How changing habits of navigation affect us

[Happ]

Originally Posted by requiem

I hesitated to mention this case as there were a number of factors contributing. One of the significant issues had to do with the charts they were using for planning, and this was revealed by a last-minute change to the race area. I.e. the normal planning included a detailed route check, but the last-minute change (i.e. the night before the race) meant the check was done on the navigator's personal laptop which lacked sufficiently detailed charts.

As a result, I consider the pricing models for charts to have contributed to that grounding. Were they reasonably priced each system involved in the planning and navigation would likely have been equipped with a complete and sufficient set of charts, rather than the mish-mash they sailed with.



(Glances at the heading-up vs north-up thread...) Perhaps I can interest you in the word of the One True Presentation, otherwise known as "North Up" mode?

I was trying to make a point about spatial orientation. When I was a private pilot I preferred N up. As a driver I prefer direction up.

[edlepera]

Having learn sextant , RDF, loran paper charts in the 70’s. I still like paper charts And paper cruising guides. Satellite navigation was amazing when it came out. Except for the occasional quirks of randomly showing it’s position five miles away. I prefer a combination of dead reckoning, combine with electronic gps, eyeballing landmarks, chart plotter as well as studying a paper chart before enters strange port. The chart for my home port is laminated but every few years I get an updated one.

[aqfishing]

Originally Posted by StuM

I get a 404- Page not found when I click on the link in Post#1

Me too!!! See attached!

[thesaltytar]

This is a good example of a navigational error, and like many catastrophic failures has several contributing factors.

It reminds me of something similar when was on watch, alone, in the wheelhouse if a fishing boat somewhere along the Aleutian chain. Captain was sleeping. I was a humble bait boy but had sailing and navigational background and I was just following the plot the captain put down. Out of nowhere this line of breaking waves appear, I turn hard starboard, captain wakes up. I zoomed in on the chart (electronic plotter) and read the word BREAKERS in the middle of an otherwise deep patch of water that didn't appear until zoomed in on. So yes, things like that absolutely happen.

My observation is that increasingly we look inside the boat for navigational reference datum as opposed to outside. I'm not saying it's wrong. Just that it changes the way we think spatially.

Another example.

I was on watch conducting rounds on a 1925 fishing schooner on approach to the Strait of Canso, bisecting Nova Scotia (we were traveling north). We hit ground (all rock) at full steam and it dropped me to my knees. The officer of the deck made several mistakes, 1) didn't wake the captain upon sight of land, as requested, 2) didn't listen to the helmsman when notified of decreasing depth, 3) was down below taking a plot instead of on deck noticing we had drifted out of the channel and passed the marker on the wrong side. Thankfully no major damage done and we refloated following tide.

You could make the argument that paper charts caused that failure because of the difficulty in getting a plot. You could argue that an electronic chart plotter would have compensated for the inability of the mate to take an expedient fix. That's not really the issue. Ultimately the vessel left the channel because of a disconnect between reconciling external datum to internal datum.

External datum can be hard to interpret. Can you see the buoy? Is a buoy more reliable than a GPS fix? You could make the argument that we should only navigate electronically because it is so reliable.

I think there are points of navigation where the electronic, internally referenced methods are in every way superior (faster, easier) and this tends to be when the electronic data is technically rich and the surrounding visual references are relatively devoid of information. Wide open sea.

The importance of physical aids to navigation is that they reference a quickly changing spatial landscape because they move relative to it. When we get close to land and switch from navigating to piloting visually referenced data becomes more important. Electronics are fantastic for disambiguation purposes but there is a lot of visual nuance lost in electronic navigation alone (this includes radar).

I question if people make a conscious change from one navigational method to another, and how failing to make that conscious change back may impact navigational choices.

(Also, North Up!)

[thesaltytar]

Originally Posted by aqfishing

Me too!!! See attached!

Sorry everyone!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/art...6/#!po=82.6923

^^^ this is the right link!

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Happ

As I read this I thought of an around the world race a few years back. Here is a multi million dollar custom built 60’ boat for this race with ever piece of gear you could want. A full time navigator looking at weather predictions. He gave a course to steer. In the middle of the night the boat doing 17 knots runs aground on an atoll!!! The boat is destroyed. The error was simple. The navigator didn’t to see if there were any obstructions between where they were and where they headed.

That is a slight over simplification. The Vestas navigator's electronic charts did not show the atol system, Cargados Carajos Shoals, that was lying across his course unless he zoomed in to basically the exact place where they were. It would have to have been within about 25 miles. On a 1400 mile leg that means he would have had to zoom in every 50 miles along the leg. Only at that zoom level did the atols pop up. I know this because I spent several hours at my chart plotter using the same charts that they had trying to find these same atols after being told that they were about 250 limes north east of me (in Mauritius). When I was given the lon/lat I zoomed into the correct location and wow!, there they were. The leg they were on was not the course they'd planned to sail and was only decided upon after they left port. In port they had more resources to examine the planned route. So, at sea, withut those resources, they messed up, but the charts were partially at fault.

Paper charts of the Indian Ocean, regardless of scale, show that atol system. They would not have made the mistake if the course was plotted on a paper chart.

There has been a call to change the electronic charts to prevent this problem. I don't know if it has been done or if many navigators would have the newer versions, if there are any.

I do a seminar on how to prevent shipwrecks when using today's systems. I have 5 case studies of shipwrecks of cruising boats with information directly from the skipper's own account. In every case the chart plotter and electronic chart they were using showed the danger. But in all cases they were using eyeball navigation and didn't see the objects that they hit.

So it is not an easy thing to miss hitting a reef with your boat. It takes skill and careful observation. Regardless of the reliability of GPS or the redundancy onboard your vessel, it is only the skipper or navigator's vigilance which can prevent navigation errors and shipwrecks. What charts you have, paper or electronic, the challenge is the same.

Too many of today's sailors take the job too casually.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by requiem

I hesitated to mention this case as there were a number of factors contributing. One of the significant issues had to do with the charts they were using for planning, and this was revealed by a last-minute change to the race area. I.e. the normal planning included a detailed route check, but the last-minute change (i.e. the night before the race) meant the check was done on the navigator's personal laptop which lacked sufficiently detailed charts...

No, Vestas was equipped with two laptop computers at the nav station and the charts onboard had all the detail, but the atol did not show up when zoomed out.

[thesaltytar]

Originally Posted by wingssail

...


I do a seminar on how to prevent shipwrecks when using today's systems. I have 5 case studies of shipwrecks of cruising boats with information directly from the skipper's own account. In every case the chart plotter and electronic chart they were using showed the danger. But in all cases they were using eyeball navigation and didn't see the objects that they hit.



....



Too many of today's sailors take the job too casually.

Where can I/we get more information on your seminar? (I was going to PM you but felt this is relevant to the discussion if you feel comfortable sharing.)

[requiem]

Originally Posted by wingssail

No, Vestas was equipped with two laptop computers at the nav station and the charts onboard had all the detail, but the atol did not show up when zoomed out.

Yes, I agree that there was a significant chart error in that C-Map had omitted the atoll from the small-scale chart. In contrast the atoll shows quite clearly on the small-scale Admiralty ENC I have for the area.

However, the laptops had additional issues. Per the report:

144. The navigator received advice about the change to the East African Exclusion Zone late on the 18 November, about 2100, the night before the start. He plotted it on his personal laptop and was not alarmed by the change or its consequences. He was more concerned with the immediate strong wind forecast and conditions for the start and the first days of the race. The navigator did, however, note the Cargados Carajos Shoals were now part of the permitted racing area and as displayed on Expedition (Figure 9) using the world map chart, the minimum depth was about 40m. He did not have detailed charts installed on his personal computer and so could not see either the reef or that the ‘chart bounds’ feature to indicate large scale cartography was available for Cargados Carajos Shoals.

148. During the watch before the grounding the skipper also checked the chart and did not note anything less than “40m or 42m” which related to what he was previously briefed by the navigator. The skipper carried out this check of the chart by viewing what was being displayed on the routing laptop with the Adrena software that did not have the detailed C-Map chart data.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

Where can I/we get more information on your seminar? (I was going to PM you but felt this is relevant to the discussion if you feel comfortable sharing.)

It is a power point presentation of 70 slides. The narrative which goes with it is in my head. I'm sorry, it's not something I can share at this point.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by requiem

Yes, I agree that there was a significant chart error in that C-Map had omitted the atoll from the small-scale chart. In contrast the atoll shows quite clearly on the small-scale Admiralty ENC I have for the area.

However, the laptops had additional issues. Per the report:

Requiem, we are not contradicting each other. Navigator checked on his personal laptop which lacked the detail charts. While sailing the leg using the ship's navigation laptops, which had the charts, the zoom level issue was present. The skipper's routing system apparently did not have the details.

It's is easy to how they got it wrong.

[thesaltytar]

Originally Posted by wingssail

It is a power point presentation of 70 slides. The narrative which goes with it is in my head. I'm sorry, it's not something I can share at this point.

Absolutely, I meant more from the standpoint of I would love to attend if you are offering this presentation in the future!

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by thesaltytar

Absolutely, I meant more from the standpoint of I would love to attend if you are offering this presentation in the future!

This presentation is one of about 10 that Judy and I give in rotation at our yacht club in La Cruz Mexico, when they want us to do so. Right now they are not doing any of these, and I am not sure that they will start again in December when we have more folks. They have not asked for an repeat of any of our presentations since Covid locked down the place.

So, in short, not much you can do to get it going. Maybe a zoom meeting?

For information about the presentations they may request in the future you could ask Katrina, pr@marinarivieranayarit.com

[qwert]

'Electronic vs paper' will soon be an academic argument. The Admiralty will not be producing paper charts after 2026


https://www.admiralty.co.uk/sunsetting-paper-charts

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by qwert

'Electronic vs paper' will soon be an academic argument. The Admiralty will not be producing paper charts after 2026


https://www.admiralty.co.uk/sunsetting-paper-charts

Admiralty Charts are the best. I owned a couple. In fact the British Admiralty still retains the heritage that helped England rule the seas and much of the world. I have the most admiration for them. I have a wonderful book called OCEAN PASSAGES FOR THE WORLD. My mother bought it for me. It is as close to my heart as my grandfather's sextant.

But mostly I bought second hand charts, many were black and white copies which Judy colored with colored pencil. In Oz, after we got comfortable with electronic, we sold 600 charts and bought a jib, but I keep large scale paper charts of the ocean areas where we intend to sail and guide books which show the ports and harbors, so if all electronic charts are not available we can still find our way to a place where we can buy a new computer.

We have a local, free, chart library around here where you can check out charts and get copies made in town, So that facility will last long after the British Admiralty sunsets them.