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On Oct 20, 2004, at 6:19 PM, Royer, Doug wrote:

> A few comments and questions.
> Fred,
> I'm glad to hear you did some sights from a moving vessel.I've been
> following your reports of the sights you take from dry land for some
> time.You do seem to "have it down" in the care you take and the
> accuracy you
> achive of those reductions.But it is a totally differant animal,a
> totally
> differant game,while taking cuts from a vessel or moving
> object.Especially
> on a small moving object.
> Did you average a number of altitudes/times on each of your sight
> sessions
> on board when you got 9.0 to 12.0 min of arc differance or just take 1
> cut
> each session?
> Even so they're not all that bad a result in the real world if you've
> not
> had much experiance doing it in that environment.
>

Doug,

Even more important than getting some sights from a vessel, I was ON
the vessel!  All this dry land stuff is just to substitute for the lack
of being on a vessel, or maybe to prepare for getting out on blue water
one day.

I agree that taking sights is much tougher underway.

I got two or three cuts for each session.  We were out for a week, and
I had hoped to get more sights, but there were only three of us, and we
spent a good bit of effort dodging lobster pots, not to mention getting
into a position where dip short wasn't needed.   Also, learning how to
use a chart plotter took some time.

Chart plotters are nice, but we had a fixed one facing the helm, which
was a big wheel.  In fog, the helmsman was busy dodging lobster pots
and talking to the bow lookout, and it was a real pain peering over the
helmsman's shoulder at the display and reaching around to tweak it,
then walking around to check the chart and plot the next course.  Even
in clear weather, studying a new piece of electronic gear and manning
the helm of a sailing vessel are not very compatible activities.  For
close in coastal work, a movable display in the cockpit would be very
handy.  Huddling down in the cabin at a nav station isn't practical in
tight waters.

I'm not sure that just a chart and compass aren't less stressful than
this newfangled gear, but one does know where one is with an extremely
high degree of confidence with the chart plotter.  I never did learn
how to get the chart plotter to spit out a course to the next mark,
correcting for set, etc, but just used a set of parallels and guessed
at set; that's one thing lobster pots are good for.

The sox won.

Fred

   

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