"Shen44" wrote in message ...
Subject: And ???????
From: "Donal"
My answer was also fairly serious.
You sit at the chart table, give directions to the crew, and you have to
estimate your position after 1/2 an hour, or so.
I'm sure that you may ask the helmsman to confirm the compass reading, but
apart from that you have no feedback.
I don't know what accuracy is required to obtain a pass. I suspect that
the examiner takes the conditions into account.
Regards
Donal
Ouch! If you have to guess wind, currents, vessel speeds, set and drift, with
no inputs of any kind, this would indeed be difficult to do with any degree of
accuracy.
It's called 'extrapolation' (look it up!). It's obvious
you have never exercised your brain and extrapolated
anything. This is a talent that is highly developed in
a real sailboat skipper. A small sailboat almost becomes
like an arm or a leg. It becomes an extension of one's
body and one can use input from the way it moves,
the heel, the roll, the sound of the water past the
hull, the sound of the wind, etc. to extrapolate
course and speed. If done regularly it becomes
second nature. Most any competent sailboat skipper
can do dead reckoning for long periods of time
using nothing but his senses even if he is below
most of the time.
I once deduced my course so accurately and
made corrections as I went along only by
dead reckoning alone that after a passage of
18 hours from Beaufort N.C. I dead-centered
the ship channel through Frying Pan Shoals at
dawn - came close to hitting the sea buoy as a
matter of fact after ducking below to make
coffee and emerging to look over the bow at
it.
This is a talent NEVER developed by those who
sit isolated in a pilot house on the bridge.
S.Simon