Minimum Passagemaker/Cruiser

"the stars serve for heading,

Better than that!


Actually their celestial nav. was really simple.

As soon as a specific star raised on the horizon (this tells time) the navigator would lay down and look for the star that was directly over the island they were heading for.He pointed , they steered the new heading..

This today is the subpoint of the body , where the star is at 90deg to the horizon , straight up.

They learned the nav. with holes poked into a shell to learn which horizon star timed which islands star.

Then ,

Turn a bird loose in daytime , follow it if it goes to shore , keep sailing if it returns to the boat.

Same technique with a pig , follow it if it heads for shore , or retrieve it if it simply circles the boat.

OT but fun, yet it will still work if you have celestial tables , after the GPS system worldwide goes down from a nuke in orbit.

FF

 

Yes indeed Fred....sailing to a setting celestial body was a common practice. Running the latitude of the body was also preferred. I still run latitude out of habit at the end of a long trip when making landfall. A fabulous book for your bookshelf is ...Emergency Navigation: Pathfinding Techniques for the Inquisitive and Prudent Mariner, by David Burch.

 

"I still run latitude out of habit at the end of a long trip when making landfall. "

...you don't seriously expect us to believe this do you michael........

 

While technically not legal, in asian waters you see quite a few vessels getting around with these spinning on top


I figure I will install one so when close to a vessel that you feel has not seen me, I can fire that up as I doubt anyone could complain that I have made my vessel "more" visible.

I prefer to just get the hell out of a big ship's way anyway

 

Yes indeed Landlubber, I still set the yacht up to run perpendicular on landfall . The last 50 or so miles. This is good seamanship for many reasons ... when you approach at a diagonal you are exposed to more inshore traffic, more fishing activity. On a perpendicular your are better able to "port to port" pass other vessels, neutralize incorrect chart data such as a light sequence change from your old chart and reduce navigational errors. The complete navigation package could go haywire, and GPS frequently goes down in the shadow of high coastal mountains, but you are still confident of your approach thru the reefs because you have been watching the current set on the gps for the past two hours and now have a good feel for eyeballing it in . You must only keep latitude by compass course and record distance covered with the log when running a perpendicular. .

When possible I always run latitude for the finally approach. To each his own. Old habits die hard...the old habits have kept me out of trouble for 40 years and a half million small craft miles.

 

I carry a high intensity strobe light at the mast head. Very effective in heavy weather to call ...."ATENTION I'm having a bad day, stand clear """, in the shipping lanes. Or I am the vessel two miles off your port bow ..SEE ME !!! Blink Bink. Also very effective when surrounded by non radar equipped small craft in tight quarters when affected by blinding shoreline backround lighting .

 

michael,

You amaze me...yes I can too understand 100 reasons why someone may do so, and the theory behind it all, but to set up to run 50nm parallel means that a lot of time and fuel is being used, do you still have a hand crank for the car and a set of points to replace the CDI when it fails?

 

Hand crank..Hmm.. Ive never owned a car in my life..always on boats, but it could be a usefull addition to a car, guess id have to do some modifications to the radiator. :idea:.

and of course you may navigate in any way which you feel safe. But, At the end of a two thousand mile passage you're tired , nervous and preoccupied with a hundred details like weather, tides, impeding port procedures, language, VTS, customs , immigration , police, dockage.. .

Have you calibrated the GPS to the correct chart datum for the new region ? Your charts will ALWAYS be out of date. You might be approaching an unfamiliar port, you might be operating with 5 or 10 percent fuel capacity in your tanks and worried about sucking air any minute. You might be approaching an ILA " A" buoyage area from an ILA "B" Area. The object is to eliminate uncertainty and build defensive sea room.

Many yachts go aground approaching Bermuda each year because of just this scenario. When approaching at a westerly perpendicular course its not possible to confuse the main channel with the north channel, even if because of bad weather you miss a buoy sequence or are completely unaware of the ILA "a" ILA " B " shift, because your coming in from the east on a St Davids head Light visual bearing . Lighthouse just dont move .. Halifax Nova Scotia, a frequent oceanic landfall has two parallel channels..inbound, outboard using red green buoys... Thats one hell of a lot of green and red buoys ,confusing for a tired crew, chomping on their last chocolate bar in the fog...but it all makes sense when you approach on a perpendicular, fetch the MoA seabouy and hold course. Run the Needles in bad weather, as you approach the Isle of Wight at an angle , youre in for stress and plenty of broken tips on your pencil as you plot updated DR's. .. When you run a perpendicular approaching Brest you can eye ball the intense Oussant lighthouse, cross the shipping channel at right angles and intuitively understand the current set without struggling with tables, GMT and corrections with pencils and paper flying across the chart table...you see it with your compass course and with your eyes .

Remember..GPS is only an aid to assist your eyes and senses. first you identify the landmark, reef, buoy, local conditions ..then double check your observations with GPS .

Also consider that I grew up without GPS and old habits die hard. DR navigation when running both Longitude and Latitude, as you cross the chart at an angle, is challenging and relies on very accurate speed time course logging and plotting. Id rather be chilling out. I find it more relaxed and comforting to waste 2 or 4 or 6 hours on landfall ETA by going conservative. The pretty girls may all have gone home but beer will still be in the pub.

And dont go on the wrong side of this bouy...or you will never get the cold beer and have a long Bermuda holiday, honest, its a yacht graveyard..great for the local salvage guys.

 

Since you admit to having little experience in planing hulls I guess we can assume sailboats. Now I believe that you have put yourself out there as probably the only person in the world to have done a half million (500,000) miles at sea in small boats in 40 years. That is over 40 hours a week, every week, for 40 years. Congradulations, you belong in the Guiness Book of World Records.

 

Im afraid not Pierre, many professional sailors hve much more. I just had lunch with a mate who is preparing to do his 40th transatlantic crossing. I have a mere 2 dozen.

 

The above comment is wrong! Never that was stated.

The accident you mentioned has nothing to do with the boats lighting, except that is was reportedly poor. (according to "Aidaluna" crew)

The skipper made just nearly every mistake one can make.
He crossed a traffic separation zone diagonally, that is idiotic.
He additionally, at the same time, tried to cross a ferry lane (he did not, as we now know). As idiotic..
He went through the upcoming, traffic of merchant ships. idiotic
He did ask (by VHF) the traffic twice, if he was seen, but did not provide his position. idiotic
He did not use his own radar because "the visibility was good".* careless
He tried his dumb attempt in a pitch black night, surrounded by lights and radar echoes in abundance. mad

"Aidaluna" has seen him, because he was a clear target, with no clutter in the background, for them. They even changed course.
The ferry crew could never see him, not even at half a mile distance. Too many echoes (true and false), and far too much light was surrounding the yacht at every time. Worse, he was either covered by other ships, and the exploration platform, or he was exactly in line with the main ARPA target of the ferry, the "Wolthusen". And the lights of the Danish coast were in the background too.

Finally, his decision to keep course until the very last second, was dumb and not to understand.
* the radar would have told him about the ferries change of course, bringing him in danger, which his eye did not. He has seen her green light all the time, he said. Perfect......

Imho, that guy is a victim of his Military education (Navy officer), apart from all the mistakes he made. He was so stuck in his "follow the rules" mentality, that he was unable to see the obvious.

One has to stay away from such traffic density when ever possible with a invisible craft like that one. And of course one never crosses two major shipping tracks diagonally and at the same time in a black night. idiotic...

 

Yeah, I was assuming such a nonsense from you! It shows again you are a layman.

A strobe light can never be estimated by other traffic. It is impossible for the human eye and brain to guess how far away a strobe light is.
It is the most dangerous and idiotic light to be installed on a boat. Luckily it is forbidden in the civilized world, except as a additional warning sign for fast craft.

But it seems you are not to stop making false claims, and spreading lies and drivel, as several other members noticed too, meanwhile. here:

What a utter nonsense again.......

YOU have 500.000 miles at sea?* And still don´t know it is UTC since ages, not GMT. Layman.....

*it was just 400.000 a few days ago! You are travelling fast, liar.

 

strobe light? Instantly blind any observers - very good!

 

Well I know you are no good at math so I now question your navigation skills.

40 crossings X 3,500 miles = 140,000. If you are going to lie at least check it with a calculator because you are even way behind this guy.

Hmmm, maybe your math is fine but you don't know how far it is across the Atlantic ocean?

 

"Remember..GPS is only an aid to assist your eyes and senses. first you identify the landmark, reef, buoy, local conditions ..then double check your observations with GPS ."....now that is true at least.....

...seeing as you grew up with the sextant, I assume that you uses traverse tables too for nav. So if you are running traverse tables, HO229 (249 whatever)..and doing your chartwork, then you are seriously better off mate simply using the GPS as it was intended to be used and relaxing a bit.....I too grew up with sextant, Sat Nav and then GPS, so understand your serious concerns and cautions, the South Pacific was my playground, and there we have no soundings till you hit the reef in many places, so old style nav was truely a mental effort, then along came a fix every 8 hours...great, now 8 times a second or something, so really Michael, why would you not make use of todays technology, respectfully considering all data, but at least have the benefit of the tension reduction by actually knowing where you are all the time instead of DR (guessing, even though it is quite accurate).....I appreciate the fact that slackness causes grief, but so does overloading oneself.......