Value of steering a tight course
 

I was chatting in the yacht club bar last night about course keeping
at night, and how hard it can be to steer a tight compass course, and
how variable you get steering to other indicators like wind and stars.
Today that leads me to wondering about whether a tight course is
particularly valuable with modern instruments.

Yes, a tight course is important near shore or other hazards, and
essential in traffic, but is it necessary out on open water? 15
degrees of wandering costs less than 4 percent in course made good and
few cruisers put the effort into trimming sails that efficiently. A DR
track can only be as good as the course keeping. Are there other
reasons than DR to try to steer a tighter course?

Ryk

In Ryk writes:

I was chatting in the yacht club bar last night about course keeping
at night, and how hard it can be to steer a tight compass course, and
how variable you get steering to other indicators like wind and stars.
Today that leads me to wondering about whether a tight course is
particularly valuable with modern instruments.

Yes, a tight course is important near shore or other hazards, and
essential in traffic, but is it necessary out on open water? 15
degrees of wandering costs less than 4 percent in course made good and
few cruisers put the effort into trimming sails that efficiently. A DR
track can only be as good as the course keeping. Are there other
reasons than DR to try to steer a tighter course?

Ryk

You do not say anything about other ramifications, for example are you
just daysailing and want to get around a certain island and come back
home or longer trip, an overnight crossing of a body of water or perhaps
crossing an ocean. Or are there any tidal changes to be considered. One
question you should always keep in mind are navigational hazards, shoals
or heavy traffic.

In some cases the shorters route is not the fastest. Perhaps sailing a
bit higher than the course getting you directly to the destination is
not the best, perhaps sailing a bit closer to the wind gives you better
angle to the waves and then later on you can use the spinnaker after
falling off a bit. If the tide is crossing your path it might be better
to be upstream when you make your "final" corrections to the course, so
you do not have to fight the tide in nearing the destination.

I do not see a reason why you should be bound to the tight course to
your destination if there are any considerations giving you a bigger
advantage or more comfortable ride.

- Lauri Tarkkonen

Ryk wrote:
I was chatting in the yacht club bar last night about course keeping
at night, and how hard it can be to steer a tight compass course, and
how variable you get steering to other indicators like wind and stars.
Today that leads me to wondering about whether a tight course is
particularly valuable with modern instruments.

Yes, a tight course is important near shore or other hazards, and
essential in traffic, but is it necessary out on open water? 15
degrees of wandering costs less than 4 percent in course made good and
few cruisers put the effort into trimming sails that efficiently. A DR
track can only be as good as the course keeping. Are there other
reasons than DR to try to steer a tighter course?

I usually don't worry too much about it - I don't link the autopilot
to the GPS, so my crosstrack can wander up to half a mile on a long
days run. However, the problem that often occurs when novices
handsteer is the the x-track is in the wrong direction. That is, they
will invariably fall off to leeward, turning a close reach into a
beat. Or they will be drawn close to shoreward hazards. I used to
call this the "Arny Effect," after a friend who would always head
towards whatever he was looking at.

Ryk wrote:

I was chatting in the yacht club bar last night about course keeping
at night, and how hard it can be to steer a tight compass course, and
how variable you get steering to other indicators like wind and stars.
Today that leads me to wondering about whether a tight course is
particularly valuable with modern instruments.

An autopilot can steer a much tighter course than I can. So in any
reasonable open water (i.e. not in a very tight canal or coming into a
dock or something), we let it steer. Like someone else mention, we
don't have it hooked to the GPS.

Yes, a tight course is important near shore or other hazards, and
essential in traffic, but is it necessary out on open water? 15
degrees of wandering costs less than 4 percent in course made good and
few cruisers put the effort into trimming sails that efficiently. A DR
track can only be as good as the course keeping. Are there other
reasons than DR to try to steer a tighter course?

The long distance cruisers use wind vanes instead of autopilots
because a) they don't use any electricity, and b) they don't have any
electronic parts to go bad. The disadvantages (as I understand them)
are that they do wander a bit and they can't be used in some
conditions. I think one uses a tiller pilot in those cases, but I'm
not absolutely clear on that.

grandma Rosalie

Steering a reasonably tight course is important to near by vessels plotting
your course intersecting theirs. I know of cases where a sail boat was being
steered by a Monitor windvane. The vane allowed the sail boat to wonder ~5
or so degrees due to light wind. The initial plot by a container ship showed
their course were diverging and without concern. In this case, the sail boat
skipper went below for scheduled radio contact (turned off radar because the
SSB interfered with it). 10 min. later the container ship took off his
bowsprit and about a foot of his bow.

The board of inquiry found neither vessel was maintaining a proper watch and
the plotting error was due to the fact the wind vane couldn't steer a tight
course.

Even from your own deck, you can be fooled about the this, as your boat
wonders on either side of your intended course.

Just my opinion FWIW.

Steve
s/v Good Intentions

On Sun, 03 Apr 2005 18:47:20 GMT, Rosalie B.
wrote:

Ryk wrote:

I was chatting in the yacht club bar last night about course keeping
at night, and how hard it can be to steer a tight compass course, and
how variable you get steering to other indicators like wind and stars.
Today that leads me to wondering about whether a tight course is
particularly valuable with modern instruments.

An autopilot can steer a much tighter course than I can. So in any
reasonable open water (i.e. not in a very tight canal or coming into a
dock or something), we let it steer. Like someone else mention, we
don't have it hooked to the GPS.

I steer considerably better than my autopilot, but it is getting
old... I'm thinking of a night crossing we did on Lake Ontario last
October. That boat had no auto-pilot and the waves were high enough
that it would have steered badly anyway. The configuration didn't
provide a continuous view of the GPS and we had only hand-held
compasses. (Delivery -- the PO had left the steering compass uncovered
for years and the globe was cloudy to the point of being nearly
opaque.) The result was that we steered mostly seat-of-the-pants with
periodic checks on direction. The track recorded by the GPS looks a
lot like a straight line, but I know my direction was wandering. We
got to our destination much as expected with no surprises. I'm trying
to convince myself that there was no reason to aim for better steering
than we managed.

Ryk

Ryk wrote:

Yes, a tight course is important near shore or other hazards, and
essential in traffic, but is it necessary out on open water? 15
degrees of wandering costs less than 4 percent in course made good
and few cruisers put the effort into trimming sails that
efficiently. A DR track can only be as good as the course keeping.
Are there other reasons than DR to try to steer a tighter course?

I tend to think that steering error itself is not inherently the issue
offshore. What it boils down to is: "How do I get to the destination from
where I am _right now_?" This becomes more important (or even critical) as
the distance to the destination decreases

In any kind of offshore leg the effects of current, leeway, inattention,
instrument error, etc., will usually put the boat off the rhumb. It then is
up to the pilot or navigator to adjust the course to reach the destination.
Even in a short leg, say from Maine over to Yarmouth, this happens many
times in the course of a single crossing.

With respect to the degree or error that you suggest, I think that the
actual error that is attributable to the helmsman himself
will be buried in the overall set of other factors, and will be almost
impossible to isolate. However if you find you are visibly "wandering" 15
degrees off the desired heading, then it is probably time to concentrate
more.

BTW, neither my autopilots nor my steering vane show this kind of error over
a relevant time period.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/

Kerry infers that the rhumb line is the desirable route.

It is too easy to set a way-point near the destination and head to it
slavishly. The problem is that most other cruisers and commercial vessels
may be following the same principles. The weaving caused by the wind-vane or
tidal flow or slacker course setting may indeed be a safety factor as it
spreads the vessels over a wider track. This is especially so on an ocean
voyage,

Those that have raced a bit will know that it may be faster to head away
from the rhumb


Cheers

jofra

=====================================


"Armond Perretta" wrote in message
...
Ryk wrote:

Yes, a tight course is important near shore or other hazards, and
essential in traffic, but is it necessary out on open water? 15
degrees of wandering costs less than 4 percent in course made good
and few cruisers put the effort into trimming sails that
efficiently. A DR track can only be as good as the course keeping.
Are there other reasons than DR to try to steer a tighter course?

I tend to think that steering error itself is not inherently the issue
offshore. What it boils down to is: "How do I get to the destination
from
where I am _right now_?" This becomes more important (or even critical)
as
the distance to the destination decreases

In any kind of offshore leg the effects of current, leeway, inattention,
instrument error, etc., will usually put the boat off the rhumb. It then
is
up to the pilot or navigator to adjust the course to reach the
destination.
Even in a short leg, say from Maine over to Yarmouth, this happens many
times in the course of a single crossing.

With respect to the degree or error that you suggest, I think that the
actual error that is attributable to the helmsman himself
will be buried in the overall set of other factors, and will be almost
impossible to isolate. However if you find you are visibly "wandering"
15
degrees off the desired heading, then it is probably time to concentrate
more.

BTW, neither my autopilots nor my steering vane show this kind of error
over
a relevant time period.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/

Jofra wrote:

Kerry infers that the rhumb line is the desirable route.

I haven't made a value judgment on rhumb lines. Never occurred to me that
it was necessary. Still, I could go either way on this one, so I'm tempted
to ask how many rhumb lines you've met that really annoyed you.

It is too easy to set a way-point near the destination and head to
it slavishly. The problem is that most other cruisers and
commercial vessels may be following the same principles. The
weaving caused by the wind-vane or tidal flow or slacker course
setting may indeed be a safety factor as it spreads the vessels
over a wider track. This is especially so on an ocean voyage,
...

Can't say I've ever heard anyone seriously suggest that poor steering is a
safety technique.

Were you to ask a commercial ship operator whether, in a crossing situation,
he would prefer that a small boat maintain a steady course, or wander in a
manner that would indicate some sort of gross steering error or inattention,
I don't believe too many commercial operators would prefer the method you
suggest.

Those that have raced a bit will know that it may be faster to head
away from the rhumb

If you are referring to tacking downwind, then yes, it's faster in some
designs to head up a bit rather than run dead downwind. Same is true going
uphill. Sometimes in certain designs it's better to foot rather than point.
Given that, I don't see what these techniques have to do with steering
error.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/

Sorry Armond, I should have been more careful about your name.

I find it strange that you haven't made a value judgement about "rhumb
lines" and that you could go either way.

To advance this discussion would you mind setting out your view as to what a
"rhumb line" is.

Cheers and great sailing to you to.

jofra



"Armond Perretta" wrote in message
...
Jofra wrote:

Kerry infers that the rhumb line is the desirable route.

I haven't made a value judgment on rhumb lines. Never occurred to me that
it was necessary. Still, I could go either way on this one, so I'm
tempted
to ask how many rhumb lines you've met that really annoyed you.

It is too easy to set a way-point near the destination and head to
it slavishly. The problem is that most other cruisers and
commercial vessels may be following the same principles. The
weaving caused by the wind-vane or tidal flow or slacker course
setting may indeed be a safety factor as it spreads the vessels
over a wider track. This is especially so on an ocean voyage,
...

Can't say I've ever heard anyone seriously suggest that poor steering is a
safety technique.

Were you to ask a commercial ship operator whether, in a crossing
situation,
he would prefer that a small boat maintain a steady course, or wander in a
manner that would indicate some sort of gross steering error or
inattention,
I don't believe too many commercial operators would prefer the method you
suggest.

Those that have raced a bit will know that it may be faster to head
away from the rhumb

If you are referring to tacking downwind, then yes, it's faster in some
designs to head up a bit rather than run dead downwind. Same is true
going
uphill. Sometimes in certain designs it's better to foot rather than
point.
Given that, I don't see what these techniques have to do with steering
error.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/

[re-posted]

Jofra wrote:

To advance this discussion would you mind setting out your view as
to what a "rhumb line" is.

Sure thing, but you should realize that the information below isn't merely
or necessarily "my view."

A rhumb line (or loxodrome) is a path of constant bearing on a spherical (or
elliptical) object. The word "loxodrome" comes from Greek loxos : oblique +
dromos : running (from dramein : to run). They are a traditional part of
the theory of navigation.

If you follow a given (magnetic-deviation compensated) compass-bearing on
Earth, you will be following a rhumb line, which spirals from one pole to
the other. Near the poles, they are close to being logarithmic spirals (on a
stereographic projection they are exactly that), so they wind round
each pole an infinite number of times but reach the pole in a finite
distance. The pole-to-pole length of a rhumb line is (assuming a perfect
sphere) the length of the meridian divided by the cosine of the bearing away
from true north. Rhumb lines are not defined at the poles: it is hard to go
south-east from the North Pole and even harder to go north-west.

On a Mercator projection map, a loxodrome is a straight line; beyond the
right edge of the map it continues on the left with the same slope. The full
loxodrome on the full infinitely high map would consist of infinitely many
line segments between these two edges. On a stereographic projection map, a
loxodrome is an equiangular spiral whose center is the North (or South)
pole.

Finding the loxodromes between two given points can be done graphically on a
Mercator map, or by solving a nonlinear system of two equations (details
omitted for brevity). There are infinitely many solutions; the shortest one
is that which covers the actual longitude difference, i.e. does not make
extra revolutions, and does not go "the wrong way around."

The distance between two points, measured along a loxodrome, is simply the
absolute value of the secant of the bearing times the north-south distance
(except for circles of latitude).

Old maps do not have grids composed of lines of latitude and longitude but
instead have rhumb lines which a directly towards the North, at a right
angle from the North, or at some angle from the North which is some simple
rational fraction of a right angle. These rhumb lines would be drawn so that
they would converge at certain points of the map: lines going in every
direction would converge at each of these points.

Hope this is what you were looking for.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/

Thanks Armond for the information.

Am I right in assuming "rhumb-line" is therefore the shortest distance
between two points on the surface of a sphere?
I think the word is being mis-used in this thread and would like an
authority to comment.

However leaving that aside we should be thinking of the most desirable
course to sail and this may or may not be the direct course to the
destination. To give an example, I crewed on an American yacht last century
from New Caledonia to Bundaberg in Australia. After leaving Noumea the
skipper put a line on the chart direct towards Bundaberg. "We follow that
line" he said. Well there is a current that runs south down near the coast
of Australia. The "shortest" distance by pencil did not equate to the
shortest distance in a yacht. We started off heading west and as we got
nearer our destination we were heading WNW. I partly blame his background -
fast power boats - for this situation.

Cheers again

jofra






"Armond Perretta" wrote in message
...
[re-posted]

Jofra wrote:

To advance this discussion would you mind setting out your view as
to what a "rhumb line" is.

Sure thing, but you should realize that the information below isn't merely
or necessarily "my view."

A rhumb line (or loxodrome) is a path of constant bearing on a spherical
(or
elliptical) object. The word "loxodrome" comes from Greek loxos : oblique
+
dromos : running (from dramein : to run). They are a traditional part of
the theory of navigation.

If you follow a given (magnetic-deviation compensated) compass-bearing on
Earth, you will be following a rhumb line, which spirals from one pole to
the other. Near the poles, they are close to being logarithmic spirals (on
a
stereographic projection they are exactly that), so they wind round
each pole an infinite number of times but reach the pole in a finite
distance. The pole-to-pole length of a rhumb line is (assuming a perfect
sphere) the length of the meridian divided by the cosine of the bearing
away
from true north. Rhumb lines are not defined at the poles: it is hard to
go
south-east from the North Pole and even harder to go north-west.

On a Mercator projection map, a loxodrome is a straight line; beyond the
right edge of the map it continues on the left with the same slope. The
full
loxodrome on the full infinitely high map would consist of infinitely many
line segments between these two edges. On a stereographic projection map,
a
loxodrome is an equiangular spiral whose center is the North (or South)
pole.

Finding the loxodromes between two given points can be done graphically on
a
Mercator map, or by solving a nonlinear system of two equations (details
omitted for brevity). There are infinitely many solutions; the shortest
one
is that which covers the actual longitude difference, i.e. does not make
extra revolutions, and does not go "the wrong way around."

The distance between two points, measured along a loxodrome, is simply the
absolute value of the secant of the bearing times the north-south distance
(except for circles of latitude).

Old maps do not have grids composed of lines of latitude and longitude but
instead have rhumb lines which a directly towards the North, at a right
angle from the North, or at some angle from the North which is some simple
rational fraction of a right angle. These rhumb lines would be drawn so
that
they would converge at certain points of the map: lines going in every
direction would converge at each of these points.

Hope this is what you were looking for.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/

On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 15:00:30 +1200, "Jofra" wrote:

Am I right in assuming "rhumb-line" is therefore the shortest distance
between two points on the surface of a sphere?
I think the word is being mis-used in this thread and would like an
authority to comment.

No. A great circle is the shortest distance between two points on the
surface of a sphere. But a rhumb line is plenty good enough for the
distances on most Mercator charts.



Rodney Myrvaagnes NYC J36 Gjo/a


"Nuke the gay whales for Jesus" -- anon T-shirt

Jofra wrote:

Am I right in assuming "rhumb-line" is therefore the shortest
distance between two points on the surface of a sphere?
I think the word is being mis-used in this thread and would like an
authority to comment.

I don't know for sure that any authorities are reading or writing to this
thread, so I'll substitute until one comes along. No, you are _not_ "right"
in your assumption. Re-read the definition posted earlier.

However leaving that aside we should be thinking of the most
desirable course to sail and this may or may not be the direct
course to the destination.

If you were to say "the fastest course is the best," or "the most
comfortable course is the best," or ... etc., etc., then perhaps there would
exist some basis for discussion. Otherwise it is very difficult to make
progress on this subject using vague generalities. In addition I am still
under the impression that the discussion concerned steering error rather
than piloting technique.

... To give an example, I crewed on an American yacht last century from
New Caledonia to Bundaberg in
Australia. After leaving Noumea the skipper put a line on the chart
direct towards Bundaberg. "We follow that line" he said. Well there
is a current that runs south down near the coast of Australia. The
"shortest" distance by pencil did not equate to the shortest
distance in a yacht. We started off heading west and as we got
nearer our destination we were heading WNW. I partly blame his
background - fast power boats - for this situation.

I cannot say for sure that I understand your example since there are quite a
few details that have been omitted, but what you _seem_ to be saying is that
no allowance was made for current when setting a course. As mentioned
earlier, this has little _direct_ relation to steering error, although using
the broadest definition of "steering error" would include in many cases the
effects of unidentified or unquantified currents.

I don't know that anything I have written has been much help to you, but I
am afraid that I've pretty much run out of ideas at this point, old sport.

--
Good luck and good sailing.
s/v Kerry Deare of Barnegat
http://kerrydeare.home.comcast.net/