When was the last time you used Dead Reckoning/Estimated Position or took bearings in anger?

[LittleSister]

So when was the last time you (a) used Dead Reckoning/Estimated Position and (b) took bearings, in either case to actually identify your position?

Reading in another thread about someone having to fall back on DR when his chronometer failed crossing IIRC the Indian Ocean reminded me that, even allowing for having done painfully little sailing in recent years, I typically sail where I can navigate by eyeball, and otherwise have become (over?) reliant on GPS and a plotter (despite promising myself otherwise when I first started using them). I can't now actually remember when I last did 'proper' navigation.

How about you?

 

[Graham376]

Maybe 20 years ago.

 

[Stemar]

I typically sail where I can navigate by eyeball, and otherwise have become (over?) reliant on GPS and a plotter (despite promising myself otherwise when I first started using them). I can't now actually remember when I last did 'proper' navigation.

Same. While they're useful fall-back skills, I reckon not knowing where you are is an over-rated experience.

So when was the last time you (a) used Dead Reckoning/Estimated Position and (b) took bearings, in either case to actually identify your position?

Dazed Kipper course, probably.

 

[Poignard]

I sometimes do a 3-point fix using bearings from a hand compass or transits. Just to keep my hand in.

 

[Poignard]

I sometimes do a 3-point fix using bearings from a hand compass or transits. Just to keep my hand in.

... and to check the accuracy of the GPS. I don't trust these new-fangled gadgets.

 

[colind3782]

Day Skipper course many years ago

 

[R.Ems]

YM Practical, to actually find our position; but I often take HBC fixes just for something to do, because I find it satisfying. Also if there is crew who wants to learn how.
I must say I have only done a Running Fix (using a displaced position line) once, to learn the method.

 

[srm]

If I am honest, pre-GPS and chart plotter + ground vector days, but then I had plenty of practice before GPS as an RYA YM instrutor.

I do however automatically use ad hoc transits to check for cross set on harbour approaches and in channels and to make sure the chart plotter position matches the real world. I have seen my plotter track running along the beach, or a bit further inland, while my eyes told me I was really in mid channel.

 

[Daydream believer]

Most of my sailing from Bradwell to Brest is in the sight of land so just looking at the coast tells me where I am. Around the Thames estuary there are so many wind farms that I have noted transits among them. I do have bearings for crossing things like the Sunk sands but these are just steering from the ships compass. Coming back from Ostend I can find the end of the Gunfleet sands at night when leaving the Longsand by looking at a transit on the radar mast at Clacton. So whilst I do not take sights I no longer have to because I have learned that the end of the wind farm is in line with the transformer one on the next wind farm, or whatever.
So effectively I am doing bearings, but I no longer need to get the hand bearing compass out, unless I am doing something a bit awkward- like homing on the Roustel by looking for the Platte & Tautenay to the Little Russel Channel at night. I often do that & enjoy it. So every year I do a trip involving a couple of exercises with the hand bearing compass.

 

[R.Ems]

My HBC is always in use, it is like an extension of my eyeballs, and I feel naked without it.
Bearings eg clearing, are used for passage planning below, then marked on the chart which comes on deck, then you have a 'safe or dangerous' position line. I am like a nervous cat on a hot tin roof, without these basic preparations!

 

[R.Ems]

Most of my sailing from Bradwell to Brest is in the sight of land so just looking at the coast tells me where I am. Around the Thames estuary there are so many wind farms that I have noted transits among them. I do have bearings for crossing things like the Sunk sands but these are just steering from the ships compas. Coming back from Ostend I can find the end of the Gunfleet sands at night when leaving the Longsand by looking at a transit on the radar mast at Clacton. So whilst I do not take sights I no longer have to because I have learned that the end of the wind farm is in line with the transformer one on the next wind farm, or whatever.
So effectively I am doing bearings, but I no longer need to get the hand bearing compas out, unless I am doing something a bit awkward- like homing on the Roustel by looking for the Platte & Tautenay to the Little Russel Channel at night. I often do that & enjoy it. So every year I do a trip involving a couple of exercises with the hand bearing compass.

Amazing local knowledge!

 

[capnsensible]

My HBC is always in use, it is like an extension of my eyeballs, and I feel naked without it.
Bearings eg clearing, are used for passage planning below, then marked on the chart which comes on deck, then you have a 'safe or dangerous' position line. I am like a nervous cat on a hot tin roof, without these basic preparations!

Best instrument on a yacht for me.

 

[srm]

Amazing local knowledge!

Yes, very impressive.

However, it used to be the case that in order to obtain an MCA Boatmaster's Licence the candidate had to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the licence area so as to not need to refer to a chart while navigating in the area. All lights, buoys, marks, hazards, tidal streams etc had to be known along with the safe courses. Likewise candidates for a ship's Pilot Licence have to demonstrate a similar level of knowledge for their area.

It may well still be the case but I am a bit out of date.

 

[johnalison]

1987. The following year I fitted Decca.

 

[PhillM]

Only when I needed it and then I failed. There is thread about how I screwed up after a too-long single handed passage that ended in fog, on a rock and a mayday. All gps instruments failed and so did my decision making.

Lets just say that I learned a lot that passage. One learning is that don’t trust gps anywhere near as much as I used to. It can and does fail.

 

[Biggles Wader]

Not needed to in "anger" for many years but I always have the hand bearing compass available and use it for a bit of practice and for checking bearings against other shipping. I have a gps which I switch on rarely just to make sure it still works.

 

[LONG_KEELER]

I hired a rowing boat at Dedham. Chuffed that I found my way back without using any instruments.

 

[Poignard]

I hired a rowing boat at Dedham. Chuffed that I found my way back without using any instruments.

And you couldn't see where you were going. ?

 

[Robin]

Knowing how IMHO is fundamental to working up a CTS to compensate for anticipated tidal flows especially on cross Channel trips. I even had a planning program that did it but still did the manual one as did Milady when she did her YM shorebased course and we competed to see which of us 3 got it spot on , usually both humans beat the planner program.

 

[MADRIGAL]

So when was the last time you (a) used Dead Reckoning/Estimated Position and (b) took bearings, in either case to actually identify your position?

Reading in another thread about someone having to fall back on DR when his chronometer failed crossing IIRC the Indian Ocean reminded me that, even allowing for having done painfully little sailing in recent years, I typically sail where I can navigate by eyeball, and otherwise have become (over?) reliant on GPS and a plotter (despite promising myself otherwise when I first started using them). I can't now actually remember when I last did 'proper' navigation.

How about you?

I routinely use DR when out of sight of land, and transits and bearings over the steering compass using the mark 1 eyeball when along along the coast. I should get out the hand bearing compass more than I do just to practise. I do have a handheld Garmin GPS/Plotter, but I seldom think to look at it, because the screen is small enough to that I would have to find my reading glasses. It is a great tool for looking back at the track I have taken, although it sometimes shows up a few surprises: like the island I know I didn't sail over, or the buoy I know that I left to port instead of starboard.