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While much larger initiatives are needed to make shipping more environmentally sound, the little things add up. Don’t believe me? Ask any Engineer who has played the efficiency contest, a game where each on duty engineer goes around the ship turning off lights to increase the vessel’s fuel efficiency during his watch. The object of the game is to obtain better efficiency figures than the last watchstander.

Or was the game just intended to confuse the Deckies? (We really need an Engineer blogger here at gCaptain… any takers?). [Continue Reading →]

While we have covered eLoran before, most notably in this eLoran FAQ early last year, new headlines provide the need for revisiting the topic. In an article titled “Will Obama Kill Navigation Backup System as GPS Threatens to Fail?” Popular Mechanics tells us:

Even as a government watchdog agency warns that GPS navigation satellites could fail, the Obama administration’s proposed fiscal 2010 budget has quietly killed the nation’s backup navigation system.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report last week warning, “It is uncertain whether the Air Force will be able to acquire new satellites in time to maintain current GPS service without interruption. If not, some military operations and some civilian users could be adversely affected.” The report also notes that the current program is about $870 million over budget and the launch of its first satellite has been delayed to November 2009, almost three years late.

This GAO report comes at a bad time for the Obama administration, which cut funding for the nation’s only backup to GPS from its 2010 budget. The LORAN system, which stands for Long-Range Aids to Navigation, is a network of terrestrial transmission stations, equipped with antennas as tall as 900 feet and staffed with Coast Guard personnel.

The network has been on the verge of obsolescence because GPS has a wider range and can transmit more precise information. That’s why Peter Orszag, director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget, in an online posting on the White House’s websitewrote the “long-range, radio-navigation system has been made obsolete by GPS.” (Full Article Link)

From its invention by Alfred Lee Loomis to assist the Navy and Air Force during WWI to the wide scale adoption of GPS in the 90’s, Loran served the navigation needs of mariners in coastal waters. While Loran-C receivers have been taken off the bridges of most merchant ships it’s replacement, GPS, suffers from enough faults that every mariner is still required by the US Coast Guard to learn both terrestrial and celestial navigation. [Continue Reading →]

MaritimeLinks.net (a must see site) brings us what is reportedly “The Worlds Sexiest Sextant” or less smashingly called the Cassens & Plath Horizon Ultra. Why? Here’s their answer:

WIRED magazine ran an article that was a real surprise to me: It was about a sextant, and a very good looking sextant at that! This old school navigational device has some sexy styling that any nautical buff would be proud to get their hands on. Take a look at the story and the picture of this excellent piece of retro nautical tech. Read More

Wired’s Take: [Continue Reading →]

One of the keys to becoming good at celestial navigation is knowing what you’re looking for. That is why learning the constellations is important.

Todays gCaptain tip is a simple link to a simple slideshow that teaches you star identification the night sky.

QuiteBay’s: The Night Sky
(thanks to Lifehacker for the tip)

Also…not very instructional but still interesting: 1822 Celestial Atlas

The Guardian tells us:

A nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarine needed £5m worth of repairs after it struck the seabed because a piece of tracing paper covered its navigational chart, investigators have found.

The tracing paper had been used on the chart to protect it from being written on, obscuring vital information.

HMS Trafalgar was grounded near the Isle of Skye in October 2002 because of basic navigational errors during a training exercise for students, according to the official board of inquiry report, which has been released under a freedom of information request.

According to the report, just 90 seconds before the boat hit the seabed, a crew member realised what was about to happen and was recorded as saying: “We’re going to have to change course. This is too dangerous.”

TSSBP gives us a bit of insight:

To me, this wasn’t really a “training aid”-induced accident; I think all boats used tracing paper over charts when you were staying in the same small area for a long time with lots of maneuvering, whether you were doing PCO Ops or not. All submariners, I’m sure, have good stories about where training aids actually contributed to real-world casualties; unfortunately, all of mine happened back aft, so I can’t talk about them.

While The Lone Voice captures our sentiment in this post:

The involvement of unsupervised student submariners in the navigation procedures and the use of tracing paper on the chart were criticised heavily by the board.

This map shows the antipodes of each point on the Earth’s surface – the points where the blue and pink overlap are land antipodes. Notice that most land has an antipode in the ocean. This map uses the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.

This map shows the antipodes of each point on the Earth’s surface – the points where the blue and pink overlap are land antipodes. Notice that most land has an antipode in the ocean. This map uses the Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.

This map shows the antipodes of each point on the Earth’s surface – the points where the blue and pink overlap are land antipodes. Darker shades indicate areas of higher population density. This map uses the Equirectangular projection.

As a kid I wondered where I’d end up if I could drill a hole all the way through the earth. The answer was always China. That was before I knew the concept of Latitude and Longitude.

Thanks to the net, it’s much easier to make the calculation today. It is interesting to note that very little of the earths land mass overlaps.

Any number of Anitpode map links can make the calculation for you.
Wikipedia info here. You can create your own.

For the hooked on trivia buffs, here’s Wendy Carols’ Map Page.
(Ed. note: If you’re of my vintage you may remember Wendy’s (aka Walter) 1968 synthesizer classic Hooked on Bach.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.

(Ed. note: This comes from a current student, Dave Yell. You may well be able to deduce that Dave is British. In deed he held a Unlimited License there. He’s planning on doing some work here, which is way he’s in a class. I should note he is a fantastic resource.)

A man knows where he is, at all times.

He knows this because he knows where he isn’t.

By comparing where he is with where he isn’t or where he isn’t with where he is, he understands there is a Deviation.

His built in intuition uses Deviations to generate corrective commands to drive him from a position where he is to a position where he isn’t, and arriving at a position where he wasn’t, he now is.

Consequently: the position where he is now is the position where he wasn’t and it follows that the position where he wasn’t, is now the position where he is.

In the event that his actual position is not the position where he wasn’t, his conscience has acquired a Variation.
Variation is the difference between where the he is and where he is supposed to be or where he wasn’t.

If Variation is considered to be a significant factor his conscience can generate corrective commands to drive him from a position where he is to a position where he should be, and arriving at a position where he wasn’t, he now is.

However, to achieve the above he must also know where he was. His built in intelligence creates a scenario that works as follows: Because both Deviation and Variation have been modified by corrective commands of his intelligence and conscience some of the initial position information that he obtained is now inaccurate.

Therefore, he is not sure where he is.

However, he is sure where he isn’t and he knows where he was. He now compares where he should be with where he wasn’t. By differentiating this comparison with where he should be with where he was and where he wasn’t with where he now is, he is able to obtain the sum of the true Deviation and Variation, which he explains as – ERROR.

- Dave Yell 2006

- Adapted from the Missile Guidance System explanation.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.

Photo By Jay Q

The first documented lighthouse was in Alexandria Egypt, circa 290 BC. And today, lighthouses are an endangered species.

Pharos Lighthouse stood on the eastern point of Pharos Island some distance from the city center of Alexandria. Indeed this lighthouse is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

For sailors, it ensured a safe return to the Great Harbor. It was the tallest building on Earth. And for scientists, it was the mysterious mirror that fascinated them most… The mirror which reflection could be seen more than 50 km (35 miles) off-shore.

Today’s lighthouses are slowly be phased out due to the advent of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and other electronic navigational aids (I could rant here, but won’t;) just as lighthouse keepers gave way to automated lights. In the words of the US Coast Guard some lighthouses are, “No longer critical for safe navigation.” I’m waiting for the day the Coast Guard issues all mariners a chart plotter, because they are less expensive than maintaining aids to navigation.

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This post was written by Richard Rodriguez, Rescue Tug Captain, and US Coast Guard approved instructor for License Training. You can read more of his articles at the BitterEnd of the net.