"Bobsprit" wrote in message
...
| This description led me to believe that prior to the 20 mile leg you did
not
| have line of sight. My apologies... but it seems to read that way.
|
| We did not, nor did we face the worst of the current in the first few
hours,
| making our course fairly "true" especially in respect to the distance
involved.
| By maintaining our compass heading derived from the GPS, we barely
deviated at
| all.

Ah.. I see how I came to be confused since you wrote... "How does this
"amplify" the importance when we were, for all intents andpurposes sailing a
short line of sight course? "
Cross track.. or drift and set are easier to estimate on a single tack and
more readily confirmed by bearing bearing fix or in the case of limited
bearing targets.. running fixes.

How did the Compass vs. GPS bearings compare? Did the discrepancy amount to
the Variation and did you get a chance to confirm if the Deviation error
made much of a difference?

Isn't this stuff interesting.... ;-)

CM