What need a compass and log....

[Guest]

I know its been voiced before but isn't it now a reality that needs to be accepted that GPS has made the compass and log and dead reckoning etc redundant...its quicker, more accurate more reliable and believe me no one is going to turn it off on a whim..indeed in a couple of years there will be so many complimentary systems that one here or there really will not matter......the lodestone persisted for centuries...the astrolabe likewise but technology moved on so too with the sextent ,log and compass....surely any other belief is akin to those who hark back to the 'good old days ' of motoring etc...yeah those cold , uncomfortable , unreliable cars that had poor brakes poor lights poor vision and handling only to be remembered in your worst nightmares....we must move on and embrace the technology and see it for what it is ...superior in every way.

 

[Guest]

When in deep s**t I would not be relying on technology to get me out of it. A bucket and shovel, and knowing how to use them, will more than likely save the day.

 

[chas]

The technology in my GPS seem to be more reliable than that in my log. The latter suffers from baby barnacles which seem to think that red plastic represents a surrogate mum and they love it. I have tried all sorts of ruses to discourage them but am left with the option of a clean every two weeks or no log! The compass works though.

 

[tonyleigh]

Approaching Alderney couple of weeks ago, very big spring (ie fair old tide), very dark night, going hell for leather for the Casquets and then rocks off Burhou in order to pick up leading lights off L'Etoc way out off the port bow. Heading for Cherbourg in thick fog couple of days later with the strong counter currents off Omonville!!! Come off it! Both a straightforward exercise with GPS but anything but on just log and compass. It's time we were realistic about the benefits of technology. Let's not confuse the very real argument for retaining essential good skills in traditional pilotage with some puritanical diatribe against technology. GPS is a great safety feature and the likelihood of ship's electrics, all power, drycell batteries all failing simultaneously is about as unlikely as winning the lottery!

 

[Mirelle]

XTE

Our lifeboats get a few every season, now. Usually bash the keel off on a sandbank. Good luck to you; you will make more room for the rest of us.

 

[billmacfarlane]

I agree with most of that. The technologies wonderful. It's accurate and reliable but I still use a very basic form of DR just to check the GPS position. They invariably always agree and I use the GPS position to mark the chart. Not sure about you're point re batteries. Batteries can go flat. Mind you all you've got to do is whip out you're hand held GPS with it's own internal batteryand get a postion from that.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Why you need a compass

You still need a compass, for example:
When you a marked of tidal vectors for a 12 hour voyage - say a cross channel, you will use the compass to stear the course calculated by your vectors. You would not want to stear the rum-line as given to you on the GPS, adjusting your cross track error as the tide changes, as you would end up sailing as much as 25% more distance.

What about adjusting leeway etc.

No the compass is still your main long distance stearing tool!

I agree with you about the log however still usefull for current speed as some of the older GPS's (eg Garmin 120XL) do not give a good instant speed reading, becaase they do not average the reading, so track and speed jump up and down like a yoyo.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Approaching Lymington from Cowes the other day. Along comes a heavy shower. Lymington starting hut begins to disappear. Quick squint over the top of the steering compass gives 280°. Hold that until the squall passes. No problem, no waypoints to enter, etc.

Of course I've got a GPS but apart from giving a posn to the DSC controller it doesn't do much else in pilotage. Offshore would be different, naturally, but probably only when closing the destination. After all, we managed to find France before GPS.

 

[Guest]

Down 10 miles off Weymouth a few weeks ago.
Plotting to charts every half hour but using a GPS for position.

GPS ( boat and both handhelds on boat ) both bleep and say no signal.
Few minutes later a couple of high speed RAF jets pass low overhead and keep passing for about 20 minutes.
5 minutes after they disappeared for good, GPS finds itself.

Coincidence ???

With a log and a compass, you destiny is in your own hands if all else goes wrong. I love technology but not at the expense of safety.

 

[ChrisJ]

You need both.
GPS for speed / position over a static item (the land), and log / compass for speed / direction over a moving item (the water).

I wouldn't want to do without the GPS, but equally I rely on the log and compass at least as much if not more.

Chris

 

[Guest]

My log gave up the ghost some time back, my compass works fine, my e/s went 'PHUT', and my 'old Magellan GPS' quietly trundles on oblivious to it all, apart from when I start and stop my engine - then it needs switching on again !

99% of the time, I don't need any of 'em ..... always in sight of something. BUT when I need 'em .... in terms of priority its : a)Compass then b)GPS .... rest don't work anyway !

I have a nice new dual display log / sounder ready for fitting - this winter project and then it will be : a)Compass, b)log, c)GPS .....

Yes I was taught navigation as a traditionalist, went through Transit Satnav (UGH!), Omega, Decca, Loran and now GPS ....

I LOVE GPS, wouldn't be without it ..... but please the mark-one eye-ball and compass have a definite place in all boat inventorys.

 

[Guest]

I agree with the general consensus that we need both. The technology is there - so we should use it.

But technology is not all positive........I recall the days before technology. The real feeling of exhilaration in fixing position on making a landfall - using lights, or if we were late and arrived after dawn then contours from the chart and photos from the pilot.

And then I also recall the exasperation of standing on past Alderney because the viz made the entry too difficult........

Oh .... and these were days when you had to allow an extra three hours on a cross channel passage in order to get from wherever your DR took you to where you wanted to get to.

 

[johndf]

I wouldn't be without GPS, but the precision of it can make one (me) a little careless. Recently I was putting in way points, which I hadworked out from my large scale chart (adjusted to WGS of course) and made a smallish error of 0.4 minutes latitude. My waypoint was bang on top of a drying rock but luckily the tide was low enough for the rock to be 1 metre above water level. I was alerted by my son who happeneed to look ahead and asked if we were meant to be heading for the rocks 50 metres ahead (daughter supposedly on watch had not noticed them).

Without GPS I would have been taking a lot more care to fix my position at regular intervals and avoid these rocks. So now I'm being more careful, particularly when I'm using GPS to avoid unmarked dangers. GPS is a great thing to have, but not to depend on exclusively.

 

[tonyleigh]

Um! Trying to imply too much and losing clarity - sorry. I wanted to debunk the excuse of power loss. I carry both a fixed GPS with a "senility-kindly" large display and a small hand-held with its own power supply. I also wanted to avoid the either/or argument (it appears unsuccessfully from some entries). I would carry log, compass and GPS out of choice and use the most appropriate at any time. XTE is easy to accommodate with GPS using the track display - far easier than working out tidal vectors as one contribution suggests. My main point though is that in very poor visibility, darkness or fog, and extreme or unpredictable currents the GPS plays a role that compass and log can't. Without it I should have been carried past Alderney with no hope of getting back until the tide changed for without being able to monitor my northing and easterly drift so precisely I should not have had the courage to point the bows at such a charted danger as the unlit rocks off Burhou.

 

[Guest]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against technolgy, far from it, as I make my living from computer systems. However, I have experienced some major failures in computer systems, and lets face it GPS is driven by computer programs, written by rational and stable human beings.
I agree with you that GPS is a great safety feature, but would you leave port without at least a compass on board?

 

[steffen]

It all boil down to how many trust you place on your electronics. Sailing along the dutch coast and islands i still use the compass to preplot a course and check the result half an hour later against the GPS. Gives me a good impression of current offset.
Another prime example of electronification is the use of those HF-SSB radios without a control panel; control panel is software on the laptop. I would never rely on that one: pc crashed (is known to do so), no radio. Not for me, thank you.

 

[billmacfarlane]

Totally agree Tony. Tidal vectors are never all that accurate and XTE using the GPS will be. I raised a similar thread last year as my log packed up the day I was going on holiday. I asked on the thread if I should have gone to Alderney using GPS alone. The vis was fairly limited. A surprising number of people said they would. I didn't do it as I like to have both my log and GPS working. Belt and braces I suppose. I'd never try to enter Alderney in zero vis. and without GPS.

 

[oldharry]

Perhaps I am a traditionalist, but I always thought good seamanship was like the Boy Scout - 'Be prepared'. The sea is a dodgy enough place as it is, and being ready for it means being prepared for when things go wrong....

And electronics can do just that. But then so do logs, and even the old fashioned compass will be confused by the helmsman putting down his 'Walkman' too close to it! So good seamanship demands that any available aid to position and course fixing should be up and working - and not only that, but that someone on board knows how to use them effectively!

With 2 sons well in to the computer industry (and making more money at it than I ever dreamed of!) I am well aware of the fallibility of computerised systems - not only the software bugs that exist in almost any programme, but the old adage - 'Rubbish in - Rubbish out' You only have to hit one incorrect key entering your waypoints to be sailing up Piccadily Circus! Just as it a was with the Sextant in Nelsons day...

I do not agree that 'no one will turn the GPS system off'. The on/off switch for the satellites is held by American Politicians, who if they get sufficiently p****d off with someone like Saddam using their GPS system to blow up American Soldiers, will undoubtedly pull the plug - leaving an awful lot of us lost out on the briny if we haven't bothered with compasses and logs.

Also the contributor who lost GPS when being overflown by the latest High Tech RAF toys has another and real point. Shortly after the IFOS at Portsmouth the latest High Tech American Warship 'Winston Churchill' was at anchor in the Solent. I passed within half a mile, and my faithful Garmin which has never faltered once threw a total wobbly, then demanded that it be switched off and re-initialised.

Thankfully on a good day out there that was not much of a problem, but maybe it accounts for why I was nearly run down 10 minutes later by the fishbourne Car Ferry.....

Now, which locker did I stow my steering compass in the year before last?