Who needs all the latest electronics for navigation?

[rotrax]

I don't think it would smell better, it's rendered animal fat.

IIRC Tallow was usually-but not always-mutton fat.

A bit pongy when ripe...............................

 

[Greenheart]

A lesson learned after the Indian Mutiny?
I'd no idea British small-boat types were so sensitive.

 

[Poignard]

You've not met the Portuguese Policia Maritima then?

There was a case a good few years ago, possibly Spain, where a fishing boat hit an anchored leisure vessel on anchor. The leisure vessel (can't remember whether power or sail) was found at fault for not showing correct light.

Yes but was he showing a light of the kind I described ? Was he showing any light at all?

 

[doug748]

......

Think the problem with parrafin lights is meeting the regs on visibility.

Always having used an oil light, I wondered about this, being quite sure in my own mind that most would be invisible at two miles.
When I upgraded my anchor illumination for the 21 century, with a miner's lamp, I thought about the matter again. The internet was indecisive, thinking the distance a candle could be seen was anything between 1000 metres and 30 miles, less than helpful.

MIT has since come to the rescue with a paper on the question:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/539826/how-far-can-the-human-eye-see-a-candle-flame/

So there we have it, if your light is as bright as a candle you could see it at 2.7 kilometres - by calculation.
One day I am going to try it by experiment, one day.

PS,
I agree with the above, the greatest problem I get, coming into an anchorage at night, are boats with no lights at all, zilch, nothing.

 

[Graham376]

Yes but was he showing a light of the kind I described ? Was he showing any light at all?

I think he was using garden lights. Most oil lamps I've seen used wouldn't meet the two mile rule although reasonable when closer, particularly as they're lower level than masthead which are pretty useless although meeting the regs.

 

[Graham376]

MIT has since come to the rescue with a paper on the question:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/539826/how-far-can-the-human-eye-see-a-candle-flame/

So there we have it, if your light is as bright as a candle you could see it at 2.7 kilometres - by calculation.
One day I am going to try it by experiment, one day.

Pretty useless paper from a practical point of view. Takes no account of background of brighter shore lights or other boats displaying brighter ones to which eyes are drawn.

 

[Kukri]

You've not met the Portuguese Policia Maritima then?

There was a case a good few years ago, possibly Spain, where a fishing boat hit an anchored leisure vessel on anchor. The leisure vessel (can't remember whether power or sail) was found at fault for not showing correct light.

Bah! That’s nothing - there’s an American case where a ship hit a bridge and the bridge was found alone to blame for not showing the proper lights.

 

[doug748]

Pretty useless paper from a practical point of view. Takes no account of background of brighter shore lights or other boats displaying brighter ones to which eyes are drawn.

It's raises a good point.

At what level does a boat exceeding the requirements actually affect the safety of others who only meet the regulation. Is the more light the better, 4 miles, 6miles, 8 miles maybe?
Is there a point where lighting becomes a distraction? Would it affect shipping on the wider stage? Are there environmental considerations? Is it seemly in a quiet anchorage or does the best man win?

My view it is best not to encourage nob-ends when it comes to lights, we have enough without.

 

[Elessar]

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.

+ 1 to that. But I did like an RDF.

 

[Greenheart]

I can't pretend to have done it myself, but there must be much greater satisfaction available from planning a passage on a chart, then navigating by visual (or audible*) proofs (or sufficient evidence from soundings) of one's whereabouts, and reaching a day or more later, a position close to where your reckoning calculated.

It may not be easy or even prudent to invariably rely on non-technical ways which are ultimately more fallible than the icy certainty of satellite-established GPS, amid fleets of other vessels who haven't used the old ways, but it's got to be more pleasing when it works.

I'd never suggest foregoing keeping a GPS set on board, in order to back-up one's conclusions.

Looking back, before anyone had GPS, I did once sail a dinghy from Chichester to Seaview, with barely a mile's visibility, and with no compass, chart, means of sounding or any knowledge of the tidal currents. Is that luck, or was I born to dead-reckon?

* I was thinking of foghorns. But I guess most foghorns at fixed locations are silent these days, because everyone has GPS.

 

[RupertW]

I can't pretend to have done it myself, but there must be much greater satisfaction available from planning a passage on a chart, then navigating by visual (or audible*) proofs (or sufficient evidence from soundings) of one's whereabouts, and reaching a day or more later, a position close to where your reckoning calculated.

It may not be easy or even prudent to invariably rely on non-technical ways which are ultimately more fallible than the icy certainty of satellite-established GPS, amid fleets of other vessels who haven't used the old ways, but it's got to be more pleasing when it works.

I'd never suggest foregoing keeping a GPS set on board, in order to back-up one's conclusions.

Looking back, before anyone had GPS, I did once sail a dinghy from Chichester to Seaview, with barely a mile's visibility, and with no compass, chart, means of sounding or any knowledge of the tidal currents. Is that luck, or was I born to dead-reckon?

* I was thinking of foghorns. But I guess most foghorns at fixed locations are silent these days, because everyone has GPS.

It was - on a typical overnight Channel crossing at the western end (say Falmouth to Morgat), you would be out of sight of land within a few hours and not see Ushant or North Brittany until some time the next morning. So having already worked out the net effect of all the tides over the period and set an offset course accordingly you would then note course and log reading on change of watch - and at some point, perhaps every 8 hours, then 4 then 2 - you’d plot the vectors and see the long S shape course marked out with crosses on the chart. Then see how much you were off on landfall which was surprisingly little.

But any fog and the whole thing becomes far far more stressful once within an estimated 5-10 miles of land after a 100 mile crossing so once GPS arrived (for us in 93) we bought it straight away even though it was like a foot high mobile phone and took 15 minutes (and a quarter of the capacity of the 6 AA batteries) to get a new fix. You couldn’t leave it on as the batteries would go within a couple of hours. But a complete game changer as the method remained just the same but the vector plotting was no longer needed and the crosses on the chart could be trusted.