The Danger Of Too Precise Navigation

Publishers of boating magazines and electronic equipment manufacturers are neglecting to warn boaters that there are potential shortcomings of GPS (and Loran) navigation. Precise electronic navigating has caused more collisions with buoys and fixed navigational markers. Also, there are now a number of boats all now converging on the same precise waypoints, and they are traveling along the same precise courses. In poorer visibility the risk of collision with another boat increases. Compounding the problem: 1. masts of sailboats are generally directly in the way of the view of the helmsman and one can easily miss a buoy absolutely directly ahead of the sailboat; 2. few boaters bother to make the required periodic fog signals with bell or horn. Be more careful in poor visibility and the closer you get to a waypoint. Try to use waypoints that are to the side of buoys or fixed nav. markers. And do allow that buoys will be off position a bit due to wind, wave, current or being physically moved by a storm.

Photo credits: Temporary Insanity II Impaled on Channel Marker is being used through the courtesy of Dan Rodricks and The Baltimore Sun, from a column by Dan Rodricks: "Will There Be A III?" 9/18/2000. Background: in September 2000 near Stephensville, MD, just before 2 AM, a Fountain power boat slammed into a fixed channel marker, causing a 17-foot long gash in the bow. One passenger suffered a fracture and several lacerations.