Who needs all the latest electronics for navigation?

Good article, thanks.

Last year I read "The Barefoot Navigator" by Jack Lagan (2nd edition, adlard coles) which is about wayfinding techniques used by ancient seafarers (including the polynesians). Well worth a read.
 
I think if I knew how it all worked and could fix it having touch screen navigational aids would be great but my grasp of a simple G4 mobile phone shows I should stick ti paper and pencil!
 
Strange, followed link and got
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me too ?
 
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Just accept the cookies and the article appears.
 
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Cant be bothered to accept so what does the link say?
 
I was musing over this a while ago. I think the only bit of electronics I could not do without is the echo sounder. Everything else has a workaround (but then I date from a generation when we thought nothing of doing a channel crossing by eyeball - preferred crossing was overnight so we could we make a landfall with the loom of the lighthouses.
 
Leaving Los Aves, a Venezuelan out island, we had total power failure but we could see the Pole star, the Southern cross and Venus that follows the sun. Were were heading for Bonaire which was due east so we just pointed the bows in the direction of Venus. The Polynesians had had two ways to navigate follow the easterly trade winds and the stars.
 
I was musing over this a while ago. I think the only bit of electronics I could not do without is the echo sounder. Everything else has a workaround (but then I date from a generation when we thought nothing of doing a channel crossing by eyeball - preferred crossing was overnight so we could we make a landfall with the loom of the lighthouses.

Yes, I agree. A leadline could be used but what a pain!
 
I was musing over this a while ago. I think the only bit of electronics I could not do without is the echo sounder. Everything else has a workaround (but then I date from a generation when we thought nothing of doing a channel crossing by eyeball - preferred crossing was overnight so we could we make a landfall with the loom of the lighthouses.

Strangely, I almost never, when sailing mainly on the West Coast of Scotland, look at the echosounder. It's there, but I don't consciously look at it. I do use a fishfinder for checking the depth and condition of the seabed, when anchoring, and would miss it greatly.
 
Strangely, I almost never, when sailing mainly on the West Coast of Scotland, look at the echosounder. It's there, but I don't consciously look at it. I do use a fishfinder for checking the depth and condition of the seabed, when anchoring, and would miss it greatly.
I only turn my echosounder on when the CP shows me that I'm going over the 5m contour into shallower water and gets turned off when going in the opposite direction. Often when going to anchor or going up the River Frome to my mooring.
When I'm anchoring and expect to dry out, being bilge keel, I dip my lead line both sides of the boat to check that I'm not going to land at an embarrassing angle!
 
I was musing over this a while ago. I think the only bit of electronics I could not do without is the echo sounder. Everything else has a workaround (but then I date from a generation when we thought nothing of doing a channel crossing by eyeball - preferred crossing was overnight so we could we make a landfall with the loom of the lighthouses.

I’m the same - the echo sounder and contour lines is my only continuous navigation tool - we have recently had Navionics on an iPad downstairs but our navigation is mostly by eyeball or using GPS in its most primitive form if out of site of land to head towards a far off way point.

But I like the idea that I have some electronics available even if not often used. I do not miss the times like a foggy sail from Plymouth to the Solent and not having a clue whether we had passed a headland or not and how far off land was. Or on a 100 mile crossing in the Western Approaches on dead reckoning and having fog come up when 15 miles (possibly) off Ushant.
 
Yes, I agree. A leadline could be used but what a pain!

Surprisingly easy if you take it slow. Practised it quite a few times but only once for real with a broken echo sounder. Took our own soundings with a lead line in an amchorage in Culenra, USVI.

As you do.....
 
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