Nobody really needs to know how to navigate anymore, do they?

[TrentePieds]

Quote: "As for chronometers that never lose time, ahem. I'm reading an account of the first days of Vancouver's arrival in Puget Sound."

Add to your reading Dava Sobel's excellent little book on the forty year quest of John Harrison to perfect a timepiece that would indeed remain accurate over many, many months as men like Capt. Vancouver explored the world

Capt.s Cook and Bligh both used Harrison Chronometers, the "most perfect" of which were produced in the 1770s. Capt. Vancouver's Nootka Expedition, of which you speak, took place in the early 1790s, and his possession of a Harrison Chronometer was intended to be experimental. The Admiralty knew full well that the technical challenges of constructing a "pocket watch" that would keep accurate time over many, many months were formidable, and that "most perfect" did not mean "absolutely perfect".

Vancouver's observations of the inaccuracy of HIS ( Admiralty issue) chronometer were incorporated into the tables of "chronometer rates" the Admiralty kept as a means of compiling empirical data to be applied in the further perfection of the chronometers that were in use until recent times.

TrentePieds

[roverhi]

Josh Slocum navigated by lunar shots from tables that have not been in the Nautical Almanac for nearly a century. Very tricky getting accurate enough sites and some holes where it doesn't work. You can do the Lunar based navigation without tables but it used to take an experienced mathematician about 6 hours to do the math for each sextant shot.

Without accurate time, we can go back to the old latitude sailing that Columbus used to find India. Just sail to the known latitude of a destination and sail along the latitude till you hit your destination.

Most electronic time pieces involve micro circuitry that would be zapped by an electrical anomaly like a solar flare or EMP incident. Only the good old wind up time pieces would be immune and only ones that are god awful expensive and probably NLA would be accurate enough for open ocean voyaging. Keep your spare Casio in the oven and be sure and remove it before you bake some bread that you've made from some self milled glutton free grain.

If you have an interest in the history of navigation, read 'Longitude'. It's a fascinating account of the man who invented the first Chronometer and the Royal Astronomers effort to screw him out of his reward. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/lon...37174290?mt=11

[conachair]

Originally Posted by barnakiel

Young people are no longer interested in educating themselves. The civilization has changed. Consume, consume ...

b.

Almost a quarter of a million were interested in getting educated in boating matters last year alone..

That doesn't include the multitudes of self help sailing clubs around with the old boys passing on skills to the younger ones. (loads in the UK anyway)

You see only the black and white world you want to see......ain't all Doom and gloom..


http://www.rya.org.uk/about-us/media...tatistics.aspx

Training

The RYA offers more than 100 different theory and practical training courses
Approximately 220,000 RYA certificates were issued in 2015
The most popular course in 2015 was RYA Powerboat Level 2, with approximately 26,000 people taking the course
There are more than 2,400 recognised RYA Training Centres worldwide, with more than 500 of these outside the UK across almost 50 different countries.

As at 31/12/2015 638,346 youngsters had taken part in an OB beginner sailing session for young people
Signed up 248 sailing or windsurfing clubs/centres (as at 31/12/2015)
68,884 youngsters now sail/windsurf on a regular basis (as at 31/12/2015)

[Captdd]

I recently toured the New Navy Stealth Sub and mine detector ship in San Diego.
It has State of Art the Everything. At the helm next to sonar loop is the Paper Chart Table manned by the plotter.
SKipper says his plotter is more accurate than GPS and in fact checks his GPS via paper charts.

Get the point?

Captd

[seasick]

I taught celestial and coastwise for years. Now at age 62, I make myself relearn it every time I go offshore. My memory just can't seem to hold onto all the steps. Where site reductions use to take up the better part of my day and I usually ate a cold dinner, now I hardly know what to do with myself.

Where my mood and stress level were in direct relation to the quality of the day's sites, now the thrill is gone as is the anxiety.

To answer your question, you absolutely should know old school nav techniques but the chance that you'll ever really be dependent on them, is pretty darn minuscule.

[roverhi]

Originally Posted by exMaggieDrum

I learned celestial navigation once and then promptly lost most memory of the intricate details. I had a sextant and tables. Even a how to do it book to refresh my memory. I suppose I could at least relearn the theory.

The practice is something else entirely, whether you have a chronometer or not. It is something that takes a great deal of practice over long periods of time in my experience. I actually feel somewhat optimistic that I could find land in some direction if I had to. The big issue is whether I would have enough food or water to get there to still be alive.

Actually navigation via sextant and time piece is really quite simple. It is just a matter of taking the shot and putting the value in the right place, massaging it with information from the nautical almanac, HO 249 tables and your time piece. Math required is basically addition and subtraction. Calculations are made quite easy with a proper worksheet so you can put the information you need in the right order. As far as taking the sight with a sextant, found it pretty easy to shoot the sun. Took my first sight with my brand new sextant one day out of San Diego on the way to the Marquesas. Since you are reading this, it's obvious I figured it out.

Having done long ocean passages before and after GPS, kind of miss the good old days. Taking the morning, noon, and afternoon sun shots, calculating the LOP or fix and plotting the results on the chart broke up the long boring days of a passage. Felt like you were actually responsible for something other than just following the magenta line on the plotter. Unfortunately have forgotten the steps needed to calculate a fix, the nautical almanac is out of date and the now old sextant needs its mirrors resilvered but one of these days I'll actually relearn the basics. Unfortunately, I'm basically lazy and the GPS is so damned accurate that that day may never come.

[rhubstuff]

A $99 eTrex will not be harmed by any lightning strike that does not kill you. That and a bunch of paper charts will get you anywhere in the world.

[hsi88]

Agree with having some paper charts aboard, but even if I was well out, I'm still coastal cruising. So if lightning hit (and I was still floating) or a solar flare fried the satellites, forget the charts and sextant. I would just sail due west. Going to hit land in less than a few days. Then I do what SailorChic said. I stop someone and ask for directions.

And long before I put my Casios in an oven, I would probably put my cell phone, laptop and hand held GPS in the oven during the next big thunderstorm.

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by rhubstuff

A $99 eTrex will not be harmed by any lightning strike that does not kill you. That and a bunch of paper charts will get you anywhere in the world.

Where did you get that opinion about the eTrex?


A house is but a boat so poorly built and so firmly run aground you would never try to refloat it.

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Adelie

What have you done to protect the watches?
Don't get me wrong, I agree with your anticipated course of action but the watches getting fried is something to consider too.

My preparations are 2 pronged. I'm going to get a waterproof metal ammo case and store backup Casio watches in there. As a backup to the Casios I bought a 1960's Soviet made knockoff of a Rolex pocket watch for $35. I haven't checked it's rate but that's on the todo list.

Our local Costcos have the ammo boxes currently.


A house is but a boat so poorly built and so firmly run aground you would never try to refloat it.

So your solution to all the GPS' on board getting fried is to place a watch in a faraday cage? Why not just put a spare GPS in there with the watch?

Even if you assume that all the GPS sattelites could go down at the same time making a fix impossible, it would still tell you the time.

[Delancey]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Of course they do. What happens when you're 500 mi offshore and your vessel is struck by lightning? All back up GPS are dead.

While I have yet to test the theory, in theory keeping you back-ups protected with these should prevent this from happening.

Specifically the conductive antistatic bags. Get ones with a zip lock closure. I have ones big enough to fit a laptop in that I got from eBay pretty cheap.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antistatic_bag

[Mango51]

The only watch that I've heard of that is not afected buy a emp is Rolex milgauss. The movement is incased completely in some type of metal then dial and hands are installed. Then put inside case. Escape wheel and hair spring different material also. Also regardless how acurate a watch or clock might be. They need to be serviced every three years.

[Captain Bob]

This is a subject that bothered the U.S. Navy for years. 18 years ago the stopped teaching sextant navigation. Nothing like having warships that don't know where they are! If it makes sense to them, then it makes sense to me. I deliver boats and I use everything available to insure that I know where I am. The owners and their insurance companies also like the idea.

[KJThomas]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Apparently Joshua made it around with an old clock without a minute hand and a school atlas.

And lunar tables. No longer available.

[SV DestinyAscen]

Redundancy is key - but being able to take a simple noon sighting is sufficient. If GPS is unavailable, I'll have my watch and cheap sextant. If my watch is dead from a lightning strike - I'm likely dead too.