Are electronics killing the skill of seamanship?

lorcan122

"After reading an article recently regarding the effects of ‘solar storms’, how would the modern day seaman be able to cope without his satilite?

Just imagine a large commercial vessel moving at 40Kts, when the Master finds that suddenly he has no electrics, which means no lighting, no GPS, no radio,no RADAR, no SONAR, no echo sounder, no on-board computers, no engine-room telemetry, and in many cases no steering!

The engineers should in a few hours, be able to jury-rig and bypass the controls to manual, which would allow them to control speed and steering.

Would the master be able to navigate his why, or are we losing our skills of using equipment like sextants and chronometers.

What's your opinion on this?

323

Up to a point would very much have to say, yes.

Interesting, your case of "Solar Storm" would be a total wipe-out. In many cases would not even have propulsion, with diesel/electric propulsion becoming almost standard in many new-builds.

As for navigating in a situation like that, fear many could not. Find it amazing that the sextant is no longer a requirement on board.
Also, with the right electronic charting system paper charts are no longer a requirement.
So should you have a sextant and timepiece and can actually use them do derive a position, no chart to plot it on.

A real issue being talked a lot about lately is GPS/GNSS Jamming, the lighthouse authority trial results were scary to say the least.

lorcan122

323 wrote: »

As for navigating in a situation like that, fear many could not. Find it amazing that the sextant is no longer a requirement on board.
Also, with the right electronic charting system paper charts are no longer a requirement.
So should you have a sextant and timepiece and can actually use them do derive a position, no chart to plot it on.

A real issue being talked a lot about lately is GPS/GNSS Jamming, the lighthouse authority trial results were scary to say the least.

Most sextants these days just collect dust on mantelpieces, I heard about that trial by the lighthouse authority, but could find no material on it, but from what I heard it sounds scary.

Mickey Dazzler

When i went to sea first 12 years ago we had to learn how to use the sextant. Never used it in anger though. Shame really.

I don't see how you would loose engines or steering if the GPS sats stopped transmitting.. ?

lorcan122

Mickey Dazzler wrote: »

I don't see how you would loose engines or steering if the GPS sats stopped transmitting.. ?

Solar storms knock out all electronics, so if the steering is electric, than you would nit be able to steer.

Mickey Dazzler

lorcan122 wrote: »

Solar storms knock out all electronics, so if the steering is electric, than you would nit be able to steer.

I guess it would have to be a serious storm. Either way your right there would be a lot of people on bridges scratching their heads!!! Dead reckoning all the way home...

ex_infantry man

Mickey Dazzler wrote: »

I guess it would have to be a serious storm. Either way your right there would be a lot of people on bridges scratching their heads!!! Dead reckoning all the way home...

if defo would take one major storm on the sun to do it, but it,ll just happen in minutes not hours,days,weeks or years!!! and we,ll be thrown back to using sails as a means to transporting the sea,s until it can be sorted out, watched a documentary on discovery and it scared the bejaysus outta me when i found out what it could do to our planet

lorcan122

ex_infantry man wrote: »

Mickey Dazzler wrote: »

I guess it would have to be a serious storm. Either way your right there would be a lot of people on bridges scratching their heads!!! Dead reckoning all the way home...

if defo would take one major storm on the sun to do it, but it,ll just happen in minutes not hours,days,weeks or years!!! and we,ll be thrown back to using sails as a means to transporting the sea,s until it can be sorted out, watched a documentary on discovery and it scared the bejaysus outta me when i found out what it could do to our planet

I saw the beginning of that documentary, that's what made me read that article, that documentary was very impressive though.

ex_infantry man

lorcan122 wrote: »

I saw the beginning of that documentary, that's what made me read that article, that documentary was very impressive though.

i agree but it scared the bejaysus outta me to think something like that could throw us back to the stone age again, but shur i guess if it happens the it happens and there,s nothing we can do but adjust to it

lorcan122

ex_infantry man wrote: »

i agree but it scared the bejaysus outta me to think something like that could throw us back to the stone age again, but shur i guess if it happens the it happens and there,s nothing we can do but adjust to it

It just fries the circuits in the electronics equipment, it won't bring us back to the stone age, it will just stop all the electronics on board until they buy new ones, don't worry its not that bad.

who the fug

Bit OTT Father just gave me his sextant which he has had since 1954 for safe keeping, it was 2nd hand then.

Everthing including the light still works

Can you image trying to get through airport security with one now

mp22

lorcan122 wrote: »

It just fries the circuits in the electronics equipment, it won't bring us back to the stone age, it will just stop all the electronics on board until they buy new ones, don't worry its not that bad.

Its not that long ago that sun shots at midday got us to where we were going.A second mate today still has to be able to navigate without a GPS.(I presume)

Mickey Dazzler

mp22 wrote: »

Its not that long ago that sun shots at midday got us to where we were going.A second mate today still has to be able to navigate without a GPS.(I presume)

You are right they do have to be able to demonstrate an ability to use traditional methods of position fixing however in practice the likes of the sextant are used so little now that most navigators would be very rusty if they had to use one in a hurry.

323

lorcan122 wrote: »

Most sextants these days just collect dust on mantelpieces, I heard about that trial by the lighthouse authority, but could find no material on it, but from what I heard it sounds scary.

Few links about this issue that might be of interest.
If you search for GNSS rather than GPS throws up more results, acronym covering all these systems now GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Compass.

http://www.porttechnology.org/images/uploads/technical_papers/PT46-09.pdf

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/RAoE_Global_Navigation_Systems_Report.pdf

lorcan122

323 wrote: »

lorcan122 wrote: »

Most sextants these days just collect dust on mantelpieces, I heard about that trial by the lighthouse authority, but could find no material on it, but from what I heard it sounds scary.

Few links about this issue that might be of interest.
If you search for GNSS rather than GPS throws up more results, acronym covering all these systems now GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and Compass.

http://www.porttechnology.org/images/uploads/technical_papers/PT46-09.pdf

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/publications/list/reports/RAoE_Global_Navigation_Systems_Report.pdf

Thanks for the links, it will be a interesting read.

Seaswimmer

Mickey Dazzler wrote: »

You are right they do have to be able to demonstrate an ability to use traditional methods of position fixing however in practice the likes of the sextant are used so little now that most navigators would be very rusty if they had to use one in a hurry.

On my last trip at sea as 3rd mate (1983) we had one of the 1st sat navs in the fleet. We got a fix about every 4 -6 hours. The master would not trust it so we still had to do midday sights and stars at dusk. I never had a problem using the sextant for sun or stars.. It was the endless maths afterwards to get the position that took time and affort...

CJhaughey

http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/world/huge-solar-flare-threaten-chaos-542658.html

Tabnabs

What you also have to remember is that celestial nav is only possible if you can see the heavenly bodies, i.e. if it's cloudy, you're shagged. I sailed with a guy once who told me that he was on a reefer run in the Med from Marseilles to Ashdod (Israel) in the early 80s. They'd often have poor visibility and not get a good fix. So by dead reckoning they'd end up off the coast of Israel and would steam up and down (it's not a big coast) until they found a discernible feature to get a terrestrial fix.

I can remember crossing the grand banks area a few times and it was always foggy. It could be a few days before you would get a good fix. So old school navigation isn't fool proof either (never mind the maths!).

You also have to remember how many aircraft are above in the skies at any time and how reliant they are on electronic systems. They have yet to fall out of the sky due to solar flares or gps jamming...

skippergonzo

I found my way around before gps
I'd find my way around now without it
and the many cadets i trained are all experts in all aspects of navigation and never relied on one method of position fixing when with me and they are fine navigators today

goldie fish

I was always told "GPS won't tell you where you are, it will merely confirm where you think you are".

Tabnabs

Just reading back over the topic and the heading is somewhat misleading (and worthy of a separate thread in itself). Electronics have not killed the art of seamanship. Old school seamanship has been killed by modern ships, very strict schedules, Health & Safety and the mountains of paperwork officers now have to comply with.

Dimitri

I'm currently doing my cadetship and I can assure you the sextant is still a requirement for us. Although most of the people I'm sailing with will tell that they usually only use it when teaching cadets but its sufficient to keep them familiar in it, but yes it is no longer a requirement in many countries. It may not be as important as it was but there are endless reasons as to why you could need a back up means of position fixing on a ship, especially seeing as we have a back up for almost everything else. What troubles me the most about gps is the fact that the americans have decided they are no longer investing in its infrastructure, therefore it is getting less and less reliable every day. I know that there is a european and chineese alternatives in the pipe lines but I'm wondering how expensive these will be and what kind of initial problems they will face. And most importantly how well they will work with each other, everyone using gps and gps has an error, we all have the same error what will happen when we don't?