How much do you depend upon your GPS?

[Brian N.]

Setup (short version): On a friend's power boat going out to dinner at a dockside restaurant across the Great South bay (Long Island, NY), we departed approaching dusk. Coming home in the dark his GPS suddenly quit. A bit lost returning to the marina, no compass, but he knew the general direction and followed the shoreline. His wife was able to pull up a GPS app on her phone and we finally found the cut into the marina.

I've only experienced thick fog (twice) where I was disoriented, but had a working compass and GPS to get back.

What has been your experience with dependence on GPS (or compass)?

[Wolverine]

Summer of 2018 I sailed the north channel with some buddies.  Day 2 all our GPSs malfunctioned. I have a Lowrance chartplotter, the other 2 had handhelds of different brands. All showed us miles off course and several times sailing over land. Thankfully we also brought charts and have compasses. I now use the Lowrance along with the Navionics app with charts and a compass for backup.

[Frank B.]

Well, not a whole lot.  Since the boat has been mostly restricted to an inland lake that I know very well and all destinations are visual, the cover rarely comes off the GPS chartplotter.  Same with the Compass, haven't had the cover off for years.

When I go out at night it is usually to do a moonlight cruise with friends, drop the hook, glass of wine and dinner, and return.  "Moonlight" is usually enough for the return trip.  If It is just my wife and I we just spend the night out and return in the morning.  Unlike my experiences living on the Gulf Coast, fog is not nearly as much a hazard. There have been a very few times when clouds come up and I have needed the GPS to cross the lake and pick up the entrance finger to the marina. But I have it if I need it.

[Charles Brennan]

Brian, How much I depend on a GPS is more a function of how much convenience I desire, than how much dependence I need.
Started out in Ye Olde Compass and Chart Dayes, and thought I was in navigational high cotton, when I got hold of an RDF (Radio Direction Finder) in the 70's! 
I was used to using a hand-bearing compass for range-finding on visual landmarks and using multiple landmarks to get a comparative bearing.  For example, if you can't see the pool clubhouse on the side of the main building towers at the Boca Raton Club, you're too far north of the Boca Inlet entrance and are going to risk scraping on the rocks in the dark, at low tide.   
Will a GPS keep you from doing that? 
Yes, but so will a Mark I eyeball. 

As an early adopter (or Gullible Rube, take your pick)    I got me a GPS 45XL, just as soon as the prices came down to merely eye-watering.  After it died, I got (and still have) a GPS-72.
The irony is, I rarely use it for navigation, in the classic sense.

I have way points programmed in for example, to all the fishing spots I intend to visit on a fishing trip, or all the way points for a BEER Cruise or Fl 120 stops, or the racing mark points for a Columbus Day Cruising Regatta.
But once I hit a go-to way point, I read off the heading and use the compass mostly, thereafter.
To be sure, I will still use the GPS to see how much I am drifting off course and also as a timer, to see when I expect to arrive, but sometimes the battery dies and I don't even notice it, until I reach my destination and go to shut it off.

But if I didn't have the GPS on or functional, I would merely look at the chart and set a course from THAT.
Another habit from sailing in a pre-GPS era is to look behind me when I leave someplace, so I'll recognize it more easily, when I return.

The only lost-in-the-dark tale I have, was from well before the GPS era. 
Might put it in the Trip Reports section, if I get some time.

One guy's opinion,
Charles Brennan

[DBthal]

I use  a chartplotter, radar, sonar, charts, compass, & eyes for navigation.  The chartplotter is certainly helpful at avoiding ledges and other hazards in Maine. Radar is essential when the fog sets in which is common.

Your friend's nighttime systems loss would be a tough situation. No chartplotter, radar, and eyesight observation is greatly limited. You might not have a good "fix" to begin dead reckoning. Navionics on my phone would be a quick fallback. My dead reckoning skills aren't as sharp as they used to be....... 

[Brian N.]

Charles and Dan - 99% of the time I navigate by the old "Eyeball-1000" hooked up directly to my brain (which according to my wife does malfunction at times). Binoculars occasionally come out of their case, mostly to confirm a buoy or landmark. The compass is more for keeping a bearing relative to the wind.

When we were out on my friend's boat, he kept running west with the silhouette of the shoreline, hoping to see a familiar lit landmark. Unfortunately the entrance to the marina is dimly lit, but we spotted a brightly lit restaurant well known, which is near the entrance. Still, the GPS app on the phone was a great help.

[rfrance0718]

On my present trip I'm depending on Navionics and gps. As a matter of fact, I had forgotten that I don't have the Garmin chip for Canada so my gps is only showing me my position with coordinates on a map with no details or soundings. So I'm using the gps by charting my course for the day, based on the bearings I lay out on Navionics. That way I can use the gps and don't have to look at the phone much, except at the more difficult passages. I also take screen shots of of my navionics route for the day, both zoomed out, and zoomed in for sections along the way. The channel markers up here are also great and there is plenty of visual guidance for the tricky passages. I have North Channel charts somewhere on the boat but not sure where.

[DBthal]

.......I also take screen shots of of my navionics route for the day, both zoomed out, and zoomed in for sections along the way.

I also like to take screenshots of Google Maps zoomed in on satellite images for tricky areas. If you have a good cell signal you can leave the Google Maps app running to supplement the info you are getting from a chartplotter.  Its amazing the detail that can be seen on the Sat images.

[Norm L.]

My favorite. I couldn't do it but I've seen it done.
The old Maine lobstermen. Their navigation was their magnetic compass and one of those three-legged wind-up bedside table clocks. And a pencil.

When they laid their pots they would write courses and times on the wall next to the helm. They might skip a fog day if necessary but that was money sitting on the bottom and they would run the pots again in fog based on the course and time and years of experience on those waters, as they also had to deal with wind and tides. I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't been aboard one.

And in my sea time somehow, we got a ship to Australia, Europe, South Africa, Greece, Turkey, etc. without GPS. Annapolis has brought back celestial navigation after having stopped teaching it. They know bad guys can now mess with GPS and a few other satellite aids. The equipment in the wheelhouse of modern vessels is amazing.

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This is part of why your son or daughter can now graduate from a maritime school and within 90 days have a job at around $100K for 6 months work. And it is earned.


 I love the GPS in my car when traveling. I used to do detailed route planning so mileage and way points available to me. I'm glad I don't have to do that now.

[pgandw]

Navigation offshore before GPS sucked - both marine and in the air.

I was assigned to a CG cutter home-ported in Coos Bay, Oregon in 1975. We had Loran A, depth sounder, visual bearings, and celestial - none of which were very accurate off the fog-bound North Pacific Coast.  Radar ranges from prominent landmarks were our best bet, when we had such landmarks within radar range.  We were supposed to be identifying when Russian trawlers were violating the then 12nm fishing limit. 

Similarly, flying helicopters out of Miami with no Loran or radar made you very good at dead reckoning - or another Bermuda Triangle statistic.

I remember returning from a Bahamas cruise in my ODay 25 in 1979. After replacing a rudder gudgeon in Bimini, were sailing back to home at Homestead AFB marina.  I was using a handheld RDF to sort of confirm my dead reckoning and compass.  After about 3 hours, several RDF "fixes" put us well south of intended track, but I couldn't figure out why.  I was worried.  Father-in-law, who was my crew, stood up to change position, and compass swung 30deg.  What?  Finally I took a guess and asked him if he had anything in his pockets.  A magnetic pocket knife.  Corrected course and made it home safely.  Too many "miracles" like that for my liking.

Now retired and sailing on Albemarle Sound (or wherever I trailer to), I carry Navionics on my smart phone.  The rest is visual off navaids and shoreline.  I don't sail in fog or small craft warnings, as I don't have to be at work in the morning.  The Navionics and phone GPS track me well enough.  I carry a paper chart when a good one is available, and will install a compass for backup as I transition from day sailing to short cruises.  Maybe add a handheld compass to add bearings off of landmarks.

Fred W
Stuart Mariner 19 #4133  Sweet P
Albemarle Sound, NC

[Wayne Howard]

I love the GPS but in rough weather it's not the best. Why? Because the time delay when you change headings means you're always chasing the GPS. We were heading west from Pensacola Bay to Big Lagoon in a pouring rainstorm. Now the land cut between the two bodies of water is subject to shifting shoals and the USCG moves the buoys pretty often. Well, the route switched waypoints and the helmsperson steered to the new heading. Overshoot and corrected. Repeat about 5 times. I told the helm to check the compass course on the GPS and steer to that on the boat compass. Everything settled down and we made the cut without going aground on the shoals. But it was not fun for a while.

Connie and I got caught in an unpredicted wind storm offshore between Apalachicola and Tarpon Springs. For 18 hours, we steered to the boat compass because we didn't have time or energy to follow the GPS. But we made good time to our destination under bare poles. 

[Riley Smith]

Yeah, compass heading off the instrument. I showed my buddy he was going all over the Gulf of Mexico chasing the dang LORAN track LOL! That track looked like an arrow after I got through with him :p I do have a handheld GPS but the functions are so aggravating that I don't use it. Mostly eyeball, with a good look at a chart. Don't get me wrong, I have had occasion that it would have been a very nice tool, just not in my boat, as I mostly day sail. I don't have to worry much about depth either, so not ever a depth finder. The lack of electronics gives me a little more time for the wood 

[Captain Kidd]

Most of my sailing has been on inland lakes and most of that within a short distance of familiar ramps and most of that in the daytime in fair weather. So - no need for GPS, compass, phone or anything.

If I sail out of my normal waters, I will carry a chart and possibly use my google maps on my phone. That was the case last fall when I sailed on Guntersville Lake for the first time. We sailed a 20 mile round trip then. There were lots of shallows and I had to keep track of where I was.

I've sailed "big" waters just four times in my sailing experience. In 2000 we went up to the Chesapeake Bay. I had only been sailing a year. I had no electronic devices at that time. I had a handheld compass and paper charts. We stayed close to the western shore and were probably never more than 2 miles from land. I followed the buoys closely. We sailed up the Bay about 8 miles. That was huge for me at the time. I learned very quickly that the shore looks the same no matter where you are! We found the buoy marking the river I was looking for and we made our way to an anchorage. The compass wasn't necessarily needed but the chart sure was. On our first day, before we got chased by a nor'easter back into the marina, we did spend a little time in the bay and we tried triangulating with the charts, compass and sighting landmarks. It really was just an excercise.

Trips two and three were to Tampa Bay and Pensacola Bay. Each time we were hardly out of sight of familiar landmarks. I did have my Etrex by then and marked waypoints on paper charts keyed to the GPS. I did the same in P'cola. It was handy and I did refer to it often. The fear of grounding kind of nags me in the coastal, shallow waters.

My trip along the ICW of the Georgia coast was by far my most ambitious trip. I studied long and hard in prep, studied tides, currents, and charts. I made a notebook of paper charts, added waypoints keyed to my GPS, and then followed it diligently all along the route. I don't recall using a compass, but I must have had one. With all the twists and turns in the ICW, we did fairly well. I only made one wrong turn which resulted from me thinking I knew where I was and what I was seeing. I was a little unsure, so kept watching and soon discovered my mistake. Only cost us a couple miles. As I recall, I don't think I had that turn entered as a waypoint, because I thought I would see it. But, again, on the water the shore looks very much the same everywhere and the entrance to inlets, rivers and creeks seem to hide. Oh, I did make one other navigational error. I missed the marina where we planned to take out! How could I do that? I stopped navigating and just started looking for it on a busy shoreline. The name of the marina turned out to be quite small and non-descript and I missed seeing it. Oh, well. That cost us more than anything - about 7 miles.

I'm planning another trip this fall, likely another P'cola Bay trip. I'll have my GPS with waypoints entered and paper charts keyed. Maybe I'll try Navionics. I've also seen ads for Savvy Navvy. Might try it. We'll find out pretty soon.

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