Vara
Well-Known Member
I've got two beautifully crafted mahogany latch thingies with 4 countersunk screw holes, in five years I have yet to find out what they are for, oh and an enterprise mainsail under the fore bunk.
What totally useless item do you have on the boat besides yourself?
- Thread starter Nostrodamus
- Start date
30boat
N/A
A very expensive when new Icom M710 ssb and a Nasa Navtex that stopped working years ago.
Nostrodamus
Well-Known Member
It is very rare we hand steer at all unless we are going in or out a marina. Most of the time we use the auto pilot.
We also have a chart plotter at the helm and can usually see which way we are going.
There are times when we go out I have even forgotten to take the cover off the compass.
That is why I can never remember using it and yes, it does not make a good drinks holder.
We also have a chart plotter at the helm and can usually see which way we are going.
There are times when we go out I have even forgotten to take the cover off the compass.
That is why I can never remember using it and yes, it does not make a good drinks holder.
Elessar
Well-Known Member
a lobster pot. I can't seem to catch lobsters with elastic bands on their claws and am too squeamish to take them out otherwise
GrahamM376
Well-Known Member
+1
I don't understand the comment about GPS COG lag in post above as our GPS cockpit repeater updates very quickly.
On occasions, in bad visibility, when we have had to follow a narrow channel through submerged rocky areas with a cross tide, I put a waypoint each side into the GPS from the chart, and then click the pilot onto "track". It will keep us within 0.01NM cross track error, much more accurate than chasing the compass, which only gives a heading and no drift information.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
Does anyone else have the herby jeebies when I read how some people pilot their boats.
With the greatest of respect to the post above, I find some posts very very worrying.
onesea
Well-Known Member
John
I see no harm as long as they know the dangers. I rely on similar principle coming out of my river when its quite. It means i do not have to keep tweaking the course to stay in the channel as the current varies from nothing to over a knot. Instead I get the fenders stowed boom cover off, headsail on deck etc.
As for the compass I have only used it in anger twice in 10 years, i can understand the sentiment even if I would not remove it.
Useless things I have sailed with:
Fluffy dice,
Brought from last boat to this boat Dog bouls, I have not had dogs for over 6 years.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
We obviously have very difference attitudes to sailing and what we consider to be acceptable…
Some people don't even leave their mooring without the boom cover off. If I was examining someone and they left the mainsail cover on, I would be 'giving them a simulated engine failure' as soon as it was safe to do so.
I put the boat on autopilot to go down river, but I don't rely on the GPS to tell me where I am in narrow channels. I am afraid that I am old fashioned and rely on transits and the echo sounder.
As it happens I rarely hand steer, but going longer distances out of site of land, I will always plot a course to steer as its a MUCH quicker way of getting there than asking the GPS what the course to the waypoint is. I then set this up against the main steering compass as I know its accurate. Notwithstanding this, I am an avid user of the GPS to check where I am vs what I see, and there are lots of threads on here about how using the GPS to steer a course along the track between two points over more than one tide is quite a bit slower than plotting a course to steer in open water. I humbly suggest allowing the GPS and pilot to steer in the manner you suggest is also slightly worrying in very confined waters. In very confounded space I would feel very uncomfortable not being either near or on the helm and not having a transit or a set of clearing bearings if no transits were available. In the event of equipment failure would you really know where you are and where the nearest dangers were? If its an entrance you know very well and all is obvious, and you could always grab the helm and steer appropriately then you might be ok, but doing it as a matter of course for places you might not know very well (which I seemed to understand you implied in your original post) is something I would be very uncomfortable with.
GrahamM376
Well-Known Member
So tell me then - how do you steer accurately in a fairly narrow channel IN FOG, where there are no buoys to see on radar, no chart plotter and with varying unpredictable cross tides and eddies, nothing within view to take a bearing from - just by watching a compass.
Nostrodamus
Well-Known Member
We are cruising sailors not racers so we are in no rush to get somewhere and to be honest helming a boat is boring 99% of the time.We are often short handed as well. When the auto pilot is on you have more chance to take in your surroundings and check anything you are not sure of. We have not been in familiar waters or harbours for the last three years so a lot of the pilotage is done before you even consider hauling up the anchor.
GrahamM376
Well-Known Member
Much the same as us. We sail short handed and when you set off across maybe Biscay, don't know what the weather will be when entering an unfamiliar Ria so there has to be a contingency plan. We navigate traditionally using paper charts with the waypoints transferred to GPS, not just by clicking a point into a chart plotter.
Problem comes when viz suddenly closes in and there's nothing to take a transit on. I well remember being blind except for radar at the southerly section of the Du Four with a good spring tide running, not a pleasant experience where 50 metres cross track error in a couple of places would have spelt disaster. Under those circumstances a good inboard autopilot driven by GPS can be more accurate and quicker to react than hand steering.
No doubt we have some here who also feel pilots should still navigate by sextant and fly manually even when IMC.
blackbeard
Well-Known Member
Most useless item - a wind speed and direction indicator with a display in the cockpit. Even apart from the fact that it didn't work. But then I'm a dinghy sailor at heart, and feel that the helmsman should know what the wind it doing without needing a machine to tell him.
Not perhaps the most useless item - it kept the batteries topped up nicely - but the one I was most glad to get rid of: the wind generator. Just too big for the boat, and the whirly blades altogether too close to my head. And noisy. On a larger boat, might have been fine.
The one most sworn at: the inflatable dinghy. Just too damn big, and heavy. And nearly impossible to stow. And doing its best to give me a Bad Back. Maybe I will get a smaller one, one day (see another thread).
Not perhaps the most useless item - it kept the batteries topped up nicely - but the one I was most glad to get rid of: the wind generator. Just too big for the boat, and the whirly blades altogether too close to my head. And noisy. On a larger boat, might have been fine.
The one most sworn at: the inflatable dinghy. Just too damn big, and heavy. And nearly impossible to stow. And doing its best to give me a Bad Back. Maybe I will get a smaller one, one day (see another thread).
JumbleDuck
Well-Known Member
Ooh, just thought of another useless thing, prompted by blackbeard's mention of instruments: the B&G log. It invariably fouls up after about two weeks afloat and I can't be bothered with the hassle of removing it to clean the crud off. If I ever care about speed, GPS does fine and I have a nice, comforting Walker log for distance.
MARNEN
Well-Known Member
I have 2 hand bearing compasses. Utterly useless on a steel boat.
However Sestrel fixed compass is used all the time. Can be read from the stern when setting up the wind vane steering.
However Sestrel fixed compass is used all the time. Can be read from the stern when setting up the wind vane steering.
prv
Well-Known Member
I've had a number of engine failures over the years, including two among the pontoons on our river. I still don't make a big deal of having Ariam's mainsail uncovered and ready to hoist.
The reason is that it's a fully-battened sail, with cars and lazy jacks, and you have to be pointing dead into wind to get the thing up. You also need to release the mainsheet, which is at the aft end of the cockpit behind the obstacle of the wheel, while the halyard is at the forward end. Getting the main up is not a five-second operation.
Fortunately, the boat sails quite nicely under just the genoa. That just needs the furling line brake opened and a sheet hauled in. I wouldn't let the whole lot out, at least to begin with, as less speed means more time and all we need is reliable steerage way. With reduced sail, we can probably just use the winches as snubbers and work the headsail smartly by hand as we manoeuvre.
The three things I think of when the engine makes a funny noise are momentum, headsail, and anchor. Not mainsail.
Pete
prv
Well-Known Member
I have a bottle of Factor 50 and a bottle of after-sun in the medical box. Unlikely to need them myself, but I have a mate who must have a vampire somewhere in his family tree the way he reacts to sun.
Pete
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
Its a fair point - although every boat is different. Most boats will sail moderately well under genoa only, but many need the main as well to be really under control.
Searush
Well-Known Member
But main alone can be a real pain. If the sheet tangles, you can't bear away.
john_morris_uk
Well-Known Member
What on earth would anyone in their right mind be doing in such a situation? Its a classic case of the wonders of electronics (for which I rejoice daily) eroding a huge amount of common sense and seamanship.
As it happens we have radar, and hopefully the radar would allow one to plot distance off known land masses, but even with radar and a working GPS I suggest one should be thinking twice or three times before entering a narrow channel with hazards in fog. A quick dose of TLE (total electrical failure) and you would be reaching for the anchor and if that didn't hold then it would be time for the handheld VHF for the RNLI to get you off the rocks... Just because the electronics allow one to do something doesn't make it sensible?
Anyway, we all cut out own wakes and that would be my two pennyworth on the subject.
Simondjuk
Well-Known Member
Mine tells me plenty about what's going to happen.