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Mr. Luddite[_4_]

On 1/2/2020 11:34 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 2 Jan 2020 07:14:10 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 1/2/2020 1:31 AM, wrote:
On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 22:50:10 -0500 (EST), Justan Ohlphart
wrote:

Wrote in message:
On Wed, 01 Jan 2020 13:00:28 -0500, John H. wrote:On Wed, 1 Jan 2020 16:45:16 -0000 (UTC), Bill wrote:John H. wrote: On Tue, 31 Dec 2019 21:13:43 -0500, Alex wrote: Last night...
https://wsvn.com/news/local/several-injured-after-boat-crashes-into-jetty-near-fort-lauderdale/ Cocktails? Not every jetty shows up on a GPS. That happened a few times in Deale, MD, when folks would follow the GPS to get home. Midnight and speed. He was not going slow to get that far up the rocks
ina 42’ boat.For sure speed. Same thing happens in Deale. Going fast and taking the line offered by the GPS hasbeen the problem more than once. Everyone knows I am the real Luddite here but I fear modernelectronics is taking the place of basic seamanship and the importanceof local knowledge.

Why do you fear modern ways of navigating? If you should ever
decide to expand your horizons, you might embrace some of the
newer technology available.

Did you read what John wrote? People who trust their GPS blindly, hit
things that are not in the database. The database for the bay here is
pretty much useless anyway unless you just accept "don't go there" as
an answer.
The other issue is, if your electronics fail, do you just drop anchor
and call sea tow, hoping they can triangulate your position on their
radio or something?
I know people who think their Garmin Chart Plotter is all they ever
need. They don't even have a compass and no charts on board ... if
they could read them in the first place.

If that chart plotter craps out they are screwed, particularly at
night.

OTOH I navigate at night using local landmarks (radio towers, condos,
mangrove islands I recognize) and simply knowing where I am and where
I am going.

Greg, your feelings are pretty much exactly how I felt when I first got
into ocean boating. But once I graduated to the larger boats equipped
with GPS, chart plotters and radar I realized that technology had much
to offer over the old ways.

I still had paper charts aboard and obviously a compass but found that
the only time I had to use the charts was to program way-points into
the chart plotter before getting underway in the morning. Never had
to revert to navigating by charts and compass alone.

I saw that the Navy is going back to teaching celestial navigation to
their crews so somebody must think it is important. I suppose someone
pointed out the GPS satellites might only last a couple days in a real
war.
I am not saying these new things are not handy. I am just saying
everyone is depending on technology too much and forgetting basic
skills. It is not just boating. Stand next to a broken cash register
and watch the kid try to make change. It is scary.

The Navy is teaching the basics of celestial navigation at the
Academy only to midshipmen but it's in no way intended to be a serious
navigation tool or method. Part of the reason is a public relations
thing after a Navy ship ran aground, but it had nothing to do with
failure of GPS or other electronic navigation systems.
In other words .... it was operator error.

Today, if the GPS system went down, half of our precision guided
weaponry wouldn't work either ... or be totally inaccurate.