NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: Deviation Card with GPS
From: Robert Eno
Date: 2006 Jul 24, 09:51 -0500
George wrote:
Perhaps Robert can tell us
> whether he has experienced the behaviour described in his book, of a
> "compass that spins uselessly as one changes heading". There's a lot
> of nonsense written in books, just as there is in navigational mailing
> lists.
>
Happy to oblige George:
August 26, 2003: approximately 1600 hrs. Last day of a 29 day voyage, transiting north through the Pike-Resor Channel at 7 - 9 knots with dense fog right down to the carpet. Visibility practically nil. As we exited the channel, passing Lapointe Rock light, I was trying to follow a north easterly compass course but could not maintain it at all. A slight alteration of course, to keep the vessel's head in the right direction resulted in a wildly spinning compass card. We were zigging and zagging like a World War Two merchant ship trying to avoid the wolf pack. At first, I figured, I was just exhausted from the month-long voyage with 14 - 18 hour days and dangerously miserable conditions. I turned the helm over to my crew mate to see if he could do a better job than the so-called Master. Same thing happened to him (secretly, to my relief): a slight turn of the helm and the compass card was spinning around and seemingly having difficulty in settling in one position. It became imp
ossible to maintain a heading by compass.
Fortunately, we had radar and that is how we managed for the next few hours until the fog lifted and were were able to navigate by recognizable coastal features.
To this day, I cannot explain what happened: it has not happened to me since. Magnetic anomoly? Quite possible up here. A compass in dire need of corrector magnets? I am leaning towards that theory. Aliens? . Who knows? But it happened. I should add that we had been beset by fog equally dense during the first week of our voyage and had no problems at all with the compass. It may well have been that both of us were simply exhausted from our long journey and being so close to home, let our guard and everything else drop.
I would therefore not be so quick to dismiss the stories of compass cards that spin uselessly as one changes heading.
Robert
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From: Robert Eno
Date: 2006 Jul 24, 09:51 -0500
George wrote:
Perhaps Robert can tell us
> whether he has experienced the behaviour described in his book, of a
> "compass that spins uselessly as one changes heading". There's a lot
> of nonsense written in books, just as there is in navigational mailing
> lists.
>
Happy to oblige George:
August 26, 2003: approximately 1600 hrs. Last day of a 29 day voyage, transiting north through the Pike-Resor Channel at 7 - 9 knots with dense fog right down to the carpet. Visibility practically nil. As we exited the channel, passing Lapointe Rock light, I was trying to follow a north easterly compass course but could not maintain it at all. A slight alteration of course, to keep the vessel's head in the right direction resulted in a wildly spinning compass card. We were zigging and zagging like a World War Two merchant ship trying to avoid the wolf pack. At first, I figured, I was just exhausted from the month-long voyage with 14 - 18 hour days and dangerously miserable conditions. I turned the helm over to my crew mate to see if he could do a better job than the so-called Master. Same thing happened to him (secretly, to my relief): a slight turn of the helm and the compass card was spinning around and seemingly having difficulty in settling in one position. It became imp
ossible to maintain a heading by compass.
Fortunately, we had radar and that is how we managed for the next few hours until the fog lifted and were were able to navigate by recognizable coastal features.
To this day, I cannot explain what happened: it has not happened to me since. Magnetic anomoly? Quite possible up here. A compass in dire need of corrector magnets? I am leaning towards that theory. Aliens? . Who knows? But it happened. I should add that we had been beset by fog equally dense during the first week of our voyage and had no problems at all with the compass. It may well have been that both of us were simply exhausted from our long journey and being so close to home, let our guard and everything else drop.
I would therefore not be so quick to dismiss the stories of compass cards that spin uselessly as one changes heading.
Robert
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
To post to this group, send email to NavList@fer3.com
To , send email to NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
