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George said,
�But it brings a question to mind. He has renounced engine and electronic
equipment, and proceeds by traditional methods only (such as taffrail log,
I was pleased to note). Just think of the complexity that this allows him
to leave behind�.

I am sorry if I gave you the wrong impression about my preference in
navigation and boats. Some of my boats have had engines and electrical
systems, but most have not. If I am sailing for my own pleasure then I
prefer the simpler approach. If I am sailing professionally then I use the
best technology available on board.

George also said,
�But he refers to being "on soundings", and I wonder if he has accepted
modern echosounder technology, or if he confines himself to lead and line
(with a bit of tallow, animal-fat, in the hollow in the end of the weight).
It's the tallow that gives lead-and-line its advantage over the
Echosounder�.

I don�t find the modern depth finder to be very intrusive so I do use them
if available. The hand lead is still used on some occasions even if I have a
depth sounder because of the information it adds to the overall picture.
Last week I did a survey of the harbor at Beacon using a GPS feeding data
into a laptop, depth sounder and a benchmark from NOAA. I used a lead to get
a bottom sample for the survey.

George finishes by saying,
�The tallow, by the way, was to sample the "quality of the bottom", whether
it was mud, sand,  ooze, or gravel, and the type of shells within it. A
navigator would compare what came up with his own experience of that area,
and with the annotations on the chart. This information was regarded as
particularly valuable in the Western approaches to the English channel. The
navigator would inspect the sample closely, sniff it, even taste it, but I
wonder if the tasting was done for show rather than anything else. It's
hard to imagine that it tasted of anything other than salty tallow�.

I have never tasted the sample; the smell, color and other visual and
tactile clues have been enough for me. Add to this, the charts usually do
not include a menu of the bottom taste. I understand that Henry Hudson
tasted the water in the Hudson River to determine if he had found the
passage to India. That is as much as I have heard about taste and the art of
navigation.
All the best,
Robert Gainer

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