Gerrish Island Circumnav Day 1

[shewhorn]

Instigated by Paul S. 9 showed up... and of course I can't remember all the names so I'm not even going to try. The first half of the trip moved at a pretty good pace... 4 to 5 + knots. We meandered through Chauncey Creek (thou shalt not bow rudder when there is nothing to bow rudder in) at warp speed (probably has something to do with me yelling "mush" to Kevin :-)... he took off like a cat getting squirted with a water gun) where we emerged on the other side and landed on Rayne's Neck for our first break.

On the way out we attempted to surf through the entrance to Brave Boat Harbor but there wasn't quite enough oomph behind the waves to get any decent rides. Southeast of the entrance to Brave Boat we found some surf breaking over some "soft rocks" and shallows where a few of us managed to catch some short rides. That got me in the mood... (what???) I can't wait for some bigger stuff to show up off of Nahant and Kings to play in.

From there we headed SSE and meandered in and out of the rocks off of Gerrish until we landed on HORN HORN HORN Island ;-) Leaving Horn the pace slowed down a bit. The fog rolled in and we crossed back to Little Harbor on a bearing of 260M. Total distance was 12.4 knm with a moving average of 3.1 kts. When I got home I hopped in the shower, rinsed off my gear, got ready for dinner and very promptly passed out on my bed to wake up at 2:00 AM with a growling tummy. My first thought upon waking up was "ouch" followed by "I'm not paddling tomorrow" but now that I've stuffed my face and moved around a bit I think I'm ready to repeat the ordeal tomorrow (however... I will be moving at a more leisurely pace tomorrow... FWIW I'm not saying the group was pushing... I pushed myself yesterday (need to start burning some winter whale blubber off... I clocked in at 182 today).

Paul, thanks for instigating! See everyone tomorrow at Kittery.

Cheers, Joe

[shewhorn]

And btw... damnit Kevin... it's 4:20 AM and I have the stupid LOG song stuck in my head. LOL

....

What rolls down stairs

Alone or in pair

And over your neighbor's dog

What's great for a snack

And fits on your back

It's LOG! LOG! LOG!

It's Log, It's Log.... ARGGGHHHHH!!!!!! :-)

Cheers, Joe

[PeterB]

During our rest stop on the familiar cobble beach in Brave Boat Harbor, there was an impromptu nav. session. Our pious instructor included an acronym to help in remembering the formula for declination; something involving "timid virgins", but I can't remember the rest.

Fine paddle with a good group of people.Thanks, Paul, for putting it together.

[rick stoehrer]

(t)imid (v)irgins (m)ake (d)ull ©ompany, (a)dd (w)hiskey - figuring a heading from true (as it's indicated on your charts) to compass (which is what you deal with on your boat....

chart/true/timid

adding or subtracting

variation/virgins

to get to

magnetic/make

adding or subtracting

declination/dull - if you pack your boat right, 0

to get to

compass/company

and remembering that if the declination is w, that you add west, and subtract east

to go from compass to true (so you take a heading and then need to interpert that back to your chart to sort out where you are, you would...

©an (d)ead (m)en (v)ote (t)wice? (a)t (e)lections.

you have all the clues above to solve the mnemonic...tick tock.

and for the record, THIS is what i should have done when the bearing to the tower on shore didn't work for what i was told was whaleback...i assumed based on info given and should have verified it for myself....you know that thing about assuming?

if you guys want to review all of this sometime, we can post a sng that just works on field nav excercises...tables, chairs, parallels and all that are nice but you need to do it form your deck, right?

who has photo's of yesterdays trip...someone had a camera, i think? anything good?

[Bill Gwynn]

Hi Rick,

You have (D)ull as Declination. My understanding is that (D) is for Deviation, and that the combination of Variation and Deviation make up the total - Declination.

Another method for going the other way (compass bearing to true bearing) is CADET.

C = compass course;

A = add;

D = declination;

E = east;

T = true course.

Bill

Anas Acuta...White/White, Red Trim.

Avocet...Quill/White, Black Trim.

Avocet...Yellow Poly

Mega Cyclone...lots of colors

[gyork]

Hi Bill. I understand the term "variation" in the nautical sense to be equivalent to "declination" in the topographic sense, this being the difference between true north and compass north. This changes ever so slightly over time, but for practical considerations can be considered a constant for a given region. The term "deviation" is the difference between a ship's north compass reading and magnetic north. Given that kayaks are unlikely to have interfering metals to cause such a deviation, declination/variation is the factor we typically correct for.

There are lots of pneumonics to remember rules for correcting declination/variation -the one I use is very simple. MTEL(read "metal"): Map to Terrain, East is Least (please forgive the topographic references and substitute "chart" for "map", and "water" for "terrain"). A straight-line course plotted on a map/chart, using right or left-hand margins as indicative of true north, will need to be corrected as you follow the kayak compass. For Easterly declination/variation one would subtract (Least). Remembering the MTEL pneumonic, then MTWB (Map to Terrain, West is Best(plus/add)).

Expanding further TMEB, and TMWL. This is all too complicated to grasp in one session, but can be simplified if we remember the declination in our neck of the woods/ocean is ~17W. Simper still is to draw parallel magnetic north lines on chart copies before laminating.

Gary

[Bill Gwynn]

I guess the point I was trying to make was that in the mnemonic TVMDC, the V is for variation, therefore, D would be for deviation not declination. In nautical navigation, Magnetic Declination is divided into two parts, namely Magnetic Variation and Magnetic Deviation. Deviation is possible in a kayak if you don't pay attention to how you pack things close to your compass.

I have written a small article on Declination at:

http://www.kayakseamonkeys.com/index.php?o...id=30&Itemid=40

I have also compiled a ever growing list of "rules of thumb" for navigation at:

http://www.kayakseamonkeys.com/index.php?o...id=31&Itemid=40

Bill

Anas Acuta...White/White, Red Trim.

Avocet...Quill/White, Black Trim.

Avocet...Yellow Poly

Mega Cyclone...lots of colors

[rick stoehrer]

should be deviation and not declination. variation and declination are the same thing...both are the inner offset ring of the compass rose.

deviation is how your particular compass may be off.

[EEL]

>deviation is how your particular compass may be off.

Yes, on a large vessel you need a chart showing the deviation number for all directions as it is not the same since the compass is being affected differently at different points given the junk in the vessel.

I cannot believe we are making this so complicated. I mean the average boy scout can navigate via compass and map. I forgot, we're grownups or at least older than boy scouts. Hmmm some of us older than the fathers of boy scouts so I guess that is my excuse.

It was a great trip and many thanks to both Paul and Rick. Much to be learned from just watching and listening.

Ed Lawson

[EEL]

>if you guys want to review all of this sometime, we can post

>a sng that just works on field nav excercises...

Seriously, that sounds like a great idea. The stuff you do at home can be gleaned from books. On the water stuff is something else. Quick a dirty ways of calculating ferry angles, how to estimate currents, how to set up range/transits, how and why to dial in deliberate errors, I suspect there is lots of good stuff you could demo on the water. Paul's suggestion of messing in currents sounded great too. I still am wondering how to best break out of an eddy you have used to ease the way against the current when you need to keep going on against the current.

Your suggestion of just getting up to speed and then hitting the wave as it arrives as opposed to trying to catch/time a wave worked well for the little play time we had today.

Ed Lawson

[Guest _rick]

When "swinging ship" every major and minor cardinal point is done clockwise and counterclockwise a few times. The resultant set is averaged. In small craft were you load metal things like stoves near your 70P I would just check it to see if it is close "empty" and then with your big metal thingy.

Incidently I have yet to see any craft under many feet hold a course line manually within 6 degrees.

[rick stoehrer]

you're right, we overcomplicate things

and you're right when you say we won't hold a course - if we can hold it within 10 degree's we're doing great!

i have a trip posted for next weekend and one of the thing's we'll do at lunch is navigation from our kayak decks with nothing but chart/compass and some common sense (now, if i can only get my hands on some common sense by next weekend....)

anyways, see the private trips calendar and email me for interest so i know whether or not it's a go.

remember, ALL are invited despite the word "private" on that forum! it's going to be laid back and relaxed and what the heck, you might even learn something!

[Pintail]

In an aircraft that "compass chart" to which Ed refers is simply a small correction card displayed adjacent to the magnetic compass and which is renewed annually: it is known as a "compass card" and hence my recent irritation at this confusing phrase "card compass", which I had never heard before.

I would have been red-faced had I needed to go through the cardinals and semi-cardinals more than once, however, when "swinging a compass". Once around was usually adequate (regardless of direction) and once more to remove the error, as measured, by means of the pendulous, internal magnets which are adjustable.

Cadbury's Dairy Milk Very Tasty seems to me more correct these days than all this talk about virgins...the latter in questionable taste, surely?

Another thing about deviation -- aeronautical maps state the annual deviation and of this you need to take great note, for any self-respecting pilot must be able to hold a course (track) of within a degree or two. In some parts of the world, deviation might vary by a degree or more per annum, so that you might toss out your maps every few years and restock.

Interesting thread, this -- and, yes, we are over-complicating things!

[rick stoehrer]

cadbury dairy milk very tastey?

while suitable, you're mnemonic is apparently the result of the annual ladies tea society sailing mixer whereas mine carries on a long standing nautical tradition of...a less finely turned phrase, shall we say.

sailors have a rich tradition in colorful language....that probably wasn't earned by eating the ears off those cute little bunnies first at easter or anything like that...cadbury...sheesh.

[Guest _rick]

When I was in Uncle's airplane club I used to swing B52's. Doing it more than once was a paramount concern.

FWIW..