Who needs all the latest electronics for navigation?

capnsensible said:
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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I have done it. In the days when impecunious yachstmen such as I then was had no instruments. A lead line and a calibrated bamboo pole is all that I had. It's perfectly do-able but when it's cold and wet, I'd prefer to look at an echo sounder than have cold water running down my sleeve.
 
I still have a lead line, and sometimes use it from the dinghy, when exploring anchorages or possible passages. Only recently changed it from fathoms to these new-fangled metre things. :D
 
Poignard said:
I have done it. In the days when impecunious yachstmen such as I then was had no instruments. A lead line and a calibrated bamboo pole is all that I had. It's perfectly do-able but when it's cold and wet, I'd prefer to look at an echo sounder than have cold water running down my sleeve.
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The bamboo pole, marked in feet, with the boat’s draft marked into the bargain, kept up the starboard shrouds, was the badge of the true Thames Estuary boat.
 
When I started sailing in March 1965 on my parents new Kingfisher 30. We had a log, Seafarer echo sounder, a radio directional finder and a compass. That first year sailing as a family we sailed from Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppy, Kent to Torquay in Devon. It took 4 weeks in the school summer holidays to get there and back. Quite a feat when you consider what we had to learn so much in a short time.

The following year we made Ostend and I remember meeting a singlehander in a small old wooden gaff rigger yacht. He asked which port he was in as he had no idea. We were puzzled how he got there and said he left Ramsgate and pointed south east and he knew he could arrive anywhere from Boulogne to Ostend! Never did ask how he got home.

In the early 1970's we were racing our Nicholson 30 in Burnham Week and the advanced echo sounder stopped working. Not ideal for racing in the River Crouch when beating against the tide in the River Crouch. We managaed to buy a Seafarer echo sounder and taped the transducter to the boat hook and I had the job of holding it in the water on every tack into the shore. Not fun, but we did not run aground. Sailing on the East Coast it is essential to have an echo sounder.

Later when I raced my own Hunter Formula One in the early 1980's, only an echo sounder and a compass were fitted. This was really sailing by the seat of your pants as it was like an overgrown dinghy. One day we tried a towed electronic log whilst planing and it stayed hard on 10 knots as it could not read any higher. So sailing at peak performance was always a matter of judgement rather than by measurement.

Even today I try to estimate my boat speed through the water and usually am accurate to within ¼ of a knot. So I still use the mark 1 eyeball for a lot of my navigation and hardly ever set waypoints on the chart plotter. It just makes sailing that a bit more challenging as generally you do not need to that precise for most of a journey and allows me sometimes to change my destination according to the weather.
 
Concerto said:
...when I raced my own Hunter Formula One in the early 1980's, only an echo sounder and a compass were fitted. This was really sailing by the seat of your pants as it was like an overgrown dinghy. One day we tried a towed electronic log whilst planing and it stayed hard on 10 knots as it could not read any higher.
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There's a Hunter Formula One in Truro, on Apollo Duck at the moment, asking £3,000. I've been thinking, I almost could...:rolleyes:

But honestly, what appeals most is something incredibly basic like a bilge-keel Corribee with no electronics at all.

Nothing to charge, nothing to go wrong...okay, I'd keep a handheld w/proof VHF and GPS strapped to my L.J for safety, because why not, when they're cheap and reliable...and being portable, there'd be nothing to leave on board for thieves...

...I did look hard at oil nav-lights, but even the most ardent traditionalists seem to be won-over by the efficiency of LEDs...

...and obviously, I'd take my phone, because I like to capture on video the wonderful pleasure of escaping from all the technology. :rolleyes:

I even found a company selling ten-foot oars that could serve for sculling on and off the mooring, in lieu of an auxiliary. I guess I would have an outboard as well, but only for when I've drifted into the prospect of imminent disaster.

It's all very appealing.

Cheap, reliable, encourages self-reliance and the study of real navigation. Why are Corribees only for sale in Wales or the East Coast? :dejection:
 
Headroom is the reason I didn't buy a nice one, three years ago, very close to home. I was simply shocked at the lack of space inside.

Metaphorically though, the boat fits in my wallet.

I've got used to the idea of partially-reclining, longways on a sofa, not sitting on them facing athwartship, head hitting the ceiling.

I bought an Acme air-horn a while back, as a move towards equipment that wouldn't require electricity. I've only blown it once in the flat, we could hear the parakeet downstairs squawking in surprise. I'll try it properly soon, attached it to a foot-pump.

I'd fit a Corribee with a removable table too - big enough for two-person feasts, or half-folded chart. Don't want a plotter on board. :disgust:
 
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Echo Sounder is the only thing I need. Lead line not very practical in the upper reaches of the Bristol Channel as it only works if virtually stationary and out in the the stream it runs at 3kts and sandbanks come and go and wrecked many a boat back in the day. Without it I would have to stick to the main channels and get in the way of container ships whose skippers were nervously consulting charts and depths and tide tables, and I wouldnt be able to explore unfamiliar pills (creeks to the rest of you).

AIS receiver also a great comfort in keeping clear of the unwieldy monsters, but managed without for years
 
NormanS said:
I still have a lead line, and sometimes use it from the dinghy, when exploring anchorages or possible passages. Only recently changed it from fathoms to these new-fangled metre things. :D
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We carry an improvised “leadline” (two cheap heavy shackles on a bit of marked nylon string). But primarily used in harbours.
Used, mainly in harbours that often are far shallower than their harbour masters claim (St Peter Port being one of the worst examples of porkie pies from harbour staff :), to try to find a place where can stay afloat.
Frequently have to walk around sounding from the pontoons to find a suitable berth - can’t do that with the ship’s sounder
 
A lead line works well at any speed that an ordinary cruising yacht may achieve.

1. Belay the inboard end. Better safe than sorry.
2. Hold the coil in your left hand if right handed or vice versa.
3. Stand somewhere where you won’t go OB eg behind a shroud.
4. Take about a fathom of line and the lead in your right hand, whirl the lead round in a circle and throw it well ahead of the boat.
5. Take in the slack so the lead line is vertical as the boat passes it, lift the lead off the bottom to be sure, note the mark or the deep, call it out and haul the lead back up.

This is easier with a 7lbs lead, because it sinks faster.
 
dunedin said:
We carry an improvised “leadline” (two cheap heavy shackles on a bit of marked nylon string). But primarily used in harbours.
Used, mainly in harbours that often are far shallower than their harbour masters claim (St Peter Port being one of the worst examples of porkie pies from harbour staff :), to try to find a place where can stay afloat.
Frequently have to walk around sounding from the pontoons to find a suitable berth - can’t do that with the ship’s sounder
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Many years ago, when entering Wick harbour, with a much bigger boat, we ran aground right in the entrance. "Ah!", said the Harbour Master, "we dredged the entrance channel, using a digger from each side, and we couldn't quite reach the middle".
 
Doubtless 7lbs will pull the lead-line down with helpful rapidity.

I wonder what HSE would make of chaps on deck lobbing 3kg chunks of metal around.

I'm getting one on principle, ready for when I have a yacht. :encouragement:

Any more pre-tech substitutes, I can start listing?
 
Minn said:
A 7lbs hand lead used to be the standard small size. 14lbs was the standard large size. You want it to sink fast and you want to be able to tell when it’s just on the bottom.
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Yes, but do you "arm" your lead with tallow, so that in fog for example, you can tell whether you are just off the sewage works yet? :D
 
NormanS said:
Yes, but do you "arm" your lead with tallow, so that in fog for example, you can tell whether you are just off the sewage works yet? :D
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Yes, I do understand that this thread is at least partly humorous. But since I have done it for real, when crewing for someone who started sailing in the early fifties and who did not carry an echosounder, I can answer based on my own experience:

Tallow only works if the temperature is reasonably warm. If it’s really cold, you will do better with stern tube grease. Mind you, if it’s really cold you can only manage about three casts before your hands give up.
 
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I bet tallow smells better than lube oil. And much better than echo-sounder wiring.

:confused:

What actually is tallow? Forty-odd years after hearing of it, I finally start to wonder.

I've definitely heard that an oil-lamp can be made to burn very brightly, as an anchor light. I'd like one, to increase the sense of not needing electricity, even if I end up cursing the oil drips and smell and wind-blown flickering flame. Good idea, or not?
 
dancrane said:
I've definitely heard that an oil-lamp can be made to burn very brightly, as an anchor light. I'd like one, to increase the sense of not needing electricity, even if I end up cursing the oil drips and smell and wind-blown flickering flame. Good idea, or not?
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You have to get the right sort of lamp. Many so-called 'hurricane lamps' will blow out in a F5.

I found that out the hard way, when having persuaded a friend we could anchor his boat for the night quite far out to sea, but between sandbanks, and be sheltered except at high tide, I discovered (a) his electric nav lights didn't work, (b) the oil lamp he had was repeatedly blown out, and (c) the cosy spot I'd picked between the banks was just yards from what seemed to be a direct route between waypoints favoured by the entire Crouch fishing fleet for heading home. It was a very nerve wracking night with little sleep!
 
That sounds dire!

I'm thinking, a nice robust serviceable oil-lamp made for the serious outdoor purpose...

...with an equally serviceable LED back-up, for the night when I finally ask myself why on earth I chose to make life harder than it could be. :rolleyes:
 
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