Paper Charts and GPS

[feelsgood]

Er excuse me Bash but could you tell an old codger like me what taxonomies means. Ta very much

[s/v Beth]

I would state to you Bash, that the needs of those who cruise long distances with little input from humanity around them are in fact different sailors than those that cruise the bay. I have no wish to place a caste system in sailing but the needs are different. Since they are different in needs, they will look at the world differently. Our language allows us to recongise those differences with a pronoun. I don't see it as elitism, just good grammar.....Some electronics have little use off the coast of Argentina, no matter how much they are promoted here. You are right however, in that my mindset is probably a minority. A very vocal minority

[feelsgood]

Hey Guys and Gals I was talking one day to a guy and his wife who had been told that they should sailoff into the wide blue wonder not just potter around the coast's. After hearing this I asked them ow long they had been sailing together. Their reply was oh only about 35 years ,I then asked them how many miles they had logged up in those years and roughly how many different ports they had visited. They scratched their heads and replyed about 95000miles and about 260 ports and enjoyed emensily. I told them that they had done more ports and more miles than 95% of all sailors. They were gob smacked. It is not where we go, the weather we encounter, the places we visit. It is the time spent with the person most valuable to us doing what we enjoy the most

[alan2]

Originally Posted by sneuman

"... as old fashioned as it may seem, I wouldn't think of casting our lines without proper paper charts leading our way. This, of course, is for reasons of reliability and redundancy. But also, much like preferring the tactile quality of the printed book to a computer screen, I like the feel of a nautical chart. It takes me back to a world as wide as it once was. It evokes a sense of wonder and an urge to wander that no cold screen can."

Charted Waters - Cruising World

Sounds akin to the difference between sitting or lying don and reading a book, or reading the same information from a computrer screen. I prefer a book to the ubiquitous computer scrween, though one should not forget "to each his own".

[IslandHopper]

Originally Posted by Bash

To use C-Nav to distinguish between elite and non-elite sailors seems counterproductive. What you're actually measuring, in practice, is age. Most of the fellows who still know how to twiddle a sextant are the same fellows who used to be really accurate with a slide rule.

What absolute rubbish, a prime example of uninformed posturing....

The vast majority of the leading shipping nations (not navy) around the world still require there Deck Officers to be proficient in C-Nav. Cadets continue been taught from their 2nd Mates right through until they have completed there Masters ticket, and the average cadets age is 22 years old, my nephew is doing his second mates now and he's 22.

Celestial Nav is still compulsory to learn if you want to become a deck officer, it NEVER was if you wanted to become a recreational cruising yachtsman, so where do you get of with the age thing???

Do i think someone who can use a sextant is a better Navigator than someone who can only read a GPS, of course i do that's a no brainer, but i would never call them elitist, nor would i condem those that don't have the ability...

You clearly know nothing about the subject and i seriously doubt you would know one end of a sextant from the other...

Without exception, all those i know who have mastered C-Nav (YOUNG AND OLD), would never degrade it the way you do, which leads me to the above comment on your knowledge of the subject...

[alan2]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bash
To use C-Nav to distinguish between elite and non-elite sailors seems counterproductive. What you're actually measuring, in practice, is age. Most of the fellows who still know how to twiddle a sextant are the same fellows who used to be really accurate with a slide rule.

What absolute rubbish, a prime example of uninformed posturing....

The vast majority of the leading shipping nations (not navy) around the world still require there Deck Officers to be proficient in C-Nav. Cadets continue been taught from their 2nd Mates right through until they have completed there Masters ticket, and the average cadets age is 22 years old, my nephew is doing his second mates now and he's 22.

Celestial Nav is still compulsory to learn if you want to become a deck officer, it NEVER was if you wanted to become a recreational cruising yachtsman, so where do you get of with the age thing???

Do i think someone who can use a sextant is a better Navigator than someone who can only read a GPS, of course i do that's a no brainer, but i would never call them elitist, nor would i condem those that don't have the ability...

You clearly know nothing about the subject and i seriously doubt you would know one end of a sextant from the other...

Without exception, all those i know who have mastered C-Nav (YOUNG AND OLD), would never degrade it the way you do, which leads me to the above comment on your knowledge of the subject...







Having read the above, I'm glad that I never knocked Celestial Navigation, a subject I have some SMALL familiarity with, note
capitalization please. I'm fairly sure that I have asked some dumb questions, and or made some silly statements perhaps, but knocking C Nav, which I personally find both rewarding and interesting, I might be to easily amused, is not something I personally would do, others can draw their own conclusions.

Having said that, I received yesterday the 2010 Ocean Navigator Annual Handbook. See page 46 for an interesting article by John Karl, titled Sextantless celestial navigation.

Re ocean racing, about which I know virtually nothing, see ON-trained navigator wins Marion-Bermuda Race, page 49. The biennial cruising yacht race held this past June, FIRST PLACE OVERALL was won by a boat running in the celestial navigation division. Alright, so the "ON-trained navigator" bit is perhaps a little crass, a minor sin, in the scale of possible sins. Some "old horses", it seems, can still run well.

[alan2]

IslandHopper:

How goes the battle downunder these days?

[sneuman]

I attended a safety at sea seminar this past weekend with Gary Jobson as a guest speaker. His opinion: foolish to go without paper charts.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by sneuman

I attended a safety at sea seminar this past weekend with Gary Jobson as a guest speaker. His opinion: foolish to go without paper charts.

That's not surprising because they didn't invent PC's until after he left school. He won his first sailing title in 1966.

cheers,
Nick.

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

That's not surprising because they didn't invent PC's until after he left school. He won his first sailing title in 1966.

cheers,
Nick.

However, I grew up in the computer age, which is why I have a healthy distrust of over-reliance on technology.

[MarkJ]

The sooner someone realises paper charts are obsolete and dangerous for nav the sooner we get better electronic charts updating instantaneously off the net, and folded into Google earth type images in 3D all at one tenth of the price.

The bliss of the electronic age!

I was at school when Slide Rules gave way to calculators so I only had one maths exam where one could take in a slide rule. Damn pity that because I had stuffed the slot under the slide with the formulas. About the only Maths exam I ever passed.



Mark
PS Nic just pointed out our huge pile of paper junk waiting to be thrown out. We were coearced to buy them, copies, in Australia. We have never even looked at them!

[s/v Beth]

Your credentials after Pirate Alley cannot be questioned Mark. I can only say that when they put me in a wooden (YES WOODEN) dingy and set the sail, then shoot a flaming arrow into the boat, that the fire will catch quickly because of all the paper charts I will have stuffed around my body...
In other words- you can have my books and my charts when you pull them from my cold dead hands...