I'm organizing a navigation workshop for NSPN, most likely on a Saturday in early April. I'd like to hear your ideas about what topics you'd like to see covered, what skills you'd like to improve, what kinds of exercises you'd like to do, and what kinds of navigational challenges you've faced in the past. You can reply here, or send me a private message.

Dan,

Happy New Year!

This is a great idea.

It's probably fair to say that unless the workshop was billed say as introductory, intermediate or advanced that there will be a range of experience and understanding. 

To accommodate that potentiality is there any merit  to using an accompanying book such as Ferrero's Sea Kayak Navigation or Killen's Simple Kayak Navigation.  Both are pretty user friendly.  Ferraro's is a standard in the BCU training system with accompanying UK references.  Killen's is US-centric requires no "translation" of navigation aids and such.

By using a text as a general guide, participants could accomplish some pre-reading. Additionally, if there were items/areas that needed further exploration or emphasis after the workshop we would all have the framework of the accompanying book.

Also, any thought to doing it, say in March in case there is the temptation of an early thaw to get on the water?

Just a thought...

David

 

Good suggestions. As a first step, I'm trying to gauge interest and see what level of detail there's the most demand for.

Here's another question for the group: If you were to attend a navigation workshop or on-water practice in 2017, would you prefer an introductory, intermediate or advanced curriculum for yourself?

Intermediate-ish for me, please.  My brain almost exploded last year when Bob Levine and Kevin Beckwith were simultaneously trying to get me to explain vectors.  Of course, if you have magical ability to make this sometimes challenging concept comprehensible to one whose brain is prone to explosions, I'd be all for that!

Presentation/teaching focused on practical applications would be good.  So I guess that might include the dread vectors, or what one could use in lieu of them.  Etc...

pru

13 hours ago, prudenceb said:

 My brain almost exploded last year when Bob Levine and Kevin Beckwith were simultaneously trying to get me to explain vectors. 

Pru,

A vector is a fancy dancy name for a line segment with a little arrowhead on one end. The rest is just commentary. Look here for a little more information. Luckily you won’t need tensors (they will really blow up your brain). Unless, of course, you want to blow up Kevin's brain.

-Leon

 

 

 

http://www.dummies.com/education/science/physics/what-is-a-vector/

I'm always up for recaps. If I don't constantly practice my "skills", I loose them....which now has happened for the umpteenth time in regards to my navigation. Intermediate+ would work for me.

On 1/8/2017 at 0:05 PM, prudenceb said:

Intermediate-ish for me, please.  My brain almost exploded last year when Bob Levine and Kevin Beckwith were simultaneously trying to get me to explain vectors.  Of course, if you have magical ability to make this sometimes challenging concept comprehensible to one whose brain is prone to explosions, I'd be all for that!

Presentation/teaching focused on practical applications would be good.  So I guess that might include the dread vectors, or what one could use in lieu of them.  Etc...

pru

Hey Pru,

Don't blame Kevin or me, blame Josiah Willard Gibbs - the inventor of vectors; and the smartest person Einstein didn't meet...

" Of Gibbs he (Einstein) wrote:`[His] book is … a masterpiece, even though it is hard to read and the main points are found between the lines’. A year before his death, Einstein paid Gibbs the highest compliment. When asked who were the greatest men, the most powerful thinkers he had known, he replied ‘Lorentz,’ and added, ‘I never met Willard Gibbs; perhaps, had I done so,  I might have placed him beside Lorentz’ "

Pais, Subtle is the Lord, page 73.

8 minutes ago, rylevine said:

Hey Pru,

Don't blame Kevin or me, blame Josiah Willard Gibbs - the inventor of vectors; and the smartest person Einstein didn't meet...

" Of Gibbs he (Einstein) wrote:`[His] book is … a masterpiece, even though it is hard to read and the main points are found between the lines’. A year before his death, Einstein paid Gibbs the highest compliment. When asked who were the greatest men, the most powerful thinkers he had known, he replied ‘Lorentz,’ and added, ‘I never met Willard Gibbs; perhaps, had I done so,  I might have placed him beside Lorentz’ "

Pais, Subtle is the Lord, page 73.

Apologies: No blame intended.  Only blame is to my easily overwhelmed brain.  Ask my high school Algebra 2 teacher...  on the other hand, don't....she was an EVIL woman.

Now, back to Dan's request for ideas...

I'm with Andy......use it or loose it. Intermediate works for me with the assigned readings suggested by David. 

When we did this last spring, we had multiple instructors willing to work at the level of the folks who showed up.  If I recall, it was the same day as the new to sea kayaking workshop so we had some beginners.  Having different "pods" focusing on different things seemed to work OK.   And our beginner pod did OK with vectors, even though that word never got used   ;-) .

Phil

 

I thought last year's navigation workshop worked very well. This year we could have a table for vector-philes - perhaps off in a shadowy corner somewhere...

More seriously, one possibility is to couple the in-house instruction closely to a subsequent on-the-water session. I've taught a nav course in Boston Harbor as a follow-up to a tabletop session a few nights earlier. There are easily accessible routes in Boston Harbor in which a dozen or so important navigation tasks can be exercised during a paddle. The level is for advanced beginners. It is a full day, but not a long distance. I'll be doing the paddle in any case as part of my prep for the 2017 season, and NSPN people are welcome. A Boston Harbor trip plan, using the data for the particular day and time, could be the topic of the in-house workshop for people interested in the paddle.

Bob

 

What month would you suggest for an on-water Boston Harbor navigation paddle? I suspect everyone who has chimed in so far is comfortable with early-season paddling, but there may be advanced beginners who'd be happier paddling in warmer conditions.

I've floated the idea of a day-long navigational adventure during May's Jewell Island camping trip to a few people, since that would allow for a good mix of instruction and trip planning, on-water nav, and land-based nav.

It would be soon after the early April workshop, say the next weekend or even the next day?

A couple of years ago, I posted up a hyperlinked set of blogs called "on the go navigation" based on a navigation workshop I did.   This has everything from simple, to vectors, to even Newton's static theory of tides.

 

http://artofwayfinding.blogspot.com/2014/11/on-go-navigation.html

1 hour ago, JohnHuth said:

A couple of years ago, I posted up a hyperlinked set of blogs called "on the go navigation" ........

Yes, and an excellent reference it is, filed in my "favorites" within my kayak folder.  I usually share John's blog, via link, with kayakers who tell me they're sketchy with NAV.

Thank you John.

Dan, 
The idea of an on- the -water refresher/ revisit of classroom material is a good one. In addition to a Boston Harbor   nav. paddle in April or thereabouts,   it would be an  interesting idea to have a navigation  refresher component to the Squam Lake coming trip in October: ,maybe  you maybe  could lead one pod  on  a navigation- themed paddle.   Squam Lake is a good place to pracitse nav., and after several years  of the same trips, a variation on the day trips from the campsite  would be interesting.  
Peter 

Maybe a little kooky, it is mid-winter, but start off with a class using no charts at all. For beginners and the seriously directionally challenged, folks more inclined towards the big picture, maybe introduce them to the idea of piloting (which is what we're doing 95% of the time?) by using a parking lot or very large room, and create a route around the room. Pick out the cardinal points of the room, make each foot a mile and assign a travel speed of three miles an hour, use objects in the room as major landmarks, even labeling if necessary, and have them make up a route around the room for an iconic day paddle. Bonus points for pulling off the same day paddle later in the season for the on water segment. Get some hanks of cord (bonus for color coordination) or maybe use some other props to indicate current and wind direction, traffic constrictions, channel markers, and other hazards. Point out areas of protection and areas that would get more energy and or weather as determined by current "conditions." Maybe create two different routes based on two different weather reports. Bonus points for getting everyone around the area in a coherent pod. Then bust out a chart and point out the basics of chart reading, or save it for another day. 

I would be interested in this. 

Intermediate sounds good

I would be interested in this depending on dates. I work every other weekend.

I would consider myself beginner.

I have been reading "on the go navigation" by john which Gary shared with me.

I am new to the group but definitely am interested in learning navigation skills. 

I am a beginner, but would appreciate and commit to an intensive / thorough workshop!

Do we have any dates in mind for this? Would love to participate.

Doing some long trips of the coast of Maine

starting April 14th.

I think this would be very helpful. 

Thanks Mark

ill go, id be interested in intermediate

It's looking like the navigation workshop will be Sunday, April 23rd, at (and around) REI in Reading.

Here's the working plan. Feedback welcome before it becomes official. The April 23rd event will be posted in a few days on the NSPN calendar.

Some people have been asking for beginner instruction and others would like an intermediate-level class. I'd prefer to start with the basics in April, and build on that later in the season with an ocean paddle out of Hingham or Hull with actual tides and current.

Here's the proposed schedule for the Navigation Workshop on Sunday, April 23rd:

9 - 11: Basics of map reading, orienting the map with a compass, taking a bearing with a compass, land exercises outside at a nearby park (Gertrude Spaulding Park, Veterans Field, or Breakheart Reservation)

11 - 3: REI Reading classroom: using map and compass together, declination, lunch, plotting/reading bearings on a chart, triangulation, map and compass exercises

3 - 5: Veteran's Field boat launch at south end of Lake Quannapowitt: (Level 1 paddle) on-water navigation practice, matching features to the chart, using ranges to stay on a bearing, triangulation practice.

5:30: dinner nearby for anyone who wants to socialize afterwards.

Sounds good - I like the idea of the moving classroom.