Adventures on Xiphias

Last generation to use compass, charts and hope!

Knowing where you are going is more important than knowing where you are, although the two are obviously related! When sailing, the marking off  fixes on the chart heading towards a harbour, is very satisfying.  A sailor always says heading towards a destination not to a destination, lest the fates become offended by the presumption that the sailor will actually arrive! These days the route is layed out and the progress tracked on electronic chart plotters, but there is one huge disadvantage. If the wiggly amps run away the electronics are reduced to ballast.

I am, perhaps, part of the last generation of yachtsmen that regularly set off across the English Channel to France, leaving sight of land, with nothing more than a compass, tide table and chart. True, we used a Radio Direction Finder (RDF) to pick up bearings of light houses that emitted a morse code signal on long wave frequencies. The RDF looked like a SiFi ray gun with a compass on top. When the antenna in the device lined up with the source, the signal went silent and the bearing read off the compass. The bearing was then plotted on the paper chart, not so simple on a small boat rolling in a  sea way. There was something thrilling when approaching a coast, identifying and relating  the features seen on land to those on the chart. Crossing Lyme bay, I once discovered a new and hitherto uncharted island. It was Tor Head shrouded by mist that obscured the mainland behind!

My most recent experience of racing and cruising The Solent has all been done on local pilotage knowledge. That’s to say I didn’t bother looking at the charts because I knew where I was. I would look at tide heights and direction to make sure I didn’t make too many embarrassing mistakes. We’ll ignore the occasion I hit Bramble Bank under spinnaker.

A quick match between tides

The Bramble bank is the venue for the annual cricket match between the Royal Southern Yacht Club based in Hampshire and the Island Sailing Club based at Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Only when the ground is revealed for half an hour does each club take turns to win so that the members can retire to the winning club for post match analysis.

Admiralty or Imray Charts

The adventure around the UK and Ireland will require more navigational effort than I am accustomed to providing. I am convinced of the merits of maintaining the paper based plot and the advantages of an electronic chart plotter so I have invested hundreds of tax paid, hard-earned pounds into a set of Imray Charts and a RayMarine A70 chartplotter.

Why Imray not Admiralty?

The admiralty charts are the best, we can all agree on that, can’t we? They have:-

• The best detail
• Scale and accuracy
• Been used for generations
• Cover the most sailing areas
• Cost more.

Imray charts are:-

• Designed for leisure sailors
• Water resistent paper, okay to use on deck
• Have harbour details and need fewer of them
• Cover the area I am sailing at a third of the cost