainwork, observation and paper and pencil?

Sailing into open water with a diminishing view of the coast and only the knowledge of the departure point and likely track and speed since, logged and marked on a chart, is immediate immersion in responsibility - one has to form a reasonably accurate view of one's whereabouts, and reflect often on whether the passage plan is being maintained. If one has a plotter, barely any once-essential considerations of position or lookout for marks en route, matter. Plotter says we're here...so go back to discussing Netflix.

It really hasn't been very long since we had to know what we were doing. Most of the skippers on this forum learnt how (I hope). Did they almost all ditch the brain method and defer to the electronic alternative, as soon as they could?

Why would men who pay so much to enjoy the challenge of sailing (rather than using diesel all the way, which needs a fraction the skill or effort) not also decline the backlit screens and enjoy the reward of exercising their grey cells?
.

I was just musingon how easy it is and how reassuring it must be on a dark filthy night off say the Dutch coast the screen will pin point you and give a track to your destination,once pandora is out the box you would be a fool not to have it switched on.One night in a gale off the Dutch coast in a little coaster all the crew where huddled in thewheelhouse silently praying for the Lights of the entrance to the Rotterdam harbour would appear .

 

[Greenheart]

Professionals, obliged to be at sea in filthy weather - sure, God preserve them and grant them every advantage.

I don't understand why amateurs who can pick their weather and who use sails for fun, still choose to follow glowing arrows on a screen.

 

[johnalison]

Professionals, obliged to be at sea in filthy weather - sure, God preserve them and grant them every advantage.

I don't understand why amateurs who can pick their weather and who use sails for fun, still choose to follow glowing arrows on a screen.

I’m with you most of the way. I do have a plotter with its little arrow, but it’s at the chart table. I have the relevant numerical information displayed in the cockpit, with has served me perfectly well for over twenty years, and have no particular desire to have the screen at the helm. Not having had a wheel on my boat for over thirty years, I have never had the plotter as an easy option but can see why people do it when a binnacle is available. Like you, I don’t see the attraction of it, if only because I would have to keep a pair of reading glasses handy to make use of it. I much prefer to do without, relying on a pictorial memory and the information available.

 

[Stemar]

I'm with Wansworth. Knowing where I am, and having AIS to tell me if that big bugger's going to be a problem, is a good thing. I like the idea of knowing that the eastern entrance to Cherbourg Harbour is going to come into view in a few minutes, rather than wondering if the land ahead is La Hague or the Val de Saire.

However, if I'm doing more than pottering around an area where I wouldn't be bothering with charts anyway, I want paper, and I'm going to be logging my position every hour, in the almost, but not quite, certain knowledge that I'm wasting my time, just the same as checking the pressure in my car's spare tyre for that one time in 20 years when I'll need it.

 

[Daydream believer]

I have had two frights with a chart plotter & am very wary of them. The first was coming in to Ardglass in Ireland. I had not bothered to have my copy of Rees on deck, Nor my grid compass rigged. I had, after all just travelled N up the coast. As I turned in to the entrance the screen showed a blank. It seems that the chart I was using did not include the entrance to the harbour. Result was that I hit a rock. Fortunately, I had slowed to 1 knot & was going gingerly.

The second was going from Roscoff to St Peter Port. I set the course & it showed my position in an area of sea with nothing round it. So I nodded off for 10 mins. When I awoke we were still in an area of sea with nothing around us. But laying in my cockpit bed I thought that the angle of land through the mist did not look right.
I stood up & looked round & just off the stbd bow was a flaming great rock. The plotter had froze & even when I changed course nothing happened on the plotter until I did a re set.

Fortunately, I had logged a passage plan by DR & used that. I now rarely use the plotter(a new one) for anything other than AIS

 

[Fr J Hackett]

I have had two frights with a chart plotter & am very wary of them. The first was coming in to Ardglass in Ireland. I had not bothered to have my copy of Rees on deck, Nor my grid compass rigged. I had, after all just travelled N up the coast. As I turned in to the entrance the screen showed a blank. It seems that the chart I was using did not include the entrance to the harbour. Result was that I hit a rock. Fortunately, I had slowed to 1 knot & was going gingerly.

The second was going from Roscoff to St Peter Port. I set the course & it showed my position in an area of sea with nothing round it. So I nodded off for 10 mins. When I awoke we were still in an area of sea with nothing around us. But laying in my cockpit bed I thought that the angle of land through the mist did not look right.
I stood up & looked round & just off the stbd bow was a flaming great rock. The plotter had froze & even when I changed course nothing happened on the plotter until I did a re set.

Fortunately, I had logged a passage plan by DR & used that. I now rarely use the plotter(a new one) for anything other than AIS

Your first instance was one of your own making tantamount to not having the correct chart paper or otherwise or even pilot book let alone a passage plan.

Second could again be laid at your own doorstep it should have been easy enough to see that the plotter had frozen and sleeping / dozing on an inshore passage where a wind shift could easily throw you off your course is not advisable.

Chart plotters can be invaluable when used with common sense although I wouldn't go as far as Wansey suggests in a novice using and relying on one before under the basic principals of navigation in order to attain boat handling skills.

 

[Wansworth]

Your first instance was one of your own making tantamount to not having the correct chart paper or otherwise or even pilot book let alone a passage plan.

Second could again be laid at your own doorstep it should have been easy enough to see that the plotter had frozen and sleeping / dozing on an inshore passage where a wind shift could easily throw you off your course is not advisable.

Chart plotters can be invaluable when used with common sense although I wouldn't go as far as Wansey suggests in a novice using and relying on one before under the basic principals of navigation in order to attain boat handling skills.

Your last paragraph put very clearly the thrust of my post

 

[Stemar]

Your last paragraph put very clearly the thrust of my post

Yep, Plotters, GPS, etc are good servants, but bad masters

 

[rotrax]

Yep, Plotters, GPS, etc are good servants, but bad masters

Well put sir, and EXACTLY right!

 

[Daydream believer]

Second could again be laid at your own doorstep it should have been easy enough to see that the plotter had frozen and sleeping / dozing on an inshore passage where a wind shift could easily throw you off your course is not advisable.

I would take you to task on that one. The area shown had a 5 mile radius round the icon. In that area there were a couple of contours & depths of no consequence. No colours showing across the contours as I was in deep water.
So when I looked again I did not notice that the contours had not moved. Normally when one goes in to shallow water the chart plotter shows a different colour. . Roscoff to StPP very soon gets offshore once one is past the sept isles. Wind change no difference to course as the AP only does steer to compass. I was not using the Aries simply because I did not want to get caught out by wind causing a change of direction.
Unfortunately currents , which are strong & one can quickly get swept on to the isles. Which is what happened to me. Fortunately I had a picture in my mind of the layout & realised that something did not look right as I looked aft.
I often sleep in a sitting position looking aft for a minute or two when coastal cruising.