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This thread is becoming, to my mind, a little too dogmatic.

Keep in mind that, at the end of the day, the goal is to know where
you are with some certainty.  If the budget is unlimited, buy all the
toys you can.  If the budget is limited, buy while remembering that
Murphy's Law will not be denied.  The more pieces in the system, the
greater then chance for failure.  Now, mercifully, shear numbers alone
don't define risk of failure; there are millions and millions of
transistors in a single CPU chip, for example, but they hold up
amazingly well.

This list springs from an interest in the details of navigation and
that's hard to follow if all of a ship's positional data is presented
by a receiver and computer.  But when the seas are up, the clouds
thick, and the navigator is spending time chumming the fish, it's hard
to find time for computing navigational triangles from first
principles.  Conversely, when the batteries fail, a drop to the deck
shatters a chip, and none of the displays tell anything, a sextant,
clock, and tables look mighty attractive.

As always, it's best to use the right tools for the job and the
definition of "best" varies with the circumstances.

Rick
S/V One With The Wind, Baba 35

   

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