The Weekend Navigator, 2nd Edition

by Robert J. Sweet

Overview

Read what the the U.S. Power Squadron and the U.S. Coast Guard trust as the definitive authority on electronic navigation, now updated with the latest electronic technologies and methods

The Weekend Navigator teaches you how to navigate using today's tools and methods, including the latest technologies such as smart phones. While electronic navigation is here to stay, author Bob Sweet recognizes that they are still based on traditional charts and piloting skills, and he combines the two to pass along to you a solid understanding of all the principles of marine navigation.

In addition to its continued ground-breaking instruction for the now-digital process of navigation on board power- and sailboats, Sweet helps you understand recent options for chartplotters, less expensive handheld GPS units, smart phones, and the navigation possibilities presented by phone apps. New to this edition is a section entitled "Ooops," which provides an insightful collection of boating accident tales resulting from common GPS and chartplotters no-nos. Using The Weekend Navigator, you can get on the water right away and learn to navigate in an afternoon with GPS; master chart-and-compass piloting while, not before, he or she departs; plot courses and fix positions on paper or electronic charts; and more.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780071759960
Publisher:	McGraw Hill LLC
Publication date:	08/24/2011
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Bob Sweet has more than 30 years of experience in the technology and electronics markets and 30 years of boating experience. He has held engineering and senior executive management positions with a number of companies including GTE, Harris, ABA Industries, Inframetrics and Elbit Systems - the last three at the President and CEO level. He has both BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Penn State. He started his career as a radar and communications system engineer and, throughout his career, gained extensive experience with GPS including managing a corporate business unit that developed major portions of GPS for the Air Force. More recently, Bob was instrumental in the boating education for the Power Squadrons in Southeastern New England.HOMETOWN: East Falmouth, MA

Read an Excerpt

The WEEKEND NAVIGATOR

Simple Boat Navigation with GPS and Electronics

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By Robert J. Sweet

The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Copyright © 2012Robert J. Sweet
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-07-175996-0

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Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

About This Book

In the fog-shrouded past of a generation ago, navigation was still done as it had been for centuries. A navigator would set forth on the wide waters armed with his (or her) charts, dividers, course plotter, compass, eyes, and wits. Along unfamiliar coasts or through bad weather, he "felt" his way from port to port. Any charted navigation buoy or landmark was a valued reference; with bearings and distances from these, he could fix a point on a chart and say with confidence, "I am there!"

But such confidence would be tested if those charted objects ever slipped from view. In darkness or thick fog, the navigator could calculate only his approximate position. This calculation, this dead reckoning, worked when done well, but it wasn't dead on. Without precise fixes, the navigator could only strain his eyes and ears to hear the reassuring peal of a bell buoy or (heaven forbid) to see the foaming white surge of breakers over lurking rocks in the mist ahead.

But all that has changed.

Just prior to the close of the last millennium, GPS (the Global Positioning System) was born. Within a few years, GPS receivers had become popular and affordable. Nowadays, if you have a hundred bucks and two AA batteries, you can buy a handheld GPS and use it to plot your location anywhere on the Earth's surface. Just one glance at the GPS screen will tell you your precise location, your speed, your heading, and the direction and distance to your next destination. It will even give you the time of day.

GPS has made navigation easy. Within hours you can learn enough to get out on the water. But those AA batteries won't last forever, and neither will your GPS receiver, for that matter. Sure, the quantum leap in technology is impressive, but no one has yet invented electronics that won't eventually break down. Therefore, it's important that you also learn the techniques from a generation past. You should know how to plot courses on a chart with dividers and parallel rules, steer them by compass, fix your position with visual bearings, and dead reckon when no bearings are possible. In short, you should know how to navigate by your wits.

The Weekend Navigator will teach you how to navigate in the digital age, but it will also teach you the time-honored techniques that never go out of style and never lose their usefulness. You'll learn how to use a GPS receiver as well as a handful of other modern electronic navigation tools, and you'll learn within a context that will strengthen your overall understanding of navigation concepts. Despite all the new technologies, nautical charts remain the single most essential tool of the navigator, and unlocking their language still requires practice. So, it's important that we learn about navigation's past before we can fully understand its future. After all, a straight line may represent the shortest path between two points, but it isn't always the safest.

But here's the good news: with GPS on your side, you can safely do a lot more of your learning while you're boating, not before. Round up the recommended navigation tools and spend a weekend with The Weekend Navigator, and you'll be ready to start putting your navigation skills into practice. That's the GPS revolution.

Navigating This Book

This book can be considered both a "quick start" guide to navigation and a reference guide. The early chapters will quickly get you up to speed and out on the water. The later chapters will provide you with the advanced techniques and tools that only old salts know.

Part I gives you an overview. Using a sample cruise as an example, Chapters 2 and 3 help you see the important differences between traditional piloting and modern-day navigation. You'll learn the key concepts of waypoint navigation, and you'll be introduced to "The Three Steps of Navigation." Chapter 4 introduces the necessary tools, both traditional and digital.

Part II deals with prevoyage planning—the first of the three steps in navigation. These chapters show you how to plot safe courses on both paper and digital charts and how to enter waypoints into a GPS.

By Part III, we've plotted courses and are ready to follow them across the water. Navigating underway is the second step in navigation, and these chapters teach you how to use a GPS, a computer, and a chartplotter from the helm.

The third and final step in navigation is to confirm your electronics through independent means. Double-checking is the focus of Part IV. These chapters reveal some low-tech tips that will keep you on the right track.

Electronic failures and forces of nature can play havoc with even the most careful navigation. Part V discusses how to prepare for changing conditions.

Part VI is a virtual wish list of high-tech navigation equipment; each chapter demonstrates how to use a particular tool and explains what it does best. Armed with this information, you can decide which tools are right for your boat.

Each of the chapters in Part VII explores an advanced topic in navigation. These tips and techniques are easily referenced and ready to help you develop into a seasoned navigator.

The principles of navigation were established long ago. A GPS receiver fixes your position by crossing circles of equal distance, just as celestial navigators have been doing for centuries and coastal pilots have been doing for millennia. But the electronics revolution is bringing us rapidly evolving tools that allow us to navigate more precisely and with increasing ease and safety. As one example, the downloadable software described in Appendix 1 is updated at least yearly. I invite you to visit www.weekendnavigator.net, where I keep track of updates, tips, and late-breaking information on navigation software and navigation in general.

No other pursuit can set you free the way boating can. The infinite expanse of blue water and sky invites you to leave your everyday stresses behind. Even a short weekend outing on local waters can make you feel as though you're worlds away from home and work. But no matter how far you drift, the skills and techniques you'll learn from The Weekend Navigator will ensure that you can always return. (Whenever you're ready, of course.) And regardless of conditions—be it the foggiest day or the darkest night—you will always be able to pull out a chart and confidently state, "I am there!"

CHAPTER 2

What Is Navigation?

Navigating on the water is vastly different from piloting your automobile. In your travels by car, you follow roads. Although it is possible to select the wrong road or route to your destination, you will rarely encounter terrain hazards as long as you stay on the roadway. But there are no roads on the water, and your choices for travel appear virtually limitless. This is at once the great freedom and the challenge of navigating a boat, because unseen hazards may lurk below the surface of what looks like safe water. Consequently, a major part of marine navigation is avoiding hazards while traveling from point A to point B.

In planning for travel on land, you pull out maps and select the appropriate sequence of roads to reach your destination. The roads generally are clearly defined and marked, so they are easily identified while you are underway. Planning for travel on the water is an entirely different matter. You will need to make up your own roads. Once on the water, you may encounter few markings or signs to guide you along your chosen path.

The Three Steps
(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The WEEKEND NAVIGATOR by Robert J. Sweet. Copyright © 2012 by Robert J. Sweet. Excerpted by permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments to the Second Edition....................          

Part I—Introduction....................          

Chapter 1—About This Book....................          

Chapter 2—What Is Navigation?....................          

Chapter 3—Fundamentals of Waypoint Navigation....................          

Chapter 4—The Tools of Navigation....................          

Part II—Prevoyage Planning....................          

Chapter 5—Planning with GPS and Paper Charts....................          

Chapter 6—Planning with Digital Charts....................          

Chapter 7—Planning to Avoid Danger....................          

Part III—Navigating Underway....................          

Chapter 8—Underway with GPS and Paper Charts....................          

Chapter 9—Underway with Digital Charts....................          

Part IV—Double-Checking Your Navigation....................          

Chapter 10—Double-Checking Using Instruments....................          

Part V—Responding to Changing Conditions....................          

Chapter 12—What to Do If the GPS Quits....................          

Chapter 13—Planning as You Go with GPS....................          

Chapter 14—Tides, Winds, and Currents....................          

Part VI—Other Electronics....................          

Chapter 15—Navigating with Radar....................          

Chapter 16—Using Depth in Navigation....................          

Chapter 17—Using Radio in Navigation....................          

Chapter 18—Using an Electronic Compass....................          

Chapter 19—Automatic Identification System....................          

Chapter 20—Using an Autopilot in Navigation....................          

Part VII—Special Techniques....................          

Chapter 21—Navigating While Tacking into the Wind....................          

Chapter 22—Navigating Harbors and Channels with Electronics...........          

Chapter 23—Navigating under Adverse Conditions....................          

Chapter 24—A Last Word on Avoiding Danger....................          

Chapter 25—Advanced Topics in Radar....................          

Chapter 26—Other Instrumentation....................          

Chapter 27—Connecting It All Together....................          

Chapter 28—Electronic Navigation Tools and Rules—A Summary......          

Chapter 29—Measuring Compass Deviation Using GPS....................          

Appendix 1—Using Digital Charts....................          

Appendix 2—GPS Display Overview—A Side-by-Side Comparison.......          

Appendix 3—Resources and References....................          

Index....................