NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: DR vs EP vs MPP vs Fix vs Running fix
From: Derrick Young
Date: 2002 Feb 8, 09:29 -0500
From: Derrick Young
Date: 2002 Feb 8, 09:29 -0500
Peter, You ask a good question for your "poll" and as you can see, there are a number of answers. Let me give you mine. When I am teaching basic Coastal Navigation, I adhere very closely to the definitions that are used in Bowditch. It is hard enough for the someone starting off to deal with all of the things that impact your DR plot and change it into an estimated position plot. When I am going through some of the advanced navigation topics, I do bring these things into play. But I still teach my students that they should at least record, somewhere, the DR positions (without any adjustments for anything) at the various check points. You need this information for various calculations such as determining what the true current is, even though you have already made corrections for what the Coast Pilot (or local knowledge) may have recorded. Once the student is COMFORTABLE with the concepts, and has had sufficient practice on a rolling, pitching boat, then we get into the "short cuts" that can be taken. Much of the discussion that I have seen here revolves around what folks that are comfortable with navigation concepts are doing. The real question is how much time have you spent getting there? Most of us would not attempt to teach others the short cuts that we use unless we know that they are good with the basics. Hope this helps, derrick