Coastal & Offshore Navigation

by Tom Cunliffe

Overview

Discover what the modern yacht navigator needs to know for a stress-free voyage along the coast and out of sight of land. This book is designed to raise the game of the inshore day-sailor to fully fledged offshore navigator capable of handling any sea passage short of an ocean crossing. The book contains what you need to stay safe using techniques from non-electronic essentials through to the latest in electronic chart plotters. It reviews the basic arts of navigation and covers tides, how to predict them and make them work for you and how to keep a check on your navigational accuracy and modify your tactics accordingly. It analyses the vital relationships between the fix and the estimated position and explains the safe and constructive use of electronic aids for navigation. Passage planning for an enjoyable, satisfying voyage is explored and there is a systemic, no-nonsense approach to passage making. It is suitable for those who are at 'Day Skipper' level and who wish to progress, or those who have started out with the companion book Inshore Navigation, from which this book follows on. Fernhurst Books recommends this book for Yachtmaster and Coastal Skipper students.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781912177356
Publisher:	Fernhurst Books Limited
Publication date:	01/02/2009
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	61 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Tom Cunliffe is Britain’s leading sailing writer. He is a worldwide authority on sailing instruction and an expert on traditional sailing craft. His hints and tips could help all yachtsmen! He has crossed oceans in simple boats without engines or electronics and voyaged to both sides of the Atlantic from Brazil to Iceland and from the Caribbean to Russia. He has cruised the coast of America and Canada and logged thousands of miles exploring both sides of the English Channel. Tom’s nautical career has seen him serve as mate on a merchant ship, captain on gentleman’s yachts and skipper of racing craft. His private passion is classic sailing boats and he has owned a series of traditional gaff-rigged vessels that have taken him and his family on countless adventures from tropical rainforests to frozen fjords. Tom has been a Yachtmaster Examiner since 1978 and has a gift for sharing his knowledge with good humour and an endless supply of tales of the sea. He also writes for Yachting Monthly, Yachting World and SAIL magazines, and wrote and presented the BBC TV series, The Boats That Built Britain.

Read an Excerpt

1 Charts, publications and essential chartwork

In the long twilight that preceded the general availability of good navigational charts, our coastal waters teemed with small craft operated by fishermen. These remarkable seafarers would not have recognised an Admiralty Chart if you had given them one; many would have been unable to read the words on it in any case, yet most of them stayed out of difficulty for a lifetime. They did their navigation by the same rule-of-thumb pilotage tricks that we use today – and a whole lot more we’ll never know about. The chart was there all right, but it wasn’t made of paper and they carried all its data in their heads. Although it did not matter to them, most of these fishermen only had a very small folio of mental charts. Two, or maybe three, was their lot. Take them a hundred miles from home, send them off to sea and they’d have been in deep trouble. Today, we are lucky. By using readily available charts we can relate what we see above the water to what lies beneath its surface anywhere on the planet. As a result, we are able to perform almost as well as the fisherman, not only on his home ground but anywhere we choose to operate. Charts may form the basis of our navigation, but to use them fully, further information is required. Tides and other ephemeral data are found in almanacs. The bare essentials of the charted data are expanded and given vital colour by pilot books. Today’s almanacs are highly comprehensive and supply some basic pilotage information. While useful, however, this is no substitute for the real thing.

Paper Charts and Their Use

While many sailors navigate exclusively on electronic charts accessed via a PC or hardware plotter, many still prefer to use paper charts as their primary system, backed up by GPS and perhaps a small chart plotter. Even if electronic charts are the preferred first port of call, everyone must still have full paper backup for the gruesome day when the volts gurgle down some unexpected electronic plughole or the GPS system is switched off at source, for reasons we at the moment can only guess at. In other words, paper charts confer navigational independence. They remain the bedrock of our security and we all must retain a full understanding of what they offer.

Admiralty Charts

These are produced in all the different scales required to navigate successfully in British waters. They are available for most foreign waters as well but, in some cases, the locally produced chartsare better for detailed navigation. If you were proposing to visit France, for example, you would be well advised to get hold of the French charts for the area you are intending to sail. Admiralty Charts, see Figure 1-1, will get you to most places and take you safely into the main harbours, but not even the UK Hydrographic Office can produce large-scale charts for all the inlets and anchorages of every coast upon Earth. Be aware of this if you are going beyond home waters and make suitable enquiries before you leave.

Standard Charts

The full-sized charts containing all the information available from the latest surveys are called Admiralty Standard Charts. These are sold by official chart agents and are up-to-date at the point of sale. The physical size of them can make for awkwardness on a small yacht’s chart table but, with practice, folding them is less of an issue than it may at first appear.

Leisure Editions

Leisure Edition Charts are sold already folded up in individual plastic wallets. They feature exactly the same information as the equivalent standard Admiralty Charts, but are printed on water-resistant paper said to withstand more rigorous use than the cartridge paper of the Standard Chart. Each Leisure Edition Chart is republished with a new edition to coincide with the Standard Chart on which it is based