NavList:

Thanks, Richard!

What's still not clear from the report is whether use of GPS in any way resulted in the boat's running aground.  On-shore gale force winds certainly seem like darn sloppy conditions for a 25' sailboat!   What the MCA report says is that "the yacht's GPS had failed and the crew could only make a rough estimate of their position [for rescuers]"

It sounds like these folks had less than total situational awareness (eg, didn't know exactly where they had grounded), but that could easily be due to conditions other than the use of GPS -- for example, how many of us could keep a DR plot under the snotty conditions that beset this boat?   And the boat did run aground in daylight, so they ought to have seen how near they were getting to the shore.

Again, I'm not excusing poor navigation practices if that's indeed what happened.   But I also have a lot of trouble with the tendency of "experts" to assign "GPS problems" as the reason for any on-the-water incident where the boat was carrying and using a GPS.   Some on this list are pilots and I understand pilots get very angry when a crash is dismissed as "pilot error" even before an investigation is completed; I see an analogy.

Lu

Richard B. Langley wrote:

A little bit more information from the Coast Guard:
<http://nds.coi.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=382944&NewsAreaID=2>
-- Richard

Quoting Lu Abel <lunav@abelhome.net>:

  

It would be nice to have a little more detail on exactly what occurred
other than "the GPS failed"   When did the GPS fail, was the skipper
aware of the problem, and what navigation techniques were employed after
the GPS failed?

Any skipper who just follows the his GPS blindly without situational
awareness is dumb, dumb, dumb.   But I don't blame the GPS for that, but
over-reliance on it by humans.

That's probably the dilemma:   with traditional techniques like
celestial, bearings, and DR plots, the navigator had a high degree of
situational awareness.   Using a chart for all this navigation work was
unavoidable, giving awareness of what was around and beneath and ahead
of the boat.   With GPS, sadly, the box just produces magic numbers (or
magic "steer in this direction" commands).   I teach coastal piloting
frequently, I do admit that GPS exists and is a useful tool, I spend
time on how to get the most out of it, but then I also spend even more
time on how to keep out of trouble when using it, and what to do when
the screen goes blank.

Lu

Richard B. Langley wrote:
    

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/essex/7704769.stm>

===============================================================================
 Richard B. Langley                            E-mail: lang@unb.ca
 Geodetic Research Laboratory                  Web: http://www.unb.ca/GGE/
 Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering    Phone:    +1 506 453-5142
 University of New Brunswick                   Fax:      +1 506 453-4943
 Fredericton, N.B., Canada  E3B 5A3
     Fredericton?  Where's that?  See: http://www.city.fredericton.nb.ca/
===============================================================================



      

===============================================================================
 Richard B. Langley                            E-mail: lang@unb.ca
 Geodetic Research Laboratory                  Web: http://www.unb.ca/GGE/
 Dept. of Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering    Phone:    +1 506 453-5142
 University of New Brunswick                   Fax:      +1 506 453-4943
 Fredericton, N.B., Canada  E3B 5A3
     Fredericton?  Where's that?  See: http://www.city.fredericton.nb.ca/
===============================================================================




  

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