NKE’s electronics have never gained much traction in the English speaking world, even though they’re almost a default choice for offshore racing and performance cruising yachts in France. Part of this may be down to the ways in which the system is different to what the rest of us have become accustomed to using.

For instance, it doesn’t rely on the near ubiquitous NMEA 0183 and 2000 protocols with their long text sentences – though these are supported. Instead, it uses a compact compressed binary eight-character hexadecimal system, which makes for very fast data transfer while minimising congestion on the network.

And although NKE’s Multifunction and Multigraphic displays are very powerful and quickly become intuitive, until now the company has not offered a chartplotter.

Article continues below…

Best chartplotter: 6 great options from marine MFDs to tablets

Not sure where to start looking for a chartplotter or MFD? The terms ‘chartplotter’ and ‘MFD’ are broadly used interchangeably,…

The future of chartplotters

Multifunction displays for navigation, instrument data, radar, AIS, and even watching Netflix, continue to evolve, especially at the high end…

That changed with the recent launch of the NKE NavXP. It’s intended as a simple, efficient and intuitive interface. Updates are carried out automatically upon network connection, with the idea this minimises the need for user input and system maintenance and the knowledge that charts should be bang up to date.

The NKE NavXP is available in 10, 12, 16 and 24in versions, with the latter offering 1920×1080 HD resolution. All are compatible with Navionics+ and Navionics Platinum charts, including detailed user-generated sonar data.

There’s also an optional interface for Raymarine radar, while NMEA2000 compatibility gives access to all instrument data. Connectivity includes an internal 4G modem, plus built-in WLAN that enables the 4G signal to be shared with other devices (useful when roaming if either a low-cost local SIM, or an international SIM is used) as well as allowing connection to a marina wifi network.

Price: €3,000-€12,000.
From: nke-marine-electronics.fr

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Every cruiser is familiar with that tingle of doubt: is my chart really up to date, and is that shallow bank still in that location? Careful ‘eyeball’ navigation in tropical waters has become a lot easier thanks to satellite overlays on digital charts, and for those sailing off the beaten track there are simple tools to make your own overlays.

Of course shipping routes for commercial traffic are well charted; as a necessity they have been surveyed for well over a 100 years. But those little nooks and crannies where we love to sail or anchor? In popular cruising areas like the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, chances are that your digital and/or paper charts will be a great help in reaching those spots safely, because of the yachting and/or commercial traffic there.

But when visiting more remote spots you may notice that regular charts for chartplotters differ in accuracy per region. One supplier is often best in one area, but another might excel in another. Plotter brands are increasingly linked to a fixed supplier of charts, so in some sailing waters you may lack the accuracy you’re looking for. In other areas there are no recent surveys at all.

This is where satellite imagery comes in handy. If the nautical charts of an area are old or of dubious quality, a satellite image will be much more recent. If you look on, for instance, Google Earth, you can check if there have been any changes in the location of sand spits, harbour layout or channels.

This is very helpful if you have a good internet connection. But offline things are different. And, of course, it is very handy if you can see your boat on screen while moving on the satellite picture, so you know exactly where that coral head is or where the shallower bits are.

Careful eyeball navigation on approaching an anchorage. Photo: Janneke Kuysters

Some chart formats like Navionics Platinum+ and C-MAP Reveal have satellite photos selectable as an optional layer; you still have the information you normally get on a chart, but you can compare it with the reality on the satellite image. This does require a multifunctional display that supports this and the applicable charting card. These may be hard to get in your location, and of course they cost money.

That’s where the open source (almost) free chart software comes in handy. They’re very popular with cruisers because these sources of information can be used for passage planning and visiting ‘off the beaten track’ locations where a pair of eyes from the sky are essential.

Open source data

The two most popular are OpenCPN and Guru Maps. OpenCPN is open source chart plotting software in which you can load digital charts from various free and paid sources; it runs on Linux, MacOS and Microsoft Windows computers. There is a paid Android derivative for tablets and phones. Guru Maps is an app that can be downloaded on a tablet or phone.

When you’ve downloaded the charting software, the next step is to get the geo-referenced satellite images so you can import them into your charting application. This sounds like a daunting task but, fortunately, there is lots of help available on the internet.

There are various sources for satellite images: Google Earth, Bing and ArcGIS to name just a few. You’ll need various sources, because the specific anchorage or island you want might have been hiding under a cloud when the Google Earth satellite passed over. Another source may have a better image of the same area. One very helpful tool is SAS.Planet: a program designed for viewing and downloading high-resolution satellite imagery. All downloaded images will remain on your computer and you’ll be able to view them offline.

Clipping tiles

The keyword here is ‘tiles’. As you scroll along the satellite images of the area that you want to explore, you need to make ‘tiles’, ie clips of a satellite image. These are stored as MBTiles if you use a program like SAS.Planet. Depending on whether you have nautical charts of the area it may be useful to also prepare tiles at various zoom levels.

Approaching Walvis Bay, Namibia, the author saw shipping patterns on Marine Traffic that didn’t match chart data

Google Earth revealed a brand new pier constructed for cargo ships

The next step is to import these MBTiles into your charting application. The software generally shows the ‘best’ chart for your current zoom level. If you only prepare satellite tiles that are very detailed, when you are zoomed out you’ll not see those – the system will show either the worldwide background map or, if you have those, the nautical chart that you have installed for that area. Once you zoom into the area that one or more of your tiles covers, the charting software can automatically switch to the more detailed satellite photo tile, showing the coral heads and sand spits you need to avoid.

This sounds like a lot of work – and it is. If you’re going well off the beaten track and need detailed information, you’re in for hours of careful scrolling, selecting and downloading to make the tiles.

Internet access and time to prepare is paramount for a successful use of these tools. But once again, some helpful cruisers have made tiles of favoured anchorages already and have stored them in libraries that you can access online. So, before you start making tiles yourself, it pays to look around the internet to see what you can find that is downloadable.

Even better, your fellow cruiser in the anchorage might have what you need – a splendid opportunity to go over and share a cup of tea.

Miles out

“We’ve found satellite ‘charts’ to be invaluable,” says Sherry McCampbell, who cruises their St Francis 44 catamaran Soggy Paws with her husband, Dave.

“In some of the areas we cruise (the Philippines and Indonesia, specifically), the available charts, even just-updated Navionics and C-Map charts, can be off by as much as a half a mile. It’s pretty astonishing to see your boat navigating across an island, using your expensive chart plotter.

“In some places, these charts are only off 100ft, but that’s enough to put you on the reef.”

Sue and John Hacking on Ocelot

We’ve had a similar experience. My partner Wietze van der Laan and I have recently returned from an eight-year circumnavigation on our 44ft Bruce Roberts design, Anna Caroline. Wietze recalls: “We’ve always used a combination of Open CPN and paper charts. In very remote locations like Patagonia, we found that both types of charts were sometimes off by well over a mile.”

The help of satellite imagery (as well as good old eyeball navigation) is invaluable to navigate these waters safely. More than once we’ve been anchored on land on our digital charts, while the satellite image showed us snug in a beautiful little bay near the face of a glacier.

Even in areas where the charts are fundamentally accurate, additional satellite data can be invaluable, says Sherry McCampbell: “We have found that the satellite charts add so much to our ability to find off-the-beaten-path anchorages. Where the Navionics chart shows a large shallow area (interpreted as ‘you can’t go here’), a satellite chart may well reveal a small channel into an area that has a perfectly good anchorage for a boat with a draught under 3m.

“It does take some experience to be able to ‘read’ the colours in a satellite chart and interpret the colours: is it too deep, too shallow? Is there good sand, or maybe a coral head to avoid? But once you learn these skills, it totally expands your possible anchorages.

“We are currently in south-east Indonesia – very few cruising boats travel in this area. I was just today making new satellite charts for our next month of cruising, using Sat2Chart and SAS.Planet. It’s amazing what you can see from the satellite charts: where small villages are (possibilities for small markets to buy fresh vegetables, etc), where ‘sand fans’ are that indicate a viable anchorage, where passage is possible into an inner reef area, where fishing boats are anchored. And for on shore exploration, beaches, mountains, waterfalls etc.”

Stunning Kabui Bay, Indonesia by satellite

Ever changing tools

Jon Hacking is cruising aboard SV Ocelot, a Wauquiez-designed 48ft catamaran. He says: “The possibilities of using MBTiles for exploring islands and anchorages are endless. It pays to invest time in getting to know the online tools and how-to-guides that are available.

Kabui Bay, Indonesia on CM93 chart. Note the bay doesn’t appear on the chart

“The only limit is the size of your hard drive. It pays to choose well where you store your MBTiles, because over the years of cruising, it can add up quickly. If you upload too many MBTiles in your OpenCPN, the performance of your laptop will decrease.”

He adds a word of caution: “These open-source systems develop all the time, so some functionalities will appear or disappear. Make sure that you check if everything is still working before you set off.”

His experiences are echoed by Thom D’Arcy, who sailed his Vancouver 28 Fathom solo around the world. “On my circumnavigation I found the georeferenced satellite imagery extremely useful for backing up my digital and paper charts. In some poorly charted areas such as Fiji and Madagascar I even used satellite images as my primary means of navigation. These images are also very useful for researching anchorages and layouts of ports and harbours before arrival.”

However, he too notes: “The applications for accessing the satellite images are constantly changing and the app I used until recently is no longer available. It therefore requires a vigilant eye on the developments in this field to be able to access the right information when needed.”

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Wherever we have current (tidal or other) this will always influence the sailing wind and the boat’s course over the ground. At anchor we can accurately measure the wind speed and direction, which we call the ground wind.

However, if we are just drifting the effect of the current will alter the wind speed and direction that we are measuring. This we usually call the sailing wind or apparent wind.

Navigating in tide

This relationship between the ground wind and sailing wind is not just important for racing around the cans but also when venturing offshore. We can look at the direction of the tide and decide in a general sense where we want to go; for example when beating out of the Solent in a flood tide we will usually choose the north shore, but the routing solution should also take into account sailing wind angle. The simplest example is the tacking and gybing angles when with a favourable or adverse tide. We have all looked at our track and been disappointed with the tacking angle when against the tide – even to the point that we’ve made little or no progress.

As boats get lighter and faster, with the ability to plane or even foil, wind angle becomes incredibly important. A few degrees one way or another can make a significant difference in boat speed. We see this as we balance speed and angle in a coastal race where competitors are close. However, in longer distance racing we need to take navigating the tide into account, not just on our heading but also for wind angle. The forecast wind direction will be the ground wind, which can be quite a different wind angle to the sailing wind.

A current from the side will change the true wind angle around 1.5° for every tenth of a knot. It doesn’t sound like much – until we get into a current in excess of 0.6 of a knot when we’re looking at a 10° shift in the wind from ground wind to sailing wind; more than enough to change sail settings or the difference between a good layline, or making a tidal gate or not.

Routing apps

We can now get racing routing solutions on our mobile phones or tablets. The latest generation of apps include cloud routing where, by setting your course and the boat’s polars, a computer ashore will run a number of different models, giving you a series of solutions and routes. By comparing the different model solutions, we can choose our best fit to the actual conditions.

The routing solutions also include tidal and ocean currents for navigating in tide. The best known of the companies offering this is PredictWind which (at a cost) provides GRIB file forecasts for weather conditions and current.

The red route shows the optimum course from the Needles to Cherbourg using the GFS wind model and PredictWind tides (on Expedition). The blue route is just wind without any tidal input

Most racing yachts, however, run onboard weather routing programs and navigators work tirelessly on perfecting their boats’ polar diagrams. These are used to predict the boat’s speed for all wind speeds and wind angles.

Most computer-generated polars are for flat water and, while a top helmsman may be able to sail to the polars, most sailors will find it difficult once waves and the extra weight of equipment on board has been added in. It’s therefore useful to develop our own polars for boat and sails, and most navigation software programmes have datalog facilities to help with this. This information is also used to develop crossover charts for different sails.

Weather routing depends on accurate information; it’s pointless trying to develop polars if your instruments are not properly calibrated. As true wind direction and speed is calculated from boat speed, heading and apparent wind, all need to be accurate. If they’re not, we’re better off using apparent wind and generic polars for the boat and run them at less than 100%. But calibrating our instruments and generating polars in an area of moderate to strong tidal current is difficult and incorrect polars will give us a poor routing solution.

Is your tidal information accurate?

When inputting information into cloud routing or onboard navigation software, we will get a weather routing solution that takes into account all the variables. However, the times of high water will vary between different sources of data. There are also other variables to take into account; atmospheric pressure will alter tide heights – not much as a 1mb change in pressure computes to 1cm. We rarely get changes of more than around 30cm due to changes in atmospheric pressure, but 30cm can be a lot if you’re trying to keep out of the tide!

Additionally, the direction of the wind will add or subtract to water depths and also the timing of high and low tides. An onshore wind will increase water depth and will tend to induce a stand at high water. This will delay the start of the ebb tide, which is then likely to be stronger. When the wind blows parallel to the coast the wind tends to set up long waves and storm surges. These waves have a period of hours and a wavelength of hundreds of kilometres. All of these factors become increasingly important when navigating tides.

While it’s difficult to take into account all these variables when sailing, it helps explain why the tide information that you have may not be the same as what you are experiencing, either in time or magnitude. Inshore, it’s always worth verifying the rate of tide when passing navigation or racing marks.

Offshore paper tide atlases have been used for many years, but we now tend to use electronic versions. These tend to be a mixture of theoretical and observational data and can vary between sources for accuracy for navigating tides. With well calibrated instruments we’ll see a difference between COG and SOG compared with the boat speed and heading. By continually monitoring the actual effect and comparing it with the theoretical we will get a very good idea on the accuracy of the data.

Light winds and strong currents: How to keep moving in strong tides

When the wind is light and the current is strong, the two components can be equally important as each other.…

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Pilot books used to be how we explored new destinations. Cruisers and charter sailors alike will have spent many hours poring over sketch maps and grainy photos in a hardback book that may not have been updated for many moons to identify where might offer good holding, a mini-mart, or a worthy snorkelling spot.

Nowadays we’re all used to having information at our fingertips, literally, through a smartphone. Naturally, a crop of boating apps and websites have developed to service the appetite for good quality information about sailing locations.

Cruising social media groups are bursting with personal recommendations or impressions, but this information is often uncategorised or hard to verify. Now, a number of more ‘official’ online sites and apps have been launched that combine user-generated up to date information with the backing of a reputable organisation or publisher.

Explore with Imray

It has long been a complaint in my family that pilot guides contain little useful information on the reasons to visit a specific harbour or anchorage. There is plenty on getting there safely and confidently, but precious little about the best pub, or the walk with views to die for. Well, no longer.

Nautical publisher Imray has launched an all-new app which aims to combine the best of both worlds. Explore with Imray is a blend of the critical navigational information associated with some 6,000 ports or anchorages, and the photos and posts of sailors who have been there.

In a way, it’s nothing new, according to Imray’s Lucy Wilson. “Crowdsourcing is what Imray has done for years and years – we’ve always been collecting this information,” she says. “We have about 100 books in our catalogue and we’ve only digitised 12 so far. That’s taken three months, but it’ll definitely speed up now.”

She walks me through the beta version of the app, which runs on phones, tablets and computers. It’s a neat interface that uses a Google-style map showing clusters of pins to navigate to the port you want information on. As you zoom in, pins marking each entry disaggregate until you can click through to the data. It’s quite a treasure trove.

Each pane opens with a chartlet, an overview image of the location and a series of expandable titles such as ‘contact’, ‘facilities’ and ‘approach’. Frequently used ports or harbours can be bookmarked for quicker access.

“One of the key things in our data is all of the approach information – anyone can get the contact details and facilities,” says Wilson. “Getting you there safely – that is our key tool.”

In my book, this alone would be worth the £49.99 annual subscription cost (or £8.99 per month). As Wilson points out, the charge is similar to the cost of a single printed pilot guide, yet gives you access to every location on the system. “You’re not buying a book, you’re buying everything that we’ve digitised,” she says.

There is an additional dimension: click the ‘community’ tab and you can access reports that subscribers have made for that location, offering anything from opening times of the local fish and chip shop to a favourite beach. It’s moderated – usually by the authors of the pilot guide.

“The social layer allows you to create your own profile and make blog posts – it’s a sort of ‘tell your story’; a way of sharing memories,” says Wilson. “You can also follow other people.” It will soon be possible for subscribers to post comments on existing entries, and to add their own locations – a neap-tide reef anchorage, perhaps, or a place to land on a deserted islet.

An easy link on screen allows you to purchase the relevant pilot guide – Imray doesn’t want Explore with Imray to cannibalise book sales. For instance, you’ll need the paper version for the introductory information contained in each chapter. And there is not yet tidal data available via the app. Plus, the system currently requires a live internet connection to function.

“We’re thinking about the best way to provide offline capabilities next year – perhaps through the web app (Imray Navigator),” says Wilson. “It could be like Spotify and their albums. The subscription would give access to everything, but then you can download for offline use.”

Get it now from Imray

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Captain’s Mate

Coming from the other end of the spectrum is a newly relaunched version of the Cruising Association’s popular Captain’s Mate app. This used to be entirely based around club members’ reports and, while this element remains the mainstay, there is now a more businesslike introduction to every location detailing all the key factual data.

Just as with the Imray product, you navigate using the map. The system is smart enough not to try downloading every pin simultaneously, which used to lead to long rendering times.

When you select your location, you are presented with a page giving an overview of factual information, including approach notes. Click on the ‘info’ tab and you can see detail on the facilities available – something you can also specify as search criteria, allowing you to identify the nearest port with fuel or fresh water, for instance.

“We’ve sucked out all the factual information from the reports,” says CA general manager Lucy Gray. “It changes from location to location.”

There is not yet any tidal information available, and the detailed chartlets contained in the revered Cruising Almanac are also absent. “We’ve left a lot of doors open for the next revision,” says Gray. “Tides might be included later on, and we’re thinking of adding charts.”

But it is the reports that members value most, and the reports are the key to the app, which also works on smartphones, tablets and computers. They appear under a third tab, and allow you to scroll back through in date order, adding comments as you please. Of course, the CA wants members to leave their own reports too, and this is very easily done by clicking on the ‘add further report’ button.

All posts are moderated by a group of 44 editors, and software automatically checks that any uploaded photos are free of copyright. “The images we ask for are things that would help your approach or entry, layout of the marina and also things of local interest,” says Gray.

Coverage is as global as the adventurous members of the CA themselves. “There are 20,000 member contributions and 6,500 locations,” says Gray. “Some 77 countries are covered, although we’re trying to populate more places in the Caribbean and America.”

Another nice touch is the ability to see other members who are close at hand. As long as your own device is set to ‘share location’, a little CA burgee on the map is positioned to show fellow club members. As anyone who has ever sailed into an unknown anchorage and been heartened to spot a familiar burgee can attest, this is a popular feature.

The new app is designed to handle the much larger amount of data being generated by members. In its first year, 2015, Captain’s Mate saw 600 reports filed. But just a year later, that had mushroomed to 10,000 reports. “It was a victim of its own success,” says Gray. “It wasn’t able to cope. Now it’s more user-friendly, members will use it more than they have been.”

The app is free to use for CA members, who pay from £137 per year to be part of the club.

Get it now from the Apple App store
Get it now from the Google Play store

Noonsite

From Spitzbergen to South Georgia, Sierra Leone to Tasmania, Noonsite publishes reports from the farthest-flung cruising grounds in the world. Owned and maintained by the World Cruising Club, which organises the ARC rallies, this is a well-used tool for bluewater cruisers.

Editor Sue Richards tells me there are more than 2,700 reports online, and thousands more comments posted by users. The content can now be browsed using a map view.

This is your first stop for information on entry formalities, main ports, costs and bureaucracy. User comments are pinned to the bottom of each page, providing key updates, notices to mariners or advice about who offers the best service. Reports, on the other hand, tend to be narrative, relating the story of a cruise or an incident.

A new membership model will be launched next year, with costs running at $2 or $6 per month. Free access will be limited to three country views per month, but the real spur will be the offline content available to members.

“We know that many of our worldwide users rely on Noonsite as a trusted source of information about the countries and ports they visit,” says Jeremy Wyatt, WCC director. “Now, as part of our new premium features, users can download formatted Noonsite pages, just like a pilot book, to keep and use locally.”

Get it now from Noonsite

Navily

It may lack the global reach of Noonsite, but for advice about good local anchorages, the free-to-use Navily app is excellent. Coverage runs to 20,000 locations, mainly in Europe and the Caribbean, and comments provide advice on anchoring, walks, pubs and restaurants.

Navily is based around Google satellite mapping, providing custom location pins to denote anchorages, featured ports and marinas. There is a useful traffic light system assessing the quality of an anchorage, and users have uploaded thousands of photos.

A premium version costing €19.99 per year allows you to download regions for offline use. It also adds in 72-hour weather forecasts and distance measuring tools. The weather tool feeds into an algorithm which gives you a ‘protection score’ out of 100 for any chosen anchorage.

Get it now from the Apple App store
Get it now from the Google Play store

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This article has now been superseded with all content included in this up-to-date article: Best waterproof binoculars

For sailors choosing the best boat binoculars can be a difficult call. What areas should you be looking to prioritise?

Every sailor knows that anxious moment as you’re making a difficult entry into an unfamiliar port. The chances are there is quite a sea state, the light is poor and despite the best planning in advance, things don’t quite seem to be matching up.

The crew are looking to you as the skipper to get them in safely. But what you see are crashing waves, lots of light clutter from shore and a picture you can’t yet tally with your entry plan. This is when you need a serious pair of marine binoculars.

That entry level £40 pair from the chandlery might serve you well in easy conditions, but when things get a little more serious, you’ll never regret having equipped yourself with a set that can cut through the tougher stuff and find that radio mast or buoy.

When choosing a set of binoculars, there are various factors to consider. First, for the maritime environment, they have to be waterproof and, as much as possible, shockproof.

A yacht is a harsh environment, and when you really need to see there’s nothing worse than trying to peer through a fogged lens.

Next, look for a decent magnification. We find on our expeditions that magnification between 7 and 10 is ideal (the first number on your binoculars). Any less than 7 and we struggle to find our target at range. Any more than 10 and they’re difficult to hold steady enough on your target.

Just as important is the amount of light they capture. This is the second number and, in layman’s terms, the bigger the number, the bigger the front lens and the more light is captured. This is critical in poor light: we like to have a set with a front lens between 40 and 50.

Finally, the overall quality of the materials used is key. Without heading into technical detail, get the best quality lenses and prism you can afford (bearing in mind that binoculars do fall overboard now and again!).

For marine navigation, we have come to love binoculars with a built-in compass. These have improved so much in recent years, and they now provide an easy-to-view, stable gauge that allows you to take a bearing on anything you see.

As you try to unpick your route through a mass of lights, buoys and breakwaters, or for checking collision probability in traffic, you’ll find this compass tool invaluable.

Best boat binoculars: 3 top options tested

Steiner Navigator 7×50 marine binoculars

Best boat binoculars for serious navigators (our top pick)

A stunning set of binoculars. The superb optics give a bright picture even in low light and the sports-auto focus system means everything from 10m to the horizon is perfectly in focus. There is a built-in compass that has excellent illumination and damping.

The frame feels really rugged and Steiner says the rubberised Markrolon outer will withstand up to 11G of impact. Importantly, they are fully waterproof and nitrogen-injected, meaning they’ll not fog up in more extreme temperatures. Personally, I’d like a rangefinder reticle on them, but this is a minor niggle.

Perhaps the only downside is that the Steiners are the heaviest of the three we tested at nearly 1.2kg (if you want something lighter, the 7×30 version are almost half the weight). I’m told the UK Border Force use these 7x50s and it’s easy to see why. They are worth every penny – so good in fact we bought them.

Read about our longterm test with these Steiner Navigator binoculars for more pictures and to see how the best boat binoculars hold up after 6 years of hard use.

Reasons to buy

• Brilliant bright picture even in low light
• Excellent sports autofocus system
• Rugged and strong outler

Reasons to avoid

• Heaviest option (1.2kg!)

Marine suitability: 5/5
Picture quality: 4.5/5
Value for money: 4/5

Price: from £399 / $609

Buy Steiner Navigator Pro 7×50 marine binoculars from Amazon

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Fujinon Mariner 7×50 WPC-XL

Best boat binoculars: mid-range option

A great mid-range set of binoculars. The first thing you’ll notice is that the polycarbonate housing keeps them really light, at just 0.8kg. That really makes a difference when you’re scanning the horizon for a period of time. These binoculars also have long eye relief. Put simply, if you wear glasses, long eye relief means you can use your specs and not suffer any reduction in your field of vision.

The lenses are a good quality, although we struggled slightly in lower light. The one surprise is that the body is smooth, and that lack of grip makes them a bit slippery in the wet. It’s a strange omission for marine binoculars, but a minor grumble. The trade off is they will float with the addition of a buoyancy strap, which will one day prove to be a godsend. Serious value for money at this price.

Reasons to buy

• Polycarbonate housing makes them really light
• Brilliant long eye relief
• Great value for money

Reasons to avoid

• Lenses struggle in lower light
• Lack of grip makes them slipper in the wet

Marine suitability: 3.5/5
Picture quality: 4/5
Value for money: 4/5

Price: from £340 / $229.95

Buy Fujinon Mariner 7×50 WPC-XL binoculars from Amazon

Buy Fujinon Mariner 7×50 WPC-XL from B&H

Leica Noctivid 10×42

Best boat binoculars for nature lovers

One of the joys of sailing is the natural environment and a great pair of binoculars such as these will enable you to see the likes of birds, whales and mountains in spectacular detail. The Leicas are superb. The 10x magnification is huge and the 42mm objective means the light input is too, yet the overall weight remains a very impressive 0.8kg. In fact, these are as good as we’ve seen when it comes to binoculars.

They are way over-specced for navigation and don’t have a built-in compass but you will rarely use anything better. If anything is going to find that navigation mark in the gloom, it will be these. Then, once you have anchored for the night, you have some truly wonderful binoculars to see the wildlife and the world around you. The clarity and the colour are a joy to behold.

Reasons to buy

• Incredible magnification
• Impressively lightweight

Reasons to avoid

• Premium price
• Over-specced for navigation

Marine suitability: 4/5
Picture quality: 5/5
Value for money: 3/5

Price: from £1799 / $2849

Buy Leica Noctivid 10×42 binoculars from Amazon

Best boat binoculars: 2 more popular options

Bruce tested the three options above during his day-to-day work, running sailing adventure brand Rubicon3. As such they were thoroughly tested at sea and for those after a really top-notch pair of binoculars, for offshore passage making and blue-water cruising, these three represent the gold standard in marine binoculars.

For those of us not planning on crossing the Atlantic anytime soon, or just looking for a pair for weekend sailing there are cheaper options on the market.

Plastimo Marine 7×50 Autofocus binoculars

Best budget boat binoculars

These entry level marine binoculars from Plastimo are lightweight and will autofocus. They are only ‘splashproof’, so they do not have a nitrogen filling, and won’t survive being thrown overboard, but they do boast fully coated lenses for protection against scratches and damage.

They may be a long way from having all the bells and whistles but that is reflected in their price (RRP is just £39.99). They will absolutely do the job for those not relying on their binoculars as an important safety tool

Reasons to buy

• Great value
• Lightweight and offer autofocus
• Fully coated lenses for protection

Reasons to avoid

• Only ‘Splashproof”
• Basic

Price: £39.99 /$56.99

Buy it now on Decathlon

Bushnell Marine 7×50 Waterproof binoculars

Best non-traditional mid-range boat binoculars

These well-specced marine binoculars from US outdoors firm Bushnell are waterproof, non slip, rubber-covered and nitrogen filled. While relatively unknown in the marine market, they have long been associated with hunting and outdoor sports.

These operate as something of a middle ground they do have coated optics for increased light transmission and brightness. They also have a single eyepiece adjustment to suit your eyesight – unlike the Plastimo option above, but they are not quite as advanced or with as high quality optics as some of the options Bruce tested.

Reasons to buy

• Waterproof, non-slip
• Lightweight and offer autofocus
• Fully coated lenses for protection

Reasons to avoid

• Not quite as advanced or with as high-quality optics as other options
• Relatively unknown in marine market

Price: from £182 / $179

Buy Bushnell Marine 7×50 Waterproof Binoculars from Trekinn

Buy it now on Amazon (UK)

Read a full list of the best boating binoculars on the market

Didn’t find what you’re looking for? Head to Amazon’s dedicated sailing page for more marine products.

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Creating a pilotage plan has long been a key navigational skill and most of us will have encountered various examples through our sailing lives.

The plan is a simplified recreation of the chart, on a piece of paper that you can take on deck and annotate to aid with eyeball navigation en route.

It allows the sailor to change the scale, focussing only on the features that are important to them, and is derived from the days when we all used paper charts and it was a cardinal sin to take them on deck.

Times have moved on. Most of us have chart plotters on deck and apps on our phones that allow us to see, in real time, where we are on the chart, as well as monitoring traffic. So it would be easy to think old school pilotage is dead.

However, the pilotage plan is still as relevant as ever and I’d suggest this skill is beneficial to all sailors, as the more we engage with and understand our movement through an environment the fewer mistakes and the more confident we’ll be to focus on sailing well.

With that in mind I’ve been thinking about creating a pilotage plan in today’s world and how we can utilise technology to aid this traditional skill.

Make the right pilotage plan

There is no ‘right way’ to make a pilotage plan. It simply needs to be relevant and useful to you and your circumstances.

If you are a list person then make a list, if you process information better through drawings, do that. You could also annotate a screenshot of a chart – adding grids, bearings, distances over the top.

A pilotage plan should be easily and instantly understood, either through paper sketches, digital annotations, or lists – whichever suits you best

Take into consideration whether you expect others to understand your notes, if you will be reading it in the dark, and what types of information will be useful.

The trick is to bring the flat image on your chart into real life. I use a combination of notes, screenshots and pictures.

Multiple research sources

The chart is going to be your primary starting point for pilotage. It will show you the key navigational features with distances and bearings between them. But while these basic transitions between point A and point B are simple to follow on a chart plotter, there may be limited value in just transposing these into another form.

The real value of a good pilotage plan is the ability to bring a two-dimensional chart to life, so bearings and positions can be backed up by visual references. To gain this level of insight you’ll need to research multiple sources of information, pilot books, online guides and photographs.

Pilot books will give a detailed account of entry and exit to ports, with pictures and chartlets to help. As with paper charts, they do need to be kept current. Check the publishing date of each of your pilot books and search online to see if there is a live updates page to accompany your publication.

There is also a huge amount of crowd-sourced information out there which can help a lot with entering new places.

Many harbours and estuaries have their own information pages, you can search cruising forums, and several navigational apps benefit from live community updates. Just remember that many of the threads on forums are two or three years old and community updates are not always verified so make sure you take a practical view on the validity of your sources of information.

Use photographs

A photograph will bring any chart to life and I use them a lot when entering new places.

If you are using a navigational app then overlay the satellite view onto the base map. This will put a satellite photo over the shoreline and is incredibly practical. It can show how obvious landmarks on the chart are in real life, whether trees obscure views and will also help identify uncharted objects and features, which will give you a quick positional reference.

Compare chart information (left) to chart satellite images (right) and annotate things that aren’t clear, eg the position of the Martello tower

An online search using Google images can also prove invaluable. Make sure you use a tight search term to get the best result. For example, to research the entrance to the river Deben, I used the search term ‘River Deben entrance buoys 2020.. 2021’.

This took me straight to some aerial shots, some great drone footage flying over the entrance produced by the local sailing club this year, and the harbour authority’s latest chartlet.

As with any online source, check the date it was produced and where it came from to assess the reliability.

Use transits

I love a good transit, it provides an instant way to assess multiple things. At the most basic level transits on the chart will help us find the best route down a restricted waterway, leading lights at night and shapes during the day.

If using day shapes, see if you can research a picture of their actual size and shape. But transits are everywhere and we are not confined to using only the ones shown on a chart.

You can add quick transits to a pilotage plan to confirm position along a route. If there is a significant landmark on the shore, it can be lined up with buoys or posts on the water and cross-referenced with a depth reading to provide a quick and dirty confirmation of position.

Lining up any two objects, on the shore or the land directly in line or behind your course, and watching the rate at which they ‘travel’ away from each other will confirm tidal drift and allow a helmsman to compensate and stay on course.

Use all your kit and crew

The pilotage plan allows a crew to keep their eyes off a screen at the times when it is most critical to observe your wider environment. But that does not mean we should ignore the chart plotter when making landfall – it’s still going to be a vital part of good navigation and it would be counterproductive never to check your position in this way.

In an ideal world we’d enter a port with one person navigating using their plan, notes, the chartplotter with AIS and radar overlay if available, but also include a hand-bearing compass and a pair of binoculars.

The navigator will give the helmsman points of reference to steer to and then ask the rest of the crew to look for key features, report on depth, wind, tide and other situational information.

If sailing double-handed this can be a challenge but try to simplify things as much as possible. Use the autopilot to hold the course, take the sails down and motor if it is easier and maintain one person on navigation and the other looking for information.

Night pilotage

Arguably night is one of the most useful times to have a plan prepared. Following a chartplotter screen at night time destroys your ability to see long distances outside the boat, missing other vessels and navigational lights.

Any interaction with a screen or white light will ruin your night vision so for that reason it’s better to make notes on paper, use red headtorches or chart table lights, and turn instruments onto night time mode, with the lowest back lighting that allows data to still be seen. Don’t make notes with red pens as these can’t be seen under a red light.

If in doubt go back

Whether you’re looking at your chartplotter or working from notes, don’t forget that if you’re not sure where you are, or things don’t look right, then you can normally turn around and go back to your last confirmed position.

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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Atlantic crossings are usually spoken of in terms of days of running west before the tradewinds (although as sailors we are rarely satisfied and yearn for an angle to turn the dead run into a reach!). An eastbound Atlantic crossing towards Europe poses a different set of issues, but also some good sailing, as we head north into disturbed westerlies.

Leaving the Caribbean we head north through the horse latitudes (30°N) where the Azores high ridges towards Florida and the wind becomes light and variable.

Once through this ridge we should be able to follow a route north of the high in mainly westerly winds, but far enough south to avoid gales from depressions passing to the north.

It is not possible to give an exact latitude where we find the westerlies as it changes. Lows develop and move north-east, displacing the Azores high and allowing the stronger wind to migrate southwards.

Avoiding eastbound mid-Atlantic landfalls and taking the shortest route to the UK risks encounters with North Atlantic lows

This pushing of the high south will give a succession of lows split by transient ridges of higher pressure, then an acceleration in the wind as the next low passes.

The driving force for this is the jetstream steering the lows, and also depends on how well established the Azores high is. If the jet stream is north then a good passage will be had, but if it dips to the south the lows will be more aggressive tracking close to the route and giving stronger winds.

This balance between the lows and the high pressure depends on the time of year as the jet stream will usually migrate north in the summer and south in the winter. It is an extension of the weather we get in the UK; as the summer progresses we lose the more aggressive lows and the Azores high becomes better established.

Article continues below…

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How to cross the Atlantic from the Caribbean to Europe: Everything you need to know

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If this were the only factor, then a passage back to Europe in the summer would give a warmer and lighter wind passage. But – and it is a big but – hurricane season starts at the beginning of June and, while it is possible to come back in hurricane season (with good weather routing and a fast boat), most insurance companies will not cover the passage as it is high risk.

This makes picking the moment for a passage a case of waiting for the worst of the winter storms to have blown through, but leaving the tropics before the hurricane season.

Hurricane trends

We are seeing some trends to the hurricane season and over the past five years named storms have occurred before the official start of hurricane season in every year. These have been tropical storms and, while relatively small affairs compared with hurricanes; they still pack a punch with winds between 34 and 63 knots.

In general these early tropical storms develop east of the Bahamas and track north. With many yachts traditionally leaving the Caribbean at the end of April, the increase in early season storms need to be taken into consideration when setting off.

Hurricane Irene

Whether heading for Europe or the USA a May departure is usual. Due to the easterly trade winds we are initially pushed north, sailing on starboard tack on a comfortable beat/fetch.

Some years this can last most of the way until reaching the westerlies, but other years will see yachts pushed almost to Bermuda before a more easterly course can be followed.

This gives a mixed weather pattern with low pressure passing close to the north, we must also watch for active cold fronts leaving the coast of the US, tracking east and over our route. It can be quite active weather-wise as warm, moist air pushed north from the tropics comes up against the colder, drier air from the north-east.

This generates an area of cyclogenesis where lows develop and deepen, and we will often see lows develop to the west of the route near Cape Hatteras. Once developed, they track to the north-east, leaving us in the more changeable wind south of the low.

To stop or not on an eastbound Atlantic crossing?

While this can give some varied sailing, it is also rewarding and one of the rewards along the route is the places to visit. Bermuda may be the playground of the rich but it is also an interesting island steeped in history; whether to call in or not depends on personal choice and also how far north we are pushed.

I have, on an eastbound Atlantic crossing, been pushed north of the islands, but we can usually cut the corner and head east before we get close, particularly if time is an issue.

In normal times, the Azores are a must-do destination, and as all eastbound Atlantic crossing routes pass close to them it would be a shame not to stop. However, due to restrictions caused by COVID yachts may have to give Bermuda and/or the Azores a miss.

Some yachts, if heading for the UK or Northern Europe, will sail non-stop anyway, to shorten the distance.

The further north we are pushed by the trade winds when we leave the Caribbean the more we can shorten the distance if heading for the UK. However, there is always a trade-off and in this case it is the North Atlantic lows. As the lows tend to develop somewhere near Cape Hatteras they will then track north-east, passing between Newfoundland and the Azores.

A stop at Bermuda can be one of the rewards of a west-east Atlantic crossing. Photo: John Gaffen/Alamy

Therefore the further north we get while we are still west of the Azores the closer we will be to the centres of the lows. By this time, usually late May or early June, we can still get some large and deep depressions passing close to the route so the further north we are (while west of the Azores), the more likely we are to experience strong wind and gales.

Even if we are making an eastbound Atlantic crossing from the USA it is usual to head south-east at first and, while we can use the tail of the Gulf Stream for a boost, it is safer to get south of the Gulf Stream into warmer waters (less fog) and to head towards the Azores staying on the south side of the lows rather than risk the headwinds on the northern side.

Azores to Europe

Once at the Azores our passage to northern Europe depends on waiting for a good forecast and hitching a ride on a low pressure system passing to the north-west. This will generally need a short hitch north to clear the Azores high before a fast run home.

Heading for the Mediterranean should be more straightforward, with light winds near the Azores becoming strong northerlies as we approach Europe. These are from the Portuguese trade winds generated between the Azores high, and semi-permanent low pressure over Spain, which is a feature of spring and summer.

Out of season passages are possible but there are concerns with them. Early departures run the risk of gales near the latitude of the Azores. North of Bermuda and north of the Azores the chance of gales in March are up to 15% of the time, as shown on the US Pilot Charts, dropping in April and significantly reducing in May. The North Atlantic in winter is not really the place for yachts, particularly if sailing for pleasure.

If you enjoyed this….

Yachting World is the world’s leading magazine for bluewater cruisers and offshore sailors. Every month we have inspirational adventures and practical features to help you realise your sailing dreams.

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The post Eastbound Atlantic crossing: All the weather info you need appeared first on Yachting World.

We now have sailing apps that help with navigation planning, that explain rules, apps that track you and apps that track all other vessels with AIS. Weather forecasting apps continue to improve at pace and we can now run an application that can combine six different sophisticated weather models on a device in the palm of your hand. Apps can import satellite pictures, rain radar data and even wind information from the observation station close to your windward mark.

I’ve been using electronic navigation charts (ENCs) in various ways for 25 years, so is it now time to discard paper charts?

Pros and cons of paper charts

For over 12 years we’ve had charting apps that can bring the equivalent of hundreds of full-size charts onto a handheld device at a fraction of the cost, size and weight of traditional paper charts. Electronic charts can be updated in seconds, whereas manual chart updates take hours of toil. Last century, back in my own days in the Royal Navy, the principal task of the ‘navigator’s yeoman’ on a warship was the updating of charts and almanacs.

Traditionalists will be quick to point out that there have been some infamous incidents where the use of electronic charts has contributed to the reason for groundings, usually where the navigator has not zoomed in far enough to see a hazard, island or shallows.

Team Vestas Wind famously ran aground on Cargados Carajos Shoals in the Indian Ocean. Photo: Brian Carlin / Team Vestas Wind / Volvo Ocean Race

With paper charts, it is much easier to spot hazards and you can move your eyes across the chart very quickly. But you do have to have the largest scale charts to hand; not always an easy task on a small or medium sized yacht on an extended passage. What if we have a total electrical failure, how are we going to cope just with ENCs?

There’s no doubt that electrics are more reliable on yachts these days and usually at least half the crew will have separate electronic charting apps on their own tablets and smartphones. Those devices have also become increasingly water resistant. Having additional spare systems, each with their own power source, seems a good starting point to counter electrical failure.

But prudent seamanship surely suggests that we should at least carry paper charts for our sailing area. The Royal Ocean Racing Club insists on paper charts to cover the area of a race, while the organisers of the Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race require that entrants have 25 detailed charts on board – and these are all physically counted during the pre-race safety inspection.

Article continues below…

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In practice few modern race navigators use paper charts in everyday competition. The ability to utilise race navigation software, with its ever-increasingly higher definition grib files (digital weather and ocean current files), yacht polars and routing algorithms, is usually too powerful a solution to ignore.

Software can help monitor your competitors, and just as easily plot vessels or individuals in need of assistance. It can digitally record position, course and speed as well as many other parameters every second. I’ve used paper charts for many years for briefing the crew in the cockpit before a race. Even on a short coastal race, a chart is a great visualisation aid of what to expect.

However, charts and cockpits don’t always mix. I remember trying to use a paper chart in the dark in the Tour Voile in the Chanel du Four after my deck screen power lead was severed by the mainsheet traveller. Beating into 25-30 knots of wind against three knots of tidal stream on a Mumm 30 was wet work and my ‘water resistant’ paper chart dissolved into papier mâché in minutes. I ended up peeling it off the wet cockpit floor in strips.

Speed to read

One advantage of paper charts over ENCs is the speed at which you can scan a chart and see how up to date it is. You can also easily look up the age of the survey from a small chartlet on an area of land; there are still areas of current charts for the Pacific that date back to 1770 and were surveyed by a certain Captain James Cook!

The advent of side scan sonar in 1972 increased the accuracy of surveys significantly, though it was still 17 years before GPS brought positional accuracy. Survey date is hard to determine on many small yacht ENCs.

Electronic charts have many advantages, but can you tell how accurate the survey data is?

Larger vessels are now embracing an enhanced standard of electronic charting, which adopts an industry standard for displays, power sources and type of ENCs. The whole system is called ECDIS (electronic charting displays) and is now required on commercial yachts over 500 GRT, run on two systems, each with independent power supplies.

Survey data has now been replaced on these charts by Category Zone of Confidence (CATZOC). The CATZOC layer can simply be switched on or off at the operator’s discretion and means an assessment of the accuracy of the chart data can be made easily.

CATZOC info is better than simply the date of the survey, as it is assessed on the accuracy of the horizontal position, depth, nature of seabed and surveying equipment that was used. Checking CATZOC is now part of the due diligence for navigation planning on commercial vessels.

The most accurate CATZOC is A1, and the scale runs through A, B, C to U (unassessed) They are shown on the charts, usually as triangles or elongated ovals with up to six stars inside; six stars indicating A1 accuracy. We can expect CATZOC to filter down to smaller yachts – it’s already being incorporated into paper charts.

Paper charts certainly still have their uses. Skipper of the IRC46 Pata Negra Andy Lis recommends using them on a transatlantic passage. “I like to plot a noon position each day on crossings. It’s great for all the crew to be able to monitor progress across the ocean. Also as a back-up when the batteries fail, even AGM batteries have a life expectancy, and ours finished mid-North Atlantic race in 2019.”

Last month, I had a ‘port state inspection’ on the commercial yacht I’m running. The French inspector relayed to me that a few days previously a yacht in Spanish waters had been fined €2,500 for not having paper charts. I’m not sure of the accuracy of this report, but it seems to me simply prudent to carry some paper charts.

While using paper charts for actual navigation has really become a thing of the past for me, I like the idea of having a few of them to hand. There is something nostalgic and sentimental about poring over a paper chart; it is almost therapeutic. Besides, what better way to find the best sheltered anchorage for the evening? Even if I do then use Google satellite imagery to look into the water to see the extent of the sand on the seabed for best holding and even the brightness of the white sand on the beach.

First published in the January 2021 issue of Yachting World

The post Pro navigator Mike Broughton explains why paper charts are still irreplaceable appeared first on Yachting World.

Rather like the poker player who unwittingly plays into a trap, starting in a strong steam easily ensnares the unwary. To reduce this risk, getting to the start area early is strongly recommended to carry out some pre-start ‘due diligence’.

First, you need the best tidal stream information you can lay your hands on (the highest resolution). Then you need to compare the ‘forecast’ stream with what is actually happening. Inevitably there is a difference which could be due to factors including particularly high or low pressure, a lot of recent rainfall, or the tidal stream simply running late.

Do a quick tidal survey of the start area, comparing what you are seeing with the prediction. Never sail past a buoy, beacon or committee boat without looking down and checking on the stream. If you are running race software, does the measured current concur? Is the stream due to change in the next 30 minutes, and if so, how?

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Using transits

Start line transits are part of your starting due diligence, so make sure you brief the person calling the bow on the tidal stream. While getting a bow transit (lining up the start line with a mark on a nearby shoreline), maybe consider getting a second transit for your starting position at the ‘back of the bus’?

When beating to windward, a layline is the highest angle or bearing you have to sail to just make it to a mark or anchored boat. Two knots of tidal stream can dramatically change these angles, particularly in light winds. Knowing these ‘tidally adjusted laylines’ is powerful information when lining up your approach to start.

Assuming you want to start at the pin end, the trick is to position yourself about a minute back and sail into the pin, ideally picking a transit between the buoy and the shore as you start. Then refine that starting position or transit with a couple more practice runs.

That way, even in the heat of the battle when other boats get involved, you already have a transit that you know works. Before the days of foiling, America’s Cup yachts would practice this over and over to help hone their approach to the start before the match race duel begins.

Tactical navigation software can help a great deal here, but visible transits are hard to beat. Software is great for giving you time to the line from over 10 boat lengths out, whereas the human eye gets better as the distance gets closer. Calibrating your eye with some practice makes it even better!

Once we have a handle on the tidal stream we can then consider how things are likely to play out. Looking upwind, if the tidal stream is moving right to left we can start to anticipate how that will affect the fleet. In particular, once tidally adjusted there may be a wider angle on the layline into the start, meaning that a gap opens near the committee boat in the final countdown. This makes a late run into the committee boat less risky, even on a busy start line, with a ‘cross tide start’.

High-risk strategy

Meanwhile, at the pin end it is high risk with the tidal stream sweeping boats towards the pin. It is easy to mistime your start in these conditions and see a pile up at the pin. You sometimes even get boats head to wind, pinned to the pin. If you get below the port layline to the pin, then it is not going to be your day as you will need to do some sailing on port tack to start and that might be tricky in a busy fleet with a squadron of boats bearing down on you on starboard tack.

With the tidal stream running left to right, then the pin becomes easier, but the starboard end can be very high tariff, so ‘crash helmets on’ if you get it wrong! An inner distance mark will help protect the committee boat, but fenders may still be required.

Probably only one boat will get a good start, so it might make sense to start some way in from the end of the line in these conditions.

When the tide is running directly with you, getting close to the start line early becomes the risky option. Practising with timed runs helps build confidence here. It is useful to know how long it will take for you to sail a boat length when up to speed. Hence if it is taking 10 seconds to sail 1.4 boat lengths, then if you are outside six boat lengths at 40 seconds to the start you can ‘pull the trigger’ and move to full speed mode.

Navigation software helps a great deal but it is also useful to have a good feel for how long your boat takes to accelerate in the prevailing conditions.

Starting ‘down tide’ in light winds, having a spinnaker ready to claw your way back over the line can be a wise move. If recalls are called on a VHF radio then tweak the volume up, particularly when the tidal stream is trying to push you over early.

On reaching starts, timed runs work well in a tidal stream – you might be able to utilise a buoy set back from the line or, when close to a shoreline, use a second transit about one minute back from the line.

Finally, with a tidal stream against you on the start line, having confidence to run in early, often ahead of the pack, can make big gains. You already know the answer to achieving this… practice, which helps you calibrate your eye to the conditions of the day.

About the author

Mike Broughton is a pro race navigator who has won many titles including World and European championships. He is a qualified MCA Master to captain superyachts and previously had a successful career in the Fleet Air Arm flying Sea King and Lynx helicopters.

First published in the January 2019 issue of Yachting World.

The post Expert sailing advice: Mike Broughton explains the importance of tidal laylines appeared first on Yachting World.

At sea, fog can be summed up as condensed water vapour or just thick cloud on the surface. Sea fog, or advection fog, forms when relatively warm moist air moves over colder water and cools to its dew point temperature, causing the air to saturate.

Unlike land fog, or radiation fog, sea fog can occur at any time of day and still exist with quite strong winds. It only really clears with a change of air mass – usually with the passage of a cold front. Without the passage of a cold front, it can last for days.

While radiation fog usually occurs on cold, still winter days, sea fog or advection fog is more prevalent in early summer. June can be a particularly bad month in the English Channel, when the water is still relatively cold, with warm moist air coming up from the south-west.

These Sat24.com website images reveal that what appears to be cloud in the satellite view…

Looking out for the forecasts of fog is important, but one simple trick is to go online and use satellite imagery. Sat24.com is a great website to see the last three hours of visual imagery, where fog often shows as a dull, grey and featureless cloud. Next, do a quick comparison with the infra-red satellite imagery and the fog seems to miraculously disappear, whereas other clouds tops still show up.

This is due to the fog being approximately the same temperature as the sea, hence giving a neat confirmation of the existence of fog on the visual picture. You can then return to the visual imagery and more accurately plot the extent of the fog and potentially take avoiding action.

Caught in fog

If you unexpectedly end up sailing in fog, first consider whether you need to keep heading further into it? Would it make more sense to do a quick 180° turn and head back out into clearer visibility?

…is in fact fog that disappears in the infrared view as shown here in the Celtic Sea and North Atlantic

Once we realise we’re sailing in fog, we need to work through a checklist of actions. Note your compass heading. Do we need a more experienced helmsman? It’s easy to quickly find you’re 30° or 40° off course and not notice. Steering is more exacting and even exhausting.

Could it be less stressful to use the autopilot, to allow you to focus on lookout? Just be ready to immediately switch to manual if you need to at a moment’s notice.

Slowing down is certainly good seamanship and the requirement to proceed at a safe speed appropriate to the conditions is detailed clearly in the International Regulations for the Prevention of Collision at Sea (IRPCS Rule 6 – Safe Speed).

Article continues below…

Weather expert Chris Tibbs on how to predict and cope with fog at sea

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With an increased risk of collision, it’s good practise to ensure everyone is wearing a lifejacket. Maintaining a proper lookout is essential. In ‘pea soup’ fog, stationing a person forwards near the bow can help enormously. If motoring, the bow is a good place to escape the noise to allow the lookout crew member to listen for fog signals, or other hazards. On several occasions when I’ve been sailing in fog, the lookout at the bow has provided vital information to avoid a hazard or navigation mark.

In areas of dense shipping, remember to look up as well as straight ahead, I’m sure I am not the only person to have sighted a large vessel from the helm at the angle of the first spreader!

When ‘in or near areas of restricted visibility’ IRPCS states we shall make the prescribed sound signal, which for sailing vessels is one long blast, followed by two short blasts at intervals not more than two minutes. We need to have a working knowledge of sound signals of other vessels: many don’t appreciate that the fog signal for yachts is the same as vessels involved with fishing, towing, and even vessels ‘constrained by draught’ and ‘not under command’.

Make yourself visible

To help other ships see us, our best chance is to ensure we are clearly seen by the equipment on the bridge, which is radar and AIS (automated information system). Radar is a great help, but not all yachts have it, and it does take concerted focus and an understanding of how best to use it. Nearly all yachts have radar reflectors. Disappointingly tests have shown radar reflectors are not as effective at enhancing our radar signature as many people think. Active radar transponders show up much better.

AIS has been a real step change to aid collision avoidance when sailing in fog, though always remember that not all vessels use it and it is only an aid, albeit a very useful one. AIS can give the speed and course of a vessel as well as the closest point of approach (CPA) and time to the CPA: this is really useful data when navigating in fog. AIS also gives the vessel name, call sign, type and size.

Navigation lights are essential in foggy conditions. In a really thick fog the bow navigation lights can reflect back off the fog, leaving you with an eerie red or green glow.

Do you know how to make the prescribed sound signal in restricted visibility?

The amount of radio traffic tends to rise when sailing in fog, though beware using VHF radio to communicate with the watch keeper of another vessel, which can be fraught with problems.

There have been at least three occasions in the Dover Straits where watch keepers have opted to use radio to try to negotiate collision avoidance, which has ended unhappily in a collision!

These have often come about through misidentification and language difficulties, when both watch keepers should have prioritised normal rules of the road and not allowed themselves to be distracted in an important close quarters situation.

One tactic for dealing with fog on small vessels is to head away from busy shipping channels and sail to shallow water and anchor. Once tethered to the seabed remember to sound your fog signal (for vessels over 12m, ringing a bell for five seconds every minute). Many sailors may not be familiar with the additional signal of one short, one long, one short blast that can be made after the bell if you are concerned of a risk of collision while you are an anchor.

Stopping and racing in fog

Racing in fog creates extra challenges. Fog by night can take you by surprise and it is easy to lose hard fought gains, if the helmsperson loses awareness. If you have the choice of tacking into fog or not when racing, I would take the clear option every time: humans concentrate better when they can see.

The disorientation and confusion that sailing fog can create can easily generate high levels of stress. Mat Sweetman, captain of the J Class yacht Rainbow, suggests: “It is easy to get freaked out in fog, [but] look at is as if it was just a dark night and it gets a whole load less stressful.”

One clue as to the existence of fog at night is an absence of ambient lights and low altitude stars. If you are on the helm and getting close to fog, it is a good idea to start a scan of your yacht instruments. Like a pilot flying into cloud, it is imperative to ‘believe in your instruments’.

A regular scan is most effective but is both tiring and exacting over a long period of time. On top of normal sailing skills such as utilising the feel of your helm, tell tales (if you can still see them) and heel angle, we now need to bring in regular glances at true wind angle, boat speed, and heading. Working out a pattern for your scan is a good discipline for sailing in fog.

Sea fog is renowned over the Grand Banks. On the Transatlantic Race in 2005, fog prevailed for over six days with sustained wind speeds of 25-30 knots. Visibility was mostly less than 150 metres. Sailing in fog for nearly a week is tough going!

Using radar for collision avoidance

• Periodically cycle through the ranges and don’t leave it just on long range. Zoom in to only three miles in busy shipping and even closer when tracking a vessel of interest.
• Leave the sensitivity and clutter settings on auto. Modern radars handle them well.
• If you want to look through a rain cloud, alter ‘rain clutter’ control very briefly, then revert it to automatic every time.
• Use a split screen with radar on dual range, or radar and chartplotter lined up alongside, or radar ‘overlaid’ on the chartplotter.
• Experiment with this before you hit fog.
• Consider setting up an alarm zone to help you detect contacts.
• If your radar display is below decks, have a tested system for communicating to the helm. Some yachts use a private VHF channel.
• Stay clear of busy ferry routes

First published in the November 2020 issue of Yachting World.

The post Sailing in fog: Pro navigator Mike Broughton shares his top tips appeared first on Yachting World.

There are a number of advantages to doing this, as well as saving around 3,000 miles of sailing, but the passage from the doldrums is predominantly upwind against the trade winds.

Some of the gain in distance will be lost in the extra miles sailed from being hard on the wind. However, this also needs to be offset against the fact that few passages sailing from the Caribbean to Europe are on a direct course as routeing takes us around the Azores High, with most boats stopping at the Azores.

Weather in the South Atlantic mirrors that in the North, with sub-tropical high pressure driving the trade winds of both hemispheres. On the pole side of the highs are disturbed westerlies, where depressions cross the Atlantic from west to east bringing fronts and stronger winds.

The ITCZ varies in size and can be anything from a few miles to 500 miles in width

Between the high pressure centres are the doldrums, which we usually refer to as the ITCZ (Inter Tropical Convergence Zone). This is the area where the south-easterly trade winds of the southern hemisphere meet the north-easterly trade winds of the northern hemisphere.

The ITCZ can also be described as the thermal equator of the world. It follows the sun to the north and south, depending on the season, but generally lagging behind it. Despite following the sun, the movement of the ITCZ is not as extreme over the sea as it is over the land, and generally stays north of the equator on the eastern side of the Atlantic.

The ITCZ is a product of converging trade winds, and where we get convergence we will also get rising air. Add the heat of the sun into the mix and we get a band of large cumulonimbus clouds producing the typical doldrums conditions of light winds and squalls.

Article continues below…

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In general, the ITCZ is narrower on the western side of the Atlantic and wider on the east with a fairly large triangle of more variable wind close to the African coast. This is why round the world racing yachts and record attempts, cross into the southern hemisphere close to Brazil, then get south of the high pressure before heading east.

It is also why there can be significant gains and losses coming back up the Atlantic after Cape Horn as racing yachts try to minimise the distance sailed while keeping in the strongest and most favourable wind – not an easy job.

Trade winds

The route from Cape Town to the Caribbean is relatively straightforward, although it is long. It usually sees trade winds all the way except for when passing through the ITCZ. This is best done near the north-east corner of Brazil where the light winds zone is generally quite narrow and the currents are also favourable making for fast passages.

With St Helena, Brazil and the islands of Fernando de Noronha on the way it is a pleasant passage and as the South Atlantic is hurricane free it makes an easy transition from the southern hemisphere summer to northern winter. This also ties in with most round the world cruises and rally schedules, as we need to be away from the Indian Ocean tropical cyclone season, which starts in November.

Together, this makes Cape Town a natural Christmas break point before continuing north. It also brings us to the Caribbean ready for a return to Europe before the hurricane season starts in June.

But not everyone can neatly fit into this timetable. Back in 2000-2001 the BT Global Challenge raced from Cape Town to La Rochelle, which was the first time I looked at this route in detail. Since then I have provided weather support for an increasing number of yachts on a direct passage to Europe – yachts built in South Africa to be sold in Europe, and owners that either don’t want to go to the Caribbean or whose schedule doesn’t fit in with this route.

Heading north from Cape Town is the same if heading direct to Europe or to the Caribbean as we are in the southerly or south-easterly trade winds driven by the St Helena High. These will generally hold (although they tend to back) all the way past St Helena to Ascension Island. The winds tend to be quite strong in the south but will ease further north, and can be very steady in speed and direction.

North of the Ascension Islands is the ITCZ; precisely where depends on the time of year but tends to be north of the equator. On the eastern side of the Atlantic this can be a wide band of variable wind sometimes from close to the equator to 10°N or even further north in mid-summer. Statistics show that close to the African coast the wind can come from any direction and there is likely to be some thunder.

As we move into the ITCZ it’s worth trying to set up for the north-easterly trade winds; the further east, generally the better the wind angle as you leave the ITCZ. However, this will be restricted by how comfortable you are in closing to the coast in this area. Personally I’d stay at least 200 miles offshore.

Once out of the ITCZ the approach to the Cape Verde Islands will be hard on the wind on starboard tack. A few port tacks may be necessary depending on wind angle and how hard you beat! The Cape Verde Islands are realistically the only place to refuel and provision. Then you are ready for the hardest part, heading into the trade wind belt.

Infra-red image of the ITCZ seen from space

The trades do vary and it may be worth waiting for them to ease, but if you delay for perfect conditions you’ll be waiting a long time. Although you could find lighter wind close to the African coast, from the Cape Verde Islands to Europe will entail a long starboard tack towards the Azores some 1,300 miles away.

I’ve had some yachts make for the Canary Islands, but this generally entails a lot of motor-sailing into the trades and Canaries current. I did see the track of one boat that beat to the Canaries; the tacking angle was not good and this was a boat that beat well, but with adverse current, big seas, and leeway it was disappointing progress.

So we’ll normally have to sail hard on starboard tack until into the Azores High, or into the westerly/south-westerly winds on the north of the High. We can usually turn east before the Azores if heading to the Mediterranean, however the Azores is a good place for a break and a bit of a recovery. From there, the rest of the passage will seem easy!

The Azores High will generally be a little further south in the northern hemisphere winter, so too will be the ITCZ. At the same time the north Atlantic storms and cold fronts will extend further south and will be more aggressive, which will displace the trades to the south. However, the Azores can see some very strong conditions before April, with a 6-8% chance of gales in March, dropping to 1-3% in May.

So when is the best time to go? My suggestion would be to aim to be in the Azores after the beginning of May and before the increasing chance of Cape Verde hurricanes in July.

The later you leave it the further north the ITCZ is expected to be, making getting to the Cape Verde Islands easier, but the trade winds north of the Cape Verde Islands tend to increase from about mid-June.

The direct route

Advantages

• A shorter distance and faster passage
• Allows a wider departure time from Cape Town with the main risk of hurricanes reduced to a few months near the Cape Verde Islands
• Arrival in the northern hemisphere winter can be managed by staying south of the Azores

Disadvantages

• Hard on the wind from north of the ITCZ, to probably near the Azores
• Beating into the trade winds is never easy
• You will sail against the Canaries current in the north Atlantic
• A lot of motoring through a wide ITCZ

There is the alternative of passing west of the Cape Verde Islands, heading north-north-west towards the centre of the Azores High, but this will give a long passage without breaks and would require greater care for hurricane season.

The real question is how will your boat, and crew, take to a hard beat?

Cape Verde hurricanes

In the North Atlantic the hurricane season starts in June and lasts until November. On this route we are generally east of Atlantic storms but there is the possibility of Cape Verde hurricanes. These are hurricanes that develop close to the Cape Verde Islands or even between the Cape Verde Islands and Africa, before tracking west across the Atlantic.

They’re not very common and will generally be late in the season, however particular attention needs to be paid to the forecasts from June onwards as the possibility of Cape Verde hurricanes is one to be taken seriously. Typically Cape Verde hurricanes are most likely in August and September but there have been some in late July and October. North of the Cape Verdes hurricanes are not likely, unless you are a long way west.

First published in the October 2020 issue of Yachting World.

The post Sailing from South Africa to Europe: Chris Tibbs’ top tips for a smooth passage appeared first on Yachting World.

Sailor and navigation expert Stokey Woodall, who has made a living teaching celestial navigation for several decades, has seen interest rise steadily over the past five years. “People want to get back to basics, back to nature and are starting to realise we need a system that doesn’t involve electronics,” he says.

Bruce Jacobs of Rubicon 3 is another enthusiast whose passion has ignited interest in hundreds of others. Rubicon’s four 60ft yachts cover around 40,000 miles a year, using sextants as a primary navigation tool.

“Celestial navigation was always central to our vision right from the start,” Jacobs says. “It’s very much an extension of being in nature and makes you closer to it. It’s an amazing skill and I would encourage anyone to learn it.”

Good instruction, either online or in a classroom, will help you grasp the fundamental concepts. Photo: Kristen Berry

“I really like the way celestial navigation connects to the history of sailing and the challenge of using it offshore,” says Andy Schell of 59° North, which operates adventure sailing voyages on its Swan 48 and 59 yachts.

“It’s a fascinating mix of both art and science. The science behind it gives you a better feel for your place on the surface of the globe, including the relationship between latitude, longitude and time. You don’t get that in the same way using GPS.”

Lockdown has given many land-bound sailors the time to study, and celestial navigation has been a popular topic. In addition to using the sextant on every offshore passage, Schell teaches at least one land-based course a year.

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“Last autumn I did one, at which there were 20 people,” he says. “Four weeks ago, we taught a virtual course that had 60 people signed up over two weekends.”

To maintain his own skill set, Schell also has a policy of challenging himself to complete at least one passage every year navigating solely using celestial navigation. At sea, 59° North tend to do a 2-3 hour introductory session at the start of each trip.

The Golden Globe Race undoubtedly helped to foster curiosity in celestial navigation, demanding that skippers complete a circumnavigation using only techniques and technology available in 1968.

Timing is everything: a 4 second error on the time a sight was taken equates to a 1 mile mistake. Photo: James Mitchell

Most of the uptick in interest appears to be people learning for their own satisfaction. RYA training resource manager Craig Burton says that after a decade of steady numbers he has seen a growth of interest in the RYA Yachtmaster Ocean shorebased course during lockdown this year, with many people opting to do online courses at home.

While the majority view is that seafarers can happily rely on GPS, that thinking is by no means universally held. The United States Naval Academy dropped celestial navigation from its syllabus in 1997, but reinstated it in 2015 due to concerns about the potential to hack or spoof GPS signals.

Bruce Jacobs cautions against teaching celestial navigation to leisure sailors on the basis that GPS could fail, saying: “You lose people when you say that.” However, in a world in which we all have time constraints, there are some key practical skills that should be learnt before spending time on learning celestial navigation. As the first stage to guard against instrument failure, Jacobs advises skippers and boat owners learn how to use a multimeter to diagnose electrical system faults.

Mia Karlsson of 59° North taking a morning sight mid-passage. Photo: Andy Schell / 59°North Sailing

Not just for experts

One major barrier to learning celestial navigation is that it’s wrongly perceived as being difficult and time-consuming. However, there’s no need to plough through days of complex theory before you can take sights and calculate positions.

The widespread use of Air Navigation Tables for navigation at sea put an end to the requirements for spherical trigonometry well over half a century ago. Since then all that’s required is to be organised and to add and subtract. Each individual step is logical, easy and straightforward, while any complication simply comes from the number of individual steps involved.

Everyone I’ve spoken to, and indeed my own experience of teaching celestial navigation more than 20 years ago, agrees that the basics can be taught in as little as two or three days. Using a sextant in testing conditions on a small boat remains an art form that’s improved by practice, but it’s still possible to build enough skill to get useable results in a short time frame.

Reading the decimal minutes and degrees recorded by sextant. Photo: Andy Schell / 59°North Sailing

Noon sights are the easiest to work out and will give your latitude with very little calculation. However, they are often shunned by experienced navigators, as the need to track the sun for a few minutes before and after it reaches its highest altitude requires far more time on deck than for a conventional sun sight. And you don’t get a result if there’s a cloud in the way at the critical moment.

Even star sights are nowhere near as complex as is commonly thought – the seven most appropriate stars are tabulated for every approximate position on earth and every time of day. All you have to do is set the sextant to the altitude given, point it on roughly the correct compass bearing and you’ll see a bright star near the horizon.

Tweak the sextant so that the star is exactly on the horizon, take the time, and the sight is complete. After a bit of addition and subtraction you’ll get a proper three-point fix in exchange for a few minutes’ work.

Using sight reduction tables to calculate an accurate position. Andy Schell / 59°North Sailing

“The practical side is very simple,” says Woodall. “It’s measuring an angle and taking the time.” Teaching has evolved to speed the process and aid understanding, with less theory up-front and more time spent getting to grips with the basics.

“Once you give people a taste of celestial navigation and they realise there’s nothing complicated they get very enthusiastic and quickly enjoy it,” he adds.

But before learning about celestial navigation it’s best to be clear about your objectives. “There’s a huge disconnect now with people doing this as a box ticking exercise, where they take a couple of sights and think they’ve done it, but rarely use celestial navigation for real,” says Jacobs.

“We see it as an extension of the natural way of sailing, of the joys of working in nature. The most sensible way to cross an ocean is in an aircraft. To want to do it on a yacht, travelling at only seven or eight miles an hour, the joy of working so closely with the natural world is important. Celestial navigation adds to that and people love doing it.”

Celestial navigation tips

• Recognise the difference between what you need to know and practice to actually navigate a yacht, and the interesting theoretical aspects and background, which you don’t necessarily need to understand.
• When using air navigation tables everything follows from the assumed position – make sure you have a solid grasp of this concept.
• It’s important to stay grounded and avoid transcribing the wrong figures from the tables. Before you start, estimate the angle of the sun when you’ll be taking your sight. In the northern hemisphere in the morning, for instance, the sun will be in the south-east.
• Pro-formas make sight reduction easy in practice, but may not help when learning the essential concepts.
• Using a sextant is much easier than most people have been conditioned to expect.
• If you only have time to learn one type of sight, make it a sun-run-sun, not a noon sight.

About the author

Rupert Holmes has more than 80,000 miles of offshore experience. As a Yachtmaster Instructor he also taught the RYA Yachtmaster Ocean course.

First published in the September 2020 issue of Yachting World.

The post Celestial navigation: Why sailing by following the stars is enjoying a resurgence appeared first on Yachting World.

There’s no getting away from the fact that tiredness profoundly affects our performance. Sleep deprivation can severely degrade our decision-making abilities. The latest scientific research into sleep, such as brain scans carried out by leading neuroscientist and sleep specialist Professor Matthew Walker, has shown how we are more likely to make flawed decisions when tired, sometimes with big consequences.

The military use sleep deprivation in training and selection procedures and have been at the forefront of research into its effects. Sleep education was considered an unusual subject when I first learnt to fly in the Fleet Air Arm, but there are many times sleep deprivation has been shown to be a major factor in accidents and disasters, from the Exxon Valdez tanker grounding and oil spill, to the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the fatal Air France crash in 2009.

On a less cataclysmic scale, two of Britain’s best single-handed racers have grounded their yachts while leading their race. They won’t thank me for mentioning it, but Mike Golding had a huge lead in the Around Alone Race in 1999 before he grounded on New Zealand’s North Island while suffering from heavy sleep deprivation.

Understanding your sleep cycle can help in making critical decisions

Meanwhile, in the last Route du Rhum, Alex Thomson had a 200-mile lead on the final approach to Guadeloupe. Unfortunately for Thomson, he slept through his sleep alarm and sailed Hugo Boss onto the rocks on the northern corner of the island and had to use his engine to extricate himself, incurring a penalty which lost him the race win.

Know your cycles

For sailors likely to experience sleep deprivation, understanding the different cycles of sleep is important, and can hopefully help mitigate mistakes. The cycles are categorised into Non- Rapid Eye Movement (NREM, both deep and light sleep) and the more active dreaming cycles of Rapid Eye Movement (REM).

During each cycle we experience a period of light NREM sleep followed by deep NREM sleep, followed by a period of lighter REM sleep – when we dream. Each cycle takes roughly 90 minutes. If we wake while in a NREM deep sleep phase we feel very groggy and take a while to properly wake up.

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At night, we usually fall into deep NREM a few minutes after falling asleep. Among other benefits, NREM deep sleep helps your brain file away events of the day and clear the decks for lucid thinking once more.

Without deep sleep, our thinking often feels very ‘mushy’ and we can struggle with decisions the following day. Recent research into decision-making when very tired shows people often make over-optimistic gambles and can become reckless about losses. On the ocean this can negatively affect racing tactics or even key safety decisions.

Creativity has been linked with REM sleep. Most REM sleep is generally in the latter part of a normal night’s sleep, so only getting short naps for a prolonged period isn’t great for achieving the benefits of REM, but can provide some of the deep sleep of NREM.

Sleep on it

Ellen MacArthur famously enlisted the help of a neurologist, Dr Claudio Stampi, who trained her to sleep in a series of naps, like a baby. During the Vendée Globe her average period of sleep was just 36 minutes, and on one day she only achieved 1h 17min of sleep in total.

These days, most offshore racers would agree that short or ‘cluster naps’ are the best way to handle short-handed sailing. François Gabart slept in 20-minute bursts during his record-breaking solo around the world in 2018, once managing as much as six hours in a 24-hour period, other times much, much less.

As a race navigator, it makes sense to plan your sleep around key moments in the day, such as rounding a headland, receiving the latest weather or GRIB update, or when you plan to make a change of course. But you also need to be ready to react to unforeseen changes, or a rival’s course alteration.

The grogginess we experience between sleeping and being fully awake is known as sleep inertia

Before attempting to go to sleep it can be helpful if the navigator briefs the watch leader on tactical ‘what ifs’ so they might be able to sleep undisturbed – although I may be being optimistic here!

The old maxim of the power of ‘sleeping on a decision’ has also been backed up by neurological studies. Brain scans have shown that the brain mulls over problems while you are asleep. This unconscious processing can help lift the fog.

Dee Caffari experienced this during a solo transatlantic. She recalls: “During the Transat in 2008, the start was pretty full-on. All the boats were within sight of each other’s nav lights for the first few days. It was my first solo race in the boat and I had autopilot issues. I was tired and not managing myself well at all, as far as eating and sleeping.

“I was struggling to make a decision looking at the GRIB file that had come in. I could not make sense of it and make the critical decision of what angle to sail at. Eventually, I fed myself some pasta and slept for 30 minutes and it was like I woke as a different person.

“When I looked at the weather and routing, the answer came almost immediately. That was the first time I noticed the effect sleep deprivation had on life and death decisions.”

Critical decision making

• Prior preparation is essential – checking through the route, weather predictions, GRIB file update times and tidal stream changes.
• Use a waterproof notebook to make notes in clear, easy to read, bulleted points.
• Ensure you are well fed and try to have regular power naps. These are often best done on a reaching leg. I always have a secret stash of snacks for sleep-deprived navigators to raid.
• Brief your watch leaders thoroughly on what to expect and tactical ‘what ifs’, as well as when to wake you up.
• Anticipate and make sure you are wide awake for key points such as headlands, transition zones and when approaching land.

About the author

Mike Broughton is a pro race navigator who has won many titles including World and European championships. He is a qualified MCA Master to captain superyachts and previously had a successful career in the Fleet Air Arm flying Sea King and Lynx helicopters.

First published in the July 2020 edition of Yachting World.

The post Sleep deprivation and sailing: How to make the right call when you haven’t slept appeared first on Yachting World.

Our focus tends to be on the crossing to the Caribbean of around 3,000 miles. If done at the right season the weather for the transatlantic stage will likely be kind and it will be tradewinds for most, if not all, of the way.

Getting south to the Canary Islands, however, can be quite a different matter. Sailing across the Bay of Biscay brings its fair share of worry. Some guides suggest getting as far west as possible before heading south, however I prefer to get to the Brest Peninsula to shorten the distance then wait for a weather window.

Getting west is good if there are going to be westerly winds all the way, but during the summer months there will often be east or north-easterly winds along the north Spanish coast, which will assist with rounding Finisterre. Last year we cruised the Biscay coast and it is a lovely area previously missed in our rush to get south – it is an option worth considering if you have plenty of time.

The best time to cross Biscay is July and August when the Azores High has moved north and in south Biscay the winds are often north-easterly. When this is the case the main concern is an acceleration zone on the north-west corner of Spain. With an easterly or north-easterly wind direction there is a significant increase in the wind speed; I would add an extra 10 knots or so to the forecast to take account of this acceleration, which will also create a short, steep sea.

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In these conditions I prefer a passage close to Finisterre to minimise the time spent in the acceleration zone and also to get some shelter from the waves. With a well-established Azores High and the ‘normal’ heat low over Spain the Portuguese trades will set in. Driven by the pressure gradient between high and low pressure these will be strongest during the afternoons then easing near the coast at night.

Offshore they will tend to stay strong from a north to north-westerly direction and 30 knots is not unusual; it is a good way of testing your downwind sails for the transatlantic! As we get later in the season, from early September onwards, depressions in the Atlantic will track further south giving strong south-westerly winds in Biscay and pushing the band of Portuguese tradewinds south, often south of Lisbon.

This makes a Biscay crossing difficult; it is still possible but we’re likely to have to wait some time for a weather window and once we have one it’s a hard push to cover the miles. Departing from southern Portugal or from the Mediterranean, statistics suggest we should have north to north-easterly winds for the majority of the passage.

When leaving from the Med it’s important to get through the Strait of Gibraltar with an easterly wind – the Levante. The geography of the area funnels the wind strongly between the mountains of Spain and those of North Africa, making the straits difficult in a westerly. Once out of the Med the route joins with that of boats from further north.

It is usual to have to get some westing before heading south to avoid an area of calms often found along the Moroccan coast, near Casablanca, which is caused by low pressure over North Africa. With northerly winds in place there will be an acceleration zone west of the Atlas Mountains. The mountains funnel the air along their western side and a band of strong wind can be found up to 100 miles offshore.

This will be forecast to some extent if using GRIB files, although I think it is often underestimated in the forecasts. It is more of an issue if heading for Lanzarote from Gibraltar as our route is generally closer to the coast than if arriving from Portugal.

Cut off low

The feature of more concern is a ‘cut off’ low. These are small lows that form on the southern part of a loop in the jet stream. They form, then the loop tends to collapse and the jet stream moves north.

This leaves a small low without the driving force of the jet stream to steer it. The low will then drift around, sometimes towards the north-east, but just as likely drift west before slowly dissipating.

These lows will often have strong winds in them; being so far south just a small pressure gradient will give strong to gale force winds and it’s not unusual to have an exciting passage heading south if encountering a cut-off low.

The passage to the Canary Islands can be a lovely sail and a preview to tradewind sailing – but you do need to watch the weather.

Top tips for sailing to the Canary Islands

• Leave early in the season – from September the weather can quickly deteriorate.
• Shorten the distance, particularly in unsettled weather.
• If the wind is easterly or north-easterly in southern Biscay expect a significant acceleration zone around Finisterre.
• The Portuguese tradewinds can be strong.
• Watch for cut off lows forming.
• Moderate easterly winds in the Med will give gales in the Gibraltar Strait.
• Watch for an acceleration zone close west of the Atlas Mountains (near the latitude of Marrakesh).

About the author

Chris Tibbs is a meteorologist and weather router, as well as a professional sailor and navigator with more than 250,000 sailing miles behind him. He forecasts for Olympic sailing teams and the ARC rallies, among others.

First published in the September 2019 edition of Yachting World.

The post Sailing to the Canary Islands: Everything you need to know appeared first on Yachting World.

In a recent feature in Yachting World, my friend and highly respected yachting journalist Ed Gorman wrote a revealing article about sailing single-handed. There were many good lessons in his summary, though one conclusion caught my eye: ‘Radar – don’t bother with it,’ he observed. I used to think similarly, but I’m afraid, Ed, that now I strongly disagree!

Conventional radar sets, the type I learned on while on the bridge of a Royal Navy destroyer and larger yachts, require a skilled operator, regular attention and lots of electrical power. Neither is commensurate with typical short-handed sailing. So why do we now see radar fitted to most cruising and offshore racing boats over 50ft?

With the advent of recent ‘broadband radar’ we now have a very useful tool that can help all watchkeepers in both good and poor visibility. I should add right now that ‘broadband radar’ and ‘3G or 4G radar’, have nothing to do with phone signals. Instead they are types of radar transmission and the good news is they can automatically tune themselves.

Radar is a first-rate collision avoidance tool and can pick up vessels not fitted with automated identification system (AIS), such as small boats, fishing boats or ships – like warships not transmitting on their AIS. One brilliant feature is that guard zones can be set up to automatically alert the watch keeper if an object enters a zone set up around your yacht.

In fog, radar allows us to make better informed judgements of shipping, particularly when overlaid with electronic charts and AIS. The combination of the three together greatly reduces the workload on a tired watch keeper in a challenging environment. Most radars have a feature called MARPA (mini automatic radar plotting aid) which can acquire a target and give course, speed and closest point of approach (CPA) which all help with collision avoidance in conjunction with AIS.

Article continues below…

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Modern radar benefits from much better definition and can see objects like a single pole beacon within a few metres of your bow. So in ‘pea soup’ fog you can even navigate into a marina using radar. Importantly, when a guard zone is set up, it can pick up small floating objects such as ice or semi-submerged containers and then trigger an alarm.

Radar is also very useful for locating rain from an approaching front. By extrapolating the direction of a front or trough line you can work out when the rain will hit you and also the associated wind shift. As a cold front clears, you can predict when the rain is going to finish and once again the position of a significant wind veer. This is a potentially vital gain for racers.

As a thunderstorm approaches a yacht it can obliterate the horizon and it’s easy to think it’s going to last for hours. With radar you can penetrate the cloud and see that you may only have the thunderstorm for 20 minutes.

Radar is equally good at picking up squall lines as they approach, when the wind can quickly gust from 15 knots to 25-30 knots. That bit of warning can help enormously with sail configuration.

I remember taking over a watch from my brother Pete in the middle of the night in the tropics. We were sailing with an A3 spinnaker and he casually told me that it was a beautiful evening; all had been quiet, great running conditions in a flat sea and 12 knots of wind, with some lovely shooting stars.

Five minutes after he’d gone off watch and I was still waking up… Pow! The squall hit, wind speed rose to 28 knots, the autopilot didn’t cope and the bow was heading to windward, leading to the inevitable broach as the spinnaker flogged itself around the forestay. Of course I hadn’t bothered to check the radar.

The 4G difference

So what is different about modern radar? Conventional radar uses a magnetron to generate a pulsed microwave signal. This ‘bang’ of radio energy is reflected off the targets it hits and a tiny amount of energy is reflected back to the antenna.

The time it takes allows a range and bearing to be calculated. It requires a great deal of power and the ‘bang’ of radio energy appears on your screen as a ‘sunburst’, covering up any close targets to your vessel.

Modern broadband radar uses a continuous radar signal with a changing tone or frequency at a much lower power. The antenna constantly listens for a change in signal and a difference between frequency in the transmitted and returned waves is how the unit determines target distance.

Conventional radar range is longer, but broadband still reaches up to about 35 miles, which is more than enough for yachts. And the power requirement is just 1.2A on the yacht I’m currently sailing.

Tips for using radar

• In good weather, get to know how your radar works. Practise using it to enter your home port.
• Learn how to split your screen to view two different ranges at the same time – great for entering harbour at night or in poor visibility.
• Learn to navigate with radar in conjunction with a chartplotter, using radar ranges. This is good for poorly charted areas.
• Some radars allow you to overlay radar onto your electronic chart or view one next to another using dual screen. This can be a great help for deciphering between rocks and yachts. I prefer both in ‘North Up’ mode.
• In rough conditions you get more ‘returns’ off the waves. A good tip is to manually alter your sea clutter control to reduce this (remember to change back once in a flat sea).
• The rain clutter control allows you to ‘fade away’ the cloud returns to effectively look into a cloud area for a vessel. Do it momentarily then return to the control to normal so you don’t inadvertently miss a vessel.
• Radar is ‘line of sight, plus’. So for best performance don’t mount the aerial too low.

About the author

Mike Broughton is a pro race navigator who has won many titles including World and European championships. He is a qualified MCA Master to captain superyachts and previously had a successful career in the Fleet Air Arm flying Sea King and Lynx helicopters.

First published in the May 2020 edition of Yachting World.

The post Navigation briefing: Mike Broughton explains why you still need radar appeared first on Yachting World.

Whether racing or cruising, our first thoughts are always: ‘What is the tide doing?’ When I grew up sailing in Scotland, leaving anchorages before dawn to catch a tide was the norm. Not only does tidal flow make a significant difference to our speed over the ground, it also affects comfort; it might be quick with 3 knots of tide under us, but if that’s against 20 knots of wind it’ll be uncomfortable verging on damaging or dangerous.

Most sailing areas around the world are tidal; on our recent passage to Australia the tides and currents could be quite vicious around the islands and atolls of the South Pacific. Information is not very reliable but trying to enter a lagoon against the tide is tricky, if not impossible, as the ebb will often run at six-plus knots.

We made up our own tables from observations to estimate slack water and tide times. This does vary as a high swell adds water to the lagoon increasing the length and speed of the ebb.

Planning

We have been helped for many years by the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlases – the NP series covers all of UK waters. Knowing the time of high water at Dover we can work out tidal flow direction around the country and, with a little extra work, we’ll also get the rates depending on whether it is neaps or springs. Admiralty charts have tide diamonds on them giving speed and direction.

This is great for planning passages in a traditional way with paper charts to determine courses and tidal gates, and I for one would not want to sail distances without them. However, we’re now in a more electronic era and can download electronic forms of tidal atlas and animate them. There is a mass of information at our fingertips but we still have to be able use it.

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Tidal atlases are a must but away from heavily raced areas, such as the Solent, although the general flows shown in the atlas will be good the detail is likely to be a bit sketchy. Apart from the rule of thumb that the tide will run fastest where the water is deep and less in the shallows, eddies may also be found close to the coast and the tide will turn first near the shore. For this we not only need good charts, but also a good echo sounder.

With GPS we tend to get lazy and do not calibrate our log to the extent that we used to. Having an accurate log and compass to compare with the GPS speed and COG (course over the ground) will quickly tell us what the current is and will indicate where tide lines are.

Tidal atlases work from a reference port for tide times, and these differ depending on the source of the data. Even for Portsmouth (the main reference port for the Solent) there can be over half an hour difference on high water depending on the source. In addition, meteorological conditions will change the time and depth of high water, which makes our starting point variable.

Verify the tide

I use every opportunity to verify what the tide is doing when passing a mark. The tide atlas will not be perfect, but it will give a good guide; there will be a certain amount of interpolation between springs and neaps as well as a change from six hours after, to six hours before, as our tides do not run on a 12-hour cycle.

In low tidal areas and areas without good information we sometimes use a tide stick to measure the current. This can be anything from a complex float with a built-in GPS (which I’ve used at Olympic venues to map tidal flows), to a simple weighted float dropped in the sea by a reference mark (fishing pot or similar). By using a stopwatch and compass, a direction and speed can be approximated.

I have found this particularly useful in the Mediterranean where currents are often wind driven and not very predictable. It became routine at classic yacht regattas in the Med to use a RIB early in the day to check flow rates around the local race area, as these would vary considerably depending on the gradient wind and after periods of rain. Off Imperia in Italy one year there was close to 1.5 knots of current around the headlands, making it important to stay close to the land.

Without a RIB, passing close to any buoy will give a chance to estimate current along with your electronic instruments. Around the cans I use a tidal atlas and keep an eye on the depth of water; tide lines can often be seen by a change in the pattern of the waves or by a line of foam, seaweed, or refuse indicating where there is a change in speed or direction of the flow.

Hitting laylines is difficult across the tide and while electronics help with this, pre-planning and a ready reckoner with boat speed and flow will give an indication of how many degrees to add or subtract to allow for the tide. The more we practice with them the better we’ll get.

Offshore I’m a fan of integrating tides into a routing program, using Expedition software with tides from Predictwind or Tidetech. I’ll run routing with and without tides to get a feel for their effect as well as changing polar boat speeds to determine where tide gates are and if we will hit them or not.

Top tips for predicting tidal streams

• Get the most accurate tidal information that you can, be it electronic or paper.
• Verify it at every opportunity.
• Look for tide lines.
• Your echosounder is important.
• Calibrated instruments will quickly tell you what the tide is and when you cross a tide line. Uncalibrated instruments are misleading.
• Electronics will help with laylines but are only as good as the tidal flow input.
• Pinching to round a mark in adverse tide seldom works.
• If running against the tide, hold the kite to the last possible moment (in light winds after the bow has passed the mark).

First published in the January 2020 edition of Yachting World.

The post Tidal streams: How to predict them and use them to your advantage appeared first on Yachting World.

There are three major headlands on the Rolex Fastnet Race route that are key to the success or otherwise of your race. Navigator Ian Moore looks at how to tackle these vital tidal gates to gain a winning advantage:

Gate 1: St Alban’s Ledge

I’m not an expert on the geology of St Alban’s ledge, but it presents as an area of shallower, but navigable water extending about 3.5 miles to the south-west of St Alban’s Head. It is clearly marked on the chart, along with lots of overfall symbols!

Because the ledge has relatively deep water either side of it, there is a squeezing of the flow over the ledge, causing the tide to accelerate locally to almost double the free stream tidal speed.

In a typical Fastnet, when beating to the west, this often presents the opportunity to use this flow by tacking onto starboard just shy of the ledge, thus staying in the rip along its full length. The increased current will also cause a temporary right shift, enhancing the gain further.

This gain does come with a price tag. The overfalls can be extremely unpleasant in this wind-against-tide situation and although there are no grounding hazards, being swamped is a real possibility. The sea state also means you will not be sailing at 100 per cent of polar, but done properly this could net a quarter to half-mile gain over going straight through.

Gate 2: Portland Bill

Portland is probably the most iconic tidal gate of the race. The Fastnet normally starts two hours before HW Portsmouth (which is slack tide in the Solent) and the tide turns properly foul at Portland at approx LW Portsmouth, eight hours later. The bigger boats usually have no problem covering the 48 intervening miles and should be approaching on the last couple of hours of ebb.

The tide generally turns first along the shore as the back eddy in West Bay starts to sneak around the point, so approaching in fair tide it usually pays to be just outside the Shambles Bank. This means you are approaching in the best tide between St Albans and The Shambles in 25-30m of water and are lining up the best current two-three miles off the Bill.

Two hours later at Start +8, the gate has closed and up to three miles offshore the tide will be against you at three to five knots. Five miles offshore the tide is only 1.5 knots against and eight miles offshore, although it’s building, it should be less than a knot against.

I would suggest that, once you think you are marginal for this tidal gate, you should start to hedge offshore where, although there is little shelter from the current, it shouldn’t be a total show stopper. Don’t forget that if the wind is westerly as the tide turns, the wind strength will be dropping by up to four knots, which may exacerbate your problems.

There is a back eddy at Portland, but to make use of it you need to be very brave. Approaching inside the point is the easy part in a weak 0.5 knot eddy. Once at the point you need to be almost aground to avoid the four to five-knot current which pushes you offshore into the strongest foul current. I have never made it work for me.

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Gate 3: The Lizard

You won’t have much control over the state of the current at the Lizard and if the current is against you, it may not be an option to go offshore if your routeing wants you to head straight to the Fastnet or north of the rhumb line. Close inshore and in the tidal race, the current turns foul 1h 45m after HW Dover and fair again 3h 45m before HW Dover. Further offshore the tide turns over an hour later.

If you are approaching in foul tide, there is some relief by being inside the point as the worst tide is on about the 30m line. You can also avoid the worst of the overfalls by being closer inshore in a corridor of relatively flat water.

However, there are a series of drying rocks lying due south of the lighthouse. The outermost of these are the Dales and Menhir Rock, which dries to 4m and should be visible or breaking in most tides. The gap between these rocks and the overfalls should be about 400m and provide ample room for you to sneak round inside the worst of the waves and current.

Ironically, the fair tide approach is probably fairly similar, staying just inside the worst of the overfalls in 20-30m of water. Don’t forget, if you are approaching on the end of the fair tide, that it will be turning an hour early on the beach. Consider if you can afford to be a mile or so offshore.

The post Iconic Fastnet headlands that can make or break your race – and how to round them appeared first on Yachting World.

I have tattoos of a rooster and a pig on my feet. They’re meant to protect me from sinking. I have a nautical star on my forearm, so I can always find my way home. I wear red pants at boat shows and lectures. I have a passion for the traditions of the sea.

Celestial navigation tops them, with its blend of romantic art and practical science. Since I first read Bernard Moitessier’s book The Long Way, long before ever going offshore myself, I’ve wanted to cross an ocean using only sun and stars as my guide.

In the spring of 2017, sailing north from the BVIs to Bermuda with the ARC Europe fleet, we raised the stakes – we’d sail the route on our Swan 48 Isbjörn navigating entirely by celestial means. We wanted to see if we could do it.

Isbjörn carries electronic equipment, but the crew revelled in navigating by the stars. Photo: 59 North

I first learned celestial navigation ten years ago from John Kretschmer at a workshop he hosted at his home in Fort Lauderdale. John is the reason I pursued a career on the ocean. He’s well known to most sailors in America and made history in 1984 when he sailed a Contessa 32 called Gigi from New York to San Francisco the ‘wrong way’ round Cape Horn, an adventure that is immortalised in his book Cape Horn to Starboard. The very day that Gigi rounded the Horn, 25 January 1984, was the day I was born.

During the weekend workshop I got to practise taking morning sun sights on the beach with the old Freiberger sextant that John had used to navigate around the Horn on that famous voyage.

John described celestial navigation in romantic terms, explaining it in a way that made it as inspiring as it was understandable. Here was someone who spoke my language, the language of the great sailing romantics like Moitessier and Sterling Hayden. John made celestial bigger than just navigating for, after all, the likelihood of a modern day sailor actually needing celestial is effectively nil.

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Time is everything

“Has the boat motion really settled down a lot or am I just feeling better?” Tom, one of our crew, asked on the second morning of the passage north from Tortola.

He and Cheryl had the watch and were at the helm while the crew was gathered in the cockpit for the day’s noon sight. I led the process while eating a bag of corn chips in an effort to stave off the early-passage mal de mer. Thane had the sextant and Mike was note-taker and timekeeper.

“Is it the 8th? What’s today?” asked Cheryl. “It’s the 7th today, isn’t it? Or no, it is the 8th,” I replied, not so confidently.

Isbjörn is a particularly well-travelled S&S Swan 48. Photo: Tim Wright

Normally on an ocean passage the days really don’t matter. Not so when you’re using celestial navigation. A four-second error on the time you took the sight equates to a one-mile mistake in determining the sun’s geographic position. Time is everything.

Isbjörn had departed Tortola with the ARC Europe fleet and we’d initially sailed west down Sir Francis Drake channel, rounding Jost van Dyke to starboard and pointing the bow for Bermuda. The boat galloped north at first, carrying the easterly trades on a rhythmic swell under hazy skies. Our dead-reckoning plot was easy to keep track of as Isbjörn beam-reached up the rhumb line, full sail flying, at eight knots.

At just shy of 1,000 miles, the passage to Bermuda is long enough to find your sea legs, but short enough to forego that 5 o’clock cocktail without regret. The Gosling’s Family Reserve in Bermuda is worth waiting for anyway.

Photo: Isbjörn Sailing

But the Trades faltered sooner than we all wanted them to. Through the winter in the Caribbean, Mia and I had got so accustomed to sailing in 20 knots of breeze with small sails that it felt rather odd when we first sailed into an area off the coast of northern Florida more affected by continental weather than the tradewinds and lost the breeze for the first time in months. A weak cold front passed overhead and suddenly Isbjörn was on port tack.

Secret GPS positions

We had to eliminate the nearly-impossible-to-avoid GPS inputs while still maintaining some semblance of safety. The old Garmin chartplotter’s GPS antenna had given up the ghost, so we didn’t have to worry about that, or the VHF, which was integrated to it.

We had an AIS app on the iPad that allowed us to see targets around us and their CPAs, streamed wirelessly from the built-in Vesper XB8000 transceiver, but that would hide our own position. We had a paper passage chart, bound copies of the Nautical Almanac and the Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation.

Mia would keep a secret GPS record in a separate logbook in case of emergency. Ironically, friends and family following the rally from afar would know our position more accurately than we would through our YB tracker.

Thane had signed up for the passage in spite of the celestial navigation part of it, not because of it. He was an experienced offshore sailor, having sailed across the Atlantic westabout, double-handed with his wife, Brenda, on their Bavaria 37.

“Holy smokes, this is so cool!” he exclaimed the first time he managed to grab an evening twilight star sight.

Getting a reliable sight from the sun is tricky when it’s hazy or overcast. Photo: 59 North

The sun had only just sunk beneath the horizon to port. The western sky was painted an array of pinks, yellows and oranges, while overhead blue faded to black as night approached to starboard. If you looked hard enough, you could just make out the evening’s first stars. We were in that ethereal slice in time photographers call the magic hour and navigators call civil twilight.

Thane had used the ‘no scope, two eyes open’ approach on that first star sight that Moitessier had used on Joshua. ‘I felt that I was becoming an expert in taking star sights since I discovered that it can be done without the telescope, keeping both eyes open,’ Bernard Moitessier wrote in his book Cape Horn: The Logical Route.

‘In this way, a star can be brought down to the horizon because the latter can be seen quite clearly with both eyes open. It is impossible to do this properly while looking through the telescope where the horizon always looks hopelessly blurred. In my innocence, I thought I was the first to discover this method…’

During our one-day crash course in Tortola, I’d described to the crew this method in theory. With one sight that evening, on the rolling deck of a boat at sea where the accuracy of his sight had real-life consequences, Thane had instantly and enthusiastically bridged the gap to celestial in practice, experiencing the same joy of discovery that Moitessier had uncovered and written about some 50 years earlier. ‘Even the best navigators are not quite sure where they’re going until they get there, and then they’re still not sure!’

Sextant sights provide the raw data – you then have to try to work out where you are. Photo: 59 North

Breadcrumbs in the wood

Traditionally, navigation was about keeping a detailed record of where you’d been in order to plot a course to where you’d like to go. Hansel and Gretel knew how to navigate – the breadcrumbs-in-the-forest trick was the fairytale version of dead reckoning.

Navigation was rooted in superstition. Never did a sailor tempt fate by arrogantly declaring they were sailing ‘to’ a faraway port; it was always ‘towards’. This thinking contained equal doses of humility and flexibility that the modern navigator ignores at their peril.

Teaching celestial navigation in a modern context, then, involves filtering fundamental concepts through a particular lens. Take latitude, for example. It’s derived by taking a north-south cross-section of the earth and extending lines from the centre outwards, like spokes on a bicycle wheel.

AIS app on an iPad provides information on other vessels. Photo: 59 North

Where those spokes intersect the surface of the earth creates a given line of latitude, which is drawn on the earth’s surface around the world horizontally. The degrees between lines of latitude on the surface are actually the angle between those bicycle spokes.

Nautical miles on the surface of the earth, then, correspond to those angles. Everyone knows that one minute of latitude is equal to one nautical mile, and that 60 of these make one degree of latitude. But have you ever stopped to think how far a nautical mile is on the moon? Or on Jupiter?

A nautical mile on another planet is still derived in exactly the same way, but it’s the body’s circumference that determines the actual geographic distance of it on the surface of that body. A statute, or land mile, is contrived. A nautical mile is an elegant expression of geometry.

Dive a little deeper. The distance on the surface of the earth from 0° to 231⁄2° North, for example, is 60×23.5 or 1,410 nautical miles. It’s also 1,410 nautical miles from the moon’s equator to 231⁄2° north on the moon, but the distance as measured in feet or metres is much shorter because the moon isn’t nearly as big.

That 23 1⁄2° North, by the way, is the Tropic of Cancer. The Tropic of Capricorn, conversely, lies at 23 1⁄2° South. Those aren’t just made-up boundaries: the geographic tropics are de fined naturally by the limits of the movement north and south of the sun’s declination throughout the year as it traces a sine curve from season to season, due to the tilt of the earth.

The other half of the sun’s geographic position (GP) – longitude, or Greenwich Hour Angle (GHA) in celestial parlance – is directly convertible with time and changes by the second. The sun’s GP travels westabout through 360°, right around the earth, in 24 hours, or 15° per hour.

Logically, then, I can predict the sun’s GHA in my head if I know the time in Greenwich, 1400 UT, for example, would put the sun about 030°. GHA, unlike longitude, is measured through 360°; the sun can never travel east, after all.

In simplified terms, when we take a sextant altitude of the sun we’re creating a right angle triangle between it, the earth’s surface at the GP, and ourselves. Grade school geometry tells us that the two angles in a right-angled triangle must equal 90°.

Celestial navigation is very much a team effort – one crew member takes a noonsight while another notes the figures

So, the complement to the altitude projects an angle from the sun onto the surface of the earth which, just like in the latitude example above, can be converted to nautical miles. After accounting for the sun’s declination north or south, depending on the season, this is precisely how we get our latitude from a noon sight.

A single sextant sight produces a giant circle of position, with the complement to our sextant altitude describing the radius of the circle, the GP at its centre. If we had a large enough chart, and an accurate way to take a compass bearing towards the GP, you could plot this using the simplest of fixes, bearing and range, to pinpoint a position on that circle. Alas, we have neither.

So, in a nutshell, modern celestial using the Sight Reduction Tables for Air Navigation (Pub. 249 in the US), allows us to compare the sextant reading from our unknown location at a known moment in time, with a sextant reading from a known location that’s somewhere in our neck of the woods, called the ‘assumed position’, and plot the difference on a chart, producing a single line of position that just so happens to be a tangent to that larger circle of position… Deep breath!

In reality, none of this is important to the modern GPS navigator. But – and here’s why I love teaching celestial navigation so much – these Eureka moments about geography and geometry and the basic understanding the fundamentals of celestial makes everyone a better navigator, whether you actually ever pickup a sextant or not.

The ocean felt deserted. There were no other boats to be seen, and no more flying fish. No dolphins. Nothing but the routine.

I don’t stand a watch on our Isbjörn passages, instead maintaining a more traditional captain’s role, overseeing the big picture and forever on-call should the crew need me on deck. Again, I’m modelling Moitessier.

He wrote once that when the weather is nice and things are going well, the captain can sleep for 36 hours if he wants. On the other hand, when the weather is bad, and stress high, the captain must remain at the helm indefinitely.

When things are good, I’ll often take half of Mia’s nighttime watch. There’s something about being alone in the cockpit at night. It’s precisely why I go ocean sailing.

Sunrise and moonset

I relieved Mia pre-dawn at 0400 and settled in for my two hours outside while the crew slept. Firmly into the mid-latitudes, and after another clearing frontal passage, the sky had lost all its Caribbean moisture and haze, replaced by a clarity in the air rarely seen ashore.

The glimmer in the east came early that morning. In opposition, the full moon casually and simultaneously sank lower on the horizon. I couldn’t decide where to focus my attention; I wanted to witness that first glimpse of the sun piercing the eastern horizon, but didn’t want to miss Mr Moon dipping ever lower in the west.

Isbjörn sailed on a northerly zephyr and an oily sea, forcing me to concentrate on the helm in order to maintain her momentum, but distracting me from that beautiful sunrise and moonset. It was very fine light-air sailing, but there were troubles with celestial. Where were we?

We’d forgotten to account for the apparent altitude when taking the noon sight the day before, a correction to the sextant angle that’s applied to account for the refraction of the sun’s ray’s in the atmosphere. The log read 581 miles sailed since leaving Tortola when I wrote in the logbook on the morning of 10 May, our fourth day at sea. It had been overcast the day before, so difficult to take any sun sights, and the ones we did get were off.

Photo: Isbjörn Sailing

To boot, we’d gone 12 hours overnight, sailing well east of the rhumb line, close-hauled on a light northerly, which didn’t allow us to lay the course.

Non-sailors assume celestial is about navigating by the stars, at night. It’s not, of course – star sights do the job, but you need a visible horizon, which only happens at dusk and dawn. So it’s down to Mr Sun, who guides you most of the way, and on cloudy days Mr Sun is hard to find. You’re always sailing blind at night.

No matter. At 0300 on the morning of 12 May, just before the dawn of our sixth day at sea, Gibb’s Hill Light on the south-west corner of Bermuda hove into view right where we expected it to. The log read 838 miles sailed.

Accurate enough

Celestial navigation had gotten Isbjörn to Bermuda, legitimately, and with a crew of amateur sailors, two of whom had only just learned the methods literally the day before departure. I’d always wondered if we could do it, and now I know.

It’s certainly not a practical, efficient means, by anyone’s reckoning. They say that ‘close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades’. And in celestial navigation.

Andy’s tattoos reflect his love of nautical tradition

The interesting part is that, without a GPS, we never really knew how accurate our sights were, and we still don’t. In the end Gibb’s Hill Light appeared where we expected it to. Our sextant sights, DR plots and LOP reductions were accurate enough to get us there successfully.

Nobody cared whether our individual LOPs throughout the trip were within two miles of our GPS position or ten, and the crew enjoyed stargazing at night, quickly forgetting the chartplotter gazing we’re all so used to.

Not unlike Heisenberg’s famous principle, perhaps the most profound irony of modern navigation is that the closer we get to perfect GPS accuracy, the farther we get from ever knowing where we truly are.

About the author

Andy Schell and his wife, Mia Karlsson, sail 10,000 miles per year on their S&S Swan 48 Isbjörn, taking paying crew on ocean passages in the Atlantic, Arctic and worldwide. Andy also hosts the On the Wind sailing podcast on his website (59-north.com) featuring interviews with well-known sailors from around the world.

The post Back to basics: Offshore sailing by celestial navigation alone appeared first on Yachting World.

The biennial Rolex Fastnet Race has developed into a multi-faceted competition with a burgeoning double-handed class as well as fully crewed yachts.

This year the fleet numbers 390 and includes multihulls, IMOCA 60s, maxis, Class 40s and Figaro one-designs alongside the 338-strong IRC division.

For the fortnight before the race starts on 6 August, 2017 navigators will have spent countless hours watching weather forecasts develop while they fine-tune a race plan. On race day the immediate priority will be to decide the best spot to start on the Royal Yacht Squadron start line in preparation for two or three hours of inshore racing towards the Bridge Buoy and the open sea.

But in a race this long the big calls keep coming and while it’s tempting to judge process against the boats around you, how do you keep tabs on what’s happening two or more miles to windward or leeward? How do you keep your Fastnet navigation on track?

Trying too hard too early in long races can easily lead to burn-out. Will your crew take the inevitable setbacks in their stride and will you be able to spot opportunities for the big gains when they are presented?

Top navigator Mike Broughton is quick to emphasise the importance not only of making good decisions, but knowing how to make them, and when.

“It’s no good having a great first 20 hours then the navigator starts to fade and you miss that big shift off Land’s End. Plan not just the watch system, but also the decision system and how you are going to keep making good decisions,” he says. “Then update and involve the crew. It’s always better to have a Plan A and Plan B rather than no communicated plan at all. Talk through the next sail change and let the crew boss know the likely following sail change as well.”

1. Key decision points

Have a clear idea when or where you need to be making key decisions – for example, as you approach St Alban’s Head. Think about the wind stability as there are geographic windshifts, wind shadows, wind acceleration zones and predictable windshifts in the sailing wind owing to changes in the tidal streams.

View each leg as a short sprint. While the tactics are often complex, break the decisions down and make it simple.

Keep asking ‘what if’: what if the wind backs to 220°?; what if the wind increases to 18 knots?, etc. Even the long leg from the top of the Scilly Traffic Separation Schemes to the Fastnet Rock can be viewed as a huge windward/leeward race – well, sometimes!

When you think you have a strategy, keep in mind the relative risk of your plan compared with what your main opponents are doing. Do you need to take that much risk at an early stage?

Pro navigators and tacticians are patient and measured in their decision-making. They know opportunities for many small bankable gains will come, so if in doubt don’t get exposed when you don’t need to. Of course, these decisions are all tempered by how well you are doing.

Continues below…

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2. Beware the bays

Heading west in the English Channel in light winds, some competitors head into the bays in search of sea breezes, while at the same time trying to cheat an eastgoing tide.

Winds in the bays in an east or west wind are often lighter owing to wind shadow effects. For example, the high ground of Dartmoor reduces the wind in Lyme Bay, just as the high cliffs of Cornwall affect the winds in West Bay.

While flying Royal Navy search and rescue helicopters in the English Channel out of Portland, I used to see this quite clearly most times I went flying, particularly in a south-westerly or easterly wind.

3. AIS and trackers

Monitoring the opposition is a key part of the race these days. You can deduce a great deal about the wind direction and strength with careful analysis of other boats’ tracks, particularly if you already have a good idea of their relative speed and how well you think that boat is being sailed.

Rolex Fastnet Race YB tracker

When you are beating your rival, the tracker or AIS can help you cover their movements to ensure things stay that way. But don’t lose sight of the big picture. The fleet will be spread over a large area and it is easy to lose touch.

4. Weather updates

You need to know what information you are looking for and then prioritise. Rely purely on GRIB files at your peril; they struggle with fronts, trough lines, sea breezes, acceleration zones, wind shadows.

Synoptic charts, real-time observations, and various satellite images are all very important in building your forecast for the Rolex Fastnet Race, though their relative importance changes with the type of weather system.

If you know there is a front coming with a big shift, it is often best to track the timing by using rain radar and not a GRIB file. Sometimes bandwidth can be limited, so prioritise what you want to download before you start the race. Live weather reporting sites such as XC Weather are also useful.

5. Know your targets

It can be a waste of money to invest in new sails then unwittingly allow poor performance at night.

Don’t settle for badly calibrated instruments or you could miss a windshift or race at the wrong target angle or speed.

I recently took the drastic action of tearing an inferior set of instruments off my own boat. We then upgraded, calibrated and improved overall performance considerably in just one week.

Mike Broughton works with international sailing teams at the top level of the sport, and has competed in 17 Fastnets. He also used to be a Royal Navy search and rescue pilot.

The post 5 tips: Fastnet navigation – make the right navigational calls in this offshore classic appeared first on Yachting World.

Cruising in remote tropical regions can be challenging, especially where there are no charts suitable for pilotage. Often the charts that do exist are old and inaccurate. To make matters worse, coral can grow surprisingly fast and what was a clear channel 20 years ago might now have coral heads just below the surface.

In these situations the navigator needs to piece together every available bit of information in advance and Google Earth navigation is the way to go. We have been sailing our Grand Soleil 52, Streetcar, in the Pacific for over two years. During this time we have adopted a range of new techniques to supplement standard navigation and pilotage practices using publicly available satellite imagery to fill in the gaps and give us the confidence to explore off-chart.

Most people are familiar with using Google Earth satellite imagery to explore on land, or even to see into their neighbour’s garden. Many cruisers are now finding satellite imagery can help with navigation. Coverage extends over coastal waters and captures most of the reefs and rocks associated with the land.

On this Google Earth image reef systems and shallows appear as light blue areas on the western side of Fiji

In tropical zones the water is clear enough for shallow areas to be visible on satellite imagery. Even in murky lagoon water suspicious discoloured patches can be identified. Conveniently, satellite images can be easily referenced to WGS84 for plotting GPS positions.These features combine to provide a powerful tool to support navigation and pilotage.

Getting the technology right

In our navigation station we use a PC with a Garmin puck-type GPS plugged into the USB. Reception is good enough from the chart table, although this might not be the case on all boats. I use a PC with Windows because it’s the most common platform for all the various navigation software and avoids compatibility problems when exchanging files with other cruisers.

You also need good-quality access to the internet to download the images. In some parts of the Pacific there is good enough mobile coverage to allow continuous downloading as you sail. Otherwise, you need to anticipate your areas of coverage and download when you can.

We use three programs for navigation:

• Google Earth running on the PC
• Open CPN with Google Earth charts
• SAS.Planet connected to other satellite image resources.

With Google Earth you can pan along a proposed route and zoom into areas of interest. The detail is automatically adjusted as you zoom. You can even explore archived images to find the clearest pictures.

If you connect a GPS, the boat’s location is shown on the images, although I find this can be temperamental in Google Earth.

Google Earth saves (caches) viewed imagery up to a memory size limit. In the options you can maximise this cache size. This means that while you still have a good internet connection you can traverse a planned route zooming in and panning as you go along. Provided you don’t exceed the memory limitation, all the images will be available later when you are under way and not connected to the internet.

Electronic chart with Google Earth overlay in Open CPN, showing our tracks in and out of a well-known Fiji anchorage

Open CPN is freely available chartplotting software. It is the product of an online community of volunteer programmers. Electronic charts can be displayed and overlaid with waypoints, routes and tracks. And there is a whole range of additional plugins that add to the functionality.

Using another freely available program called GE2KAP alongside Google Earth, you can create your own Google Earth charts. These can then be imported to Open CPN and overlaid onto navigation charts. You can toggle between the satellite images and the chart to compare features.

SAS.Planet is another Geographic Information System, like Google Earth. It is a Russian freeware program, which is easy to download and does not even need to be installed. You just double click the downloaded file.

Many cruisers in the tropical Pacific are now using SAS.Planet because it provides access to images from other sources, such as Bing and Yahoo. In some areas these are better quality than the Google Earth images.

Like Google Earth, SAS.Planet can be connected to your GPS so that you can see the boat’s position superimposed over the satellite images. You can also use it like a chartplotter to create waypoints and routes as well as record your tracks.

In the Great Astrolab Reef we found Bing images viewed in SAS.Planet much clearer than Google Earth in OpenCPN

The drawback with SAS.Planet is that converting the images into charts for later use in OpenCPN is not straightforward. So if you do not have access to the internet, you’ll have to rely on images stored in the cache. As with Google Earth, this cache is limited by the amount of memory allocated.

With good internet coverage OpenCPN and SAS.Planet used together is our best option. In Fiji there is very good mobile phone network coverage and I can usually download images through SAS.Planet as we sail. When this is possible I like to run Open CPN alongside SAS.Planet so I can watch the chart and satellite imagery side by side.

In order to run both at once on the same PC, I installed a piece of software that makes the GPS input available to both programs. I use Franson GPSGate, which is easy to install and use.

In more remote areas you need to prepare all your satellite image charts in advance. Recently, we spent six months cruising through Tuvalu, Kiribati and Marshall Islands. Being ex-colonies, all these atolls have previously been charted. However, charts are dated and there are plenty of omissions and inaccuracies.

We knew that satellite imagery was going to be a real asset. But in this region the internet is not good enough for downloading data. So before we left Fiji we used GE2KAP to assemble portfolios of Google Earth charts for all the atolls.

These Google Earth charts proved to be invaluable, allowing us to explore further and providing us with enough information to find useful protected anchorages around the lagoons.

Those who have cruised atolls in convergence zone regions will know that you always need an exit strategy from your anchorage. Sudden and sometimes violent wind reversals can turn your idyllic spot into a lee shore with many miles of fetch across the lagoon. Having the Google Earth charts allowed us always to have a plan ready for these situations.

When anchoring a 30m radius swing circle is first superimposed on a satellite image clear of coral heads. We approach slowly and drop anchor in the middle

Another benefit of taking time to collate this type of cruising information is being able to contribute to the communities of cruisers who cross your path in these remote areas. Thumbdrives full of Google Earth charts, tracks, waypoints, anchorages, etc, are the currency of these anchorages. It’s useful information, but remember to check for errors.

Additional resources

Most cruisers write blogs and upload cruising information to websites. We always spend time going through these resources before heading off.

We always check out the website www.noonsite.com, and some of the best cruiser resources for the Pacific are compiled by Soggy Paws on http://svsoggypaws.com.

Changing how we navigate

The use of satellite imagery for navigation in tropical areas is a huge step forward. It allows us to explore further with confidence and we can usually find alternatives if plan A doesn’t come off. But it doesn’t replace traditional methods of pilotage. We always have someone on lookout. The radar is always on to provide accurate measurement and the hand-bearing compass is at hand.

I treat every piece of information with suspicion, especially when there are inconsistencies. The challenge is to separate the ‘fact’ from the ‘uncertainties’ and then figure out the best way to make use of the information. But I have found satellite imagery can contribute significantly to the ‘fact’ side of the equation. As they say, the camera never lies. Well, almost never.

Sources of free software for using satellite imagery

Google Earth www.google.com/earth/download/ge/

SAS.Planet www.openhub.net/p/sasplanet

OpenCPN www.opencpn.org/ocpn/download

GE2KAP www.gdayii.ca/Downloads.php

This is an extract from a feature in the November 2014 issue of Yachting World

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