Short Stories of Navigation
A Personal Introduction to Electronic Navigation
Tony Meacock
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| Decca Navigator, photo by T. Meacock |
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| Sadler Yacht |
Our first yacht was a Sadler 25 ‘Sesterce’ which we bought half finished in 1982 and which spent the next two years in our front garden being fitted out until it was launched in 1984. She was berthed at Woodbridge and we explored the East Coast. During this time a colleague happened to mention that he had a Decca Navigator and extolled its merits.
He did so to such lengths that when in the summer of 1986 we visited the East Coast Boat Show and found a stand with an offer on the Decca Navigator for £600, I suggested to my wife we buy one. After a brief “discussion” we did so. I suspect my wife thought that at the time she had been out maneuvered.
However, after installing it and using it crossing the North Sea we realised that it was like having a third hand on board. We could both sail the boat and then just nip down below every hour to log and plot our position without the risk of feeling ill. It made our voyages so much more comfortable. Though on one occasion sailing past Oxford Ness I checked the Decca and found it saying we were sailing due West at 150 knots. I suspect this was caused the secret installation there called Cobra Mist.
When in 1990 Sesterce was replaced with Sadler 29 ‘Denaria’ -better standing headroom - ready for our retirement, I transferred the Decca. We continued to use our third hand, including several trips to the Baltic until 2000 when Decca was shut down and replaced with GPS.
Approaching a Narrow Channel on a Line of Bearing
Peter Waddington
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| RYA Training Chart 2 |
| with Portland Plotter and single handed dividers. |
The below is a tale arising from my time as a RYA Yachtmaster Instructor and comes from my time running my one man/one boat RYA Recognised Sailing School for upward of 20 years on the west coast of Scotland. This was a second career after retirement from the Royal Navy.
When I would teach students who were learning basic visual pilotage one of my lessons was that when tired or under stress rather than saying to yourself "it bears so and so, but it should bear so and so, which way should I turn to correct it?" and involving yourself in rapid mental arithmetic, it is instead far simpler to look down the required bearing and then at the objective. If the required bearing is to the right of the objective, you need to alter to Port. If it is to the left of the objective, you need to turn to Starboard.
Once when I was acting as a silent observer for a Coastal Skipper candidate who was being examined by an independent RYA examiner I watched as this advice was forgotten. The candidate tried the method of “working it out” and consequently turned the wrong way three times. He was only stopped from further attempts by the examiner tiring of telling him to start again and he was instead taken below so that the examiner could explain what he was doing wrong.
It was the middle of the night, after a hard evening of testing and the student had been expecting to find two leading lights as were marked on the chart. He had quickly established that one of the leading lights was missing, but correctly identified the remaining light and tried to establish what should be the correct approach bearing. The simple procedure above which he had forgotten while tired and under stress would have quickly told him which way to turn. It was a matter of luck that as he was well offshore when he attempted the approach, he was able to make the error without hazarding the boat.
