"Ted" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Jack Erbes" wrote in message
...
Ted wrote:

snip
Now that we have GPS, why are buoys needed anymore? Aren't you really
interested in where the channel is located and not the location of some
buoy that also happens to be trying to show you where the channel is
located? When did buoys become a destination in and of themselves
instead of merely a source of nautical information guiding us around
underwater obstructions?

Ted,

Let me ask, have you ever actually spent any time doing coastal
navigation? And if so, what navigation resources were available to you
and which ones did you use?

I used pilotage until GPS came along - a map and compass and dead
reckoning with an occasional reference to a landmark on shore confirmed my
position. I use range lights and my depth sounder to verify my location in
the channel.

See figure 13-10 on the following link.

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-o/cgaux/Pub...tcrew/ch13.pdf

I have a directional antenna to track the Coast Guard's medium frequency
radiobeacons but have never needed to use it - never got lost.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/ftp/RADIONAV/rbeacon.txt

One can also track AM radio broadcast stations with this device if needed.

When offshore, if you are able to remember which ocean you are in, then
its not very difficult to know what direction on the compass land can be
found. I measure distance in gallons of fuel. While heading offshore,
when one third of my fuel supply is exhausted then I'm as far out to sea
as is allowed by the skipper (me). After GPS, my map and compass stay in
my emergency kit. They haven't seen the light of day in years. I have only
lost the GPS signal in two places on earth - north of the royal
observatory in Greenwich England and in the harbor west of Naples Italy.

Years ago, before GPS, a friend of mine returning from sea had an
unexpected magnetic source on his boat that affected his compass and took
him fifty miles off course. This "compass failure" almost ran him out of
fuel before he reached shore. I don't put much faith in the cry of the
geezers about the undisputed reliability of the simple magnetic compass
and the paper map. I don't believe that most of them even go boating.
They just sit on the internet and run their mouth.


By the way... I have also been in weather bad enough that my paper chart
fell off the table into the 4 inches of salt water on the floor and then
floated away into the engine compartment while my GPS stayed firmly bolted
to the wall in front of the helm. After an experience like that you might
be able to imagine why I don't have much patience for geezers who ignorantly
sing the praises of paper maps as the be-all and end-all in marine
navigation and why I don't believe that most of them have ever been to sea.