NavList:

   

Reply

Very nice post Peter.  It's very nice to have one's faith in the
utility of sextants on small boats restored now and again.  I wonder
whether Frank were trolling for such a response!

Fred

On Nov 6, 2008, at 5:33 PM, Peter Fogg wrote:

>
> Frank you asked: First, may I ask, just for the sake of comparison,
> is your chronometer
> electronic?
>
> You may, Frank.  Have both kinds of watches, electronic and
> mechanical, and note that my recently acquired Casio promises a 10-
> year battery life (4-months with me now, and seems to have settled
> down to about a consistent 1.5sec/month gain.  If its not a
> chronometer its still a pretty good watch).
>
> I have often found people extolling the virtues of celestial
> navigation because it is immune to electrical outages who
> nonetheless carry
> only battery-powered watches. You've mentioned previously that you
> do a
> survey of the timepieces of everyone on board at the beginning of a
> passage,
> and that's a great idea. But do you consider yourself at risk if all
> timepieces are battery-powered?
>
> Risk of .. all their cells failing at much the same time?  Seems
> a .. remote risk?  The on-board survey, incidentally, is ongoing,
> so an idea is gained of individual watch error and, if the passage
> is long enough, rate of change.  So even if all the other
> timepieces onboard fail to proceed, plus we have no radio, the last
> one going should still give us fairly accurate time, after
> correction.  I should say that the assumed-to-be-correct time comes
> from the GPS !
>
> Lets say the GPS dies, or a difficult to track-down error develops
> with its antenna-mounting connection out on the rail (personally
> experienced) or the boat runs out the vast numbers of cells needed
> for portable GPS continuous operation  (did you realise that those
> gadjets have an inordinate appetite for difficult-to-replace-at-sea
> cells?).  The result is: no GPS.  Have experienced just that - no
> working GPS - on a well-found boat that was carrying 3 of the silly
> things, including a portable device.
>
> What actually happens, its been all to common on so many different
> boats I've sailed on, is that for a variety of reasons the sole
> (the floor of the cabin) becomes covered in water.  This is usually
> very bad news for the batteries that are typically stored beneath
> the sole.  No battery life usually means you can't get the diesel
> motor going, and in one fell swoop you are, for most practical
> purposes, transported back to the 19th century.  You'd better have
> a good supply of everything you need for a happy passage that
> doesn't rely on electronics, because from that point on there ain't
> any, subject to individual cell life and supply.
>
> We thought we were so clever in our little boat, as we had every
> reason to believe it didn't leak (fibreglass hull and cabin) plus a
> different motor configeration, without batteries beneath the sole.
> We spent a long day once punching into waves, sailing upwind, and
> after 14 non-stop hours of that I went below for a rest, stepping
> into cold water in the dark as I reached the sole.  So climbed back
> up and shared this good news with Annick:
> "Houston, we have a problem".
>
> It wasn't too serious, happily, and after I bailed out the boat the
> water only came back slowly.  So much for not leaking !  All the
> cabin windows plus the forward hatch were streaming only a little
> of the green water being regularly dumped on them.
>
> All boats leak, given enough encouragement.  What also happens
> often enough is that they get pooped, a wave hits from behind and a
> lot of that water goes below through the hatch, if careless sailors
> have left it open.
>
> Or you may have a problem with fuel.  Algae seems to thrive in
> diesel fuel, especially in practice onboard, despite the stuff
> added to discourage it, and when enough grows it clogs the supply
> line and stops the motor.  The end result may be the same: no
> electronics.
>
> Electonics? - wonderful wizardry.  Marvelous.  Fabulously clever
> gadgetry, that increases our quality of life hugely.
>
> Reliable?  Out at sea in a small boat?  In your dreams ...
>
> >



--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
Navigation List archive: www.fer3.com/arc
To post, email NavList@fer3.com
To , email NavList-@fer3.com
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

   

Reply