Jim Donohue wrote:
It is fascinating. I have been sailing coastally for 25 years. I have done
the entire west coast from British Columbia to Acapulco. Most of it
multiple times. Maybe 12000 miles or so. I have gunkholed a whole lot of
the coast in between. Done Catalina a few 100 times.

Do you want us to be impressed?

I have never found a
situation where a hand held compass position was useful. Yes I learned to
do one and actually bought one early on...may still have it in one of the
boat bags...but no I have never found a single place where it was useful.

Do you have a point here? I'll certainly admit that since GPS I don't
use mine very often at all. But it was very useful before then. Kinda
makes me wonder what type of sailing you did 25 years ago if you never
used a handbearing compass ...


I have entered San Francisco in heavy fog. I used GPS for navigation and
radar for collision avoidance. That passage could not have been done safely
without GPS and would have been very uncomfortable without radar.

Odd, I would have thought they other way - with radar you can tell where
you are and see other boats; with GPS only you have no way of seeing
traffic.

And are you claiming that a novice navigator with a hour of training on
his GPS can do this safely?



I have entered Bahia Maria north of Cabo in the middle of the night with a
storm raging. It is not the world's most challenging entry but it offers
you the opportunity to kill yourself if you are not careful. And it is
known the charts have a substantial inaccuracy. With GPS and radar it is a
reasonably safe task.

Again, are you claiming this is safe for the novice? Claiming your
long experience in the pre-GPS days doesn't do anything to advance your
point here. It isn't just your GPS that makes this safer, its your long
experience.


Why would one not teach the skills that lead to success rather than those
which involve unacceptable risk?


That's just my point - Learning GPS without a foundation in basic skills
leads unacceptable risks. Anyone with basic skills can learn how to
use a GPS in 5 minutes. Without the basic skills, you're in deep ****
when the GPS fails.

When you are only skilled in one form of navigation you have no way to
double check your assumptions. Relying on a single techniques is just
plain stupid!