Pencil and Paper vs Bits, Bytes and a Glass Screen.
The Skipper makes a lot of fuss about navigation, and seems to spend hours
at it. He makes a fetish of the tedious chore of
filling in the Ship's Log. Every hour; Cleone's position is
written down (to one place of decimals, even though the GPS gives it to 3), the
time is recorded (preferably exactly on the hour, but anyway to the minute), the
distance run and how far to go are noted, and even the wind strenth and
direction are written down. That's not all; every twelve hours (Noon
and Midnight, Greenwich Mean Time), and when near land more often, the
position and time are marked with a pencil cross on one or more of the
charts. These charts - seagoing maps, of which there are well over a
hundred on board - are expensive pieces of paper. They are
largely white, except at the edges where they become blue, sometimes
green, and then yellow; the coloured bits are land or rocks or shallow waters,
and normally to be avoided. The rest merely shows huge areas of sea.
The whole thing seems to be a pointless exercise, and indeed some yachts neither
carry paper charts nor keep a written log. A dot on a screen shows where
they are, another allows them to plan their course and insert way-points
into their plotters, which their auto-pilot will then follow. Their
position at any given time is merely recorded within their instruments.
For us, before we depart from any port, the Skipper draws lines on a chart,
extracts waypoints and feeds them into the GPS by hand, making a traditional
Passage Plan. Sounds simple, but it is time consuming and these days
it is surely un-necessary. We know where we came from and where we are
going to, it is stored in the GPS with our exact position. Apart from
satisfying the Boss's fetish, is there a point to all of this old technology
rigmarole?
Even to the untrained eye, examination of a chart reveals that it contains
a wealth of detail. As well as soundings and undersea contours, everything
of navigational significance is marked on it; lighthouses, buoys, harbours,
rocks, shoals, shipping lanes, currents and so on. The accuracy,
particularly of Admiralty Charts, is legendary, and there is a superb system of
Notices to Mariners that can be used to keep them up-to-date. Some of our
charts were originally produced in the 19th Century; they are still the latest
editions available. Even though they are only printed in black and white,
and depths are marked in fathoms, the detail is sill accurate, and official
corrections keep them current. And where there are inaccuracies, such as
the use of an obsolete datum, the extent of these (and a wealth of other
important detail) is clearly printed below the chart's Title. The
spread of an Admiralty Chart is much greater than that of a Chart Plotter screen
- even Kealoha's is not that big - so Passage Planning, and picking up
drift and other trends is much easier, and gross errors of plotting or course
steered leap out at you. All these details are doubtless recorded on the
chip of the Chart Plotter's Memory Card. Finding them is another matter;
how often are they referred to and how easy are they to access?
It is a legal requirement to keep a log, which can be sought by any
authority. Our Log has been; when the incompetent Panama Agent failed
to give us our Zarpe (clearance form) the Ecuador Authorities demanded copies of
our Log Book as proof that we had actually come from Panama. As to the
rest of it, maybe we have got to the stage where we don't need to worry about
weather trends; after all, Bruce's weather forecast e-mails are ever there
in our computers ready to be re-referred to. Our instruments tell us
how we are being affected by any current that's around, and what the wind is
doing for the matter of that. And maybe if any dispute arises, the bits
and bytes in our instruments can be extracted and events construed from them
that can be used in evidence for or against us.
But putting aside any legal requirements, there is something tangible
about the written record, and it is there for ever. It is easy for
anyone to refer back to events in the log or to positions on a chart, and
immensely satisfying to see the little crosses joined by a pencil line marching
across the ocean or winding through some tricky rock-strewn passage. And
in the event of electrical failure - all too common - or a lightning strike
(less common, but not unheard of) leaving us instrumentless, the
paper, with all its important details and our added
markings will still be there, the working of the pencil and
plotter will be unaffected and the weather forecast recorded. We will
know roughly where we are, and accurately where we have been. With
good luck and the aid of a compass (and as a last resort, a sextant and tables)
we should continue to be able to know where we are and where we should be
going. And the chart with its marks will be a permanent reminder of happy,
exciting days spent at sea.
The case rests. I'd like to think I am no luddite, but don't throw
the pencil and paper away just yet.
All well with us, and best wishes to
everyone,
James, Norfy (Chris) and Alex