Dunbar 104
Charter Member / Competitor
Always wondered how the navigator did there job in a race boat? I live in the midwest so I don't know.
Headlines
How did one navigate a race boat before gps
- Thread starter Dunbar 104
- Start date
SVL66
Charter Member
I would assume using a sextant ...you know following the stars...lol 
No, my guess is compass headings
guys got lost all the time. I remember a race in Point Pleasant back in the early 80s. One guy made a nav error and ended up in Long Island along with several others that followed him. A helo had to direct them back home.
No, my guess is compass headingsguys got lost all the time. I remember a race in Point Pleasant back in the early 80s. One guy made a nav error and ended up in Long Island along with several others that followed him. A helo had to direct them back home.
Sean Stinson
Founding Member/Contributor
pretty much sums it up.....it wasn't always just a boat ride and wave at the people you actually had to do some thinking!!!!
MOBILEMERCMAN
Founding Member / Competitor
Mark. There is an art to navigating and dead reckoning. They used stop watches calculated distances and times at different speeds. Those days are gone.
Imagine heading out and the first leg is a 10 mile run to a channel Marker. The turn and head 15 or 20 miles to find another mark. Some races were run in fog. Even on a clear day the turn points were well out of range of site.
I am sure there are members here to add more.
Imagine heading out and the first leg is a 10 mile run to a channel Marker. The turn and head 15 or 20 miles to find another mark. Some races were run in fog. Even on a clear day the turn points were well out of range of site.
I am sure there are members here to add more.
smokeybandit
New member
I wouldn't know. I always got us lost.
Perlmudder
New member
its that much cooler that they did not use gps. seems like gps takes a lot of the skill out of it.
smokeybandit
New member
If you look at this video you can see the charts taped to the dash. Each of us had our own chart. That we we had 3 sets of eyes making sure we were going in the right direction. We also used tape as lap counters. Long laps would be longer pieces of tape and each piece was numbered. Even with doing all of that, there were some very rough races where you weren't totally sure if you made all of the laps. I remember running an extra lap in Northport just to be sure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDZ9JsZz-0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDZ9JsZz-0
Gladhe8er
Charter Member
Back in the 80's my Dad was the driver and navigator. It was all about charts and the compass. He definitely got lost a few times and his throttle man let him hear it. Today, even without a GPS it would be hard to get lost because the laps are usually 6-8 miles long. They were 30-60 miles long 25 years ago.
Sean Stinson
Founding Member/Contributor
Charts on the dash were pretty much a mandatory thing if you were going to properly navigate anything...
Dunbar 104
Charter Member / Competitor
So if you got lost or of course how did you figure out where to go next? Call it a day and hope to head towards shore?
Ratickle
Founding Member / Super Moderator
Hopefully they found land before running out of fuel.....:sifone:
glassdave
Founding Member / Competitor
Freeze Frame Jeff was telling me a story about one of the early Point Pleasant races and was talking about a navigator from back in the day (name slips me at the moment) that was regaurded as the best in the biz. At any rate on this perticular day the weather and visibility was less then perfect and most of the field decided to just follow this perticular team and try and make a move toward the end with the finish in sight. Realizing this they took the entire field way off course and faked a breakdown. After all the boats went by, thinking they were headed in the right direction, they simply fired the boat back up and turned back to the correct course/heading. Classic stuff right there 
When Rob and i did the Bimini race i decided to leave the gps off and navigate on compass to find the turn bouy. Felt way more comfortable doing it that way, learned basic navigation long ago. My thought was if gps goes out you now have zero referance to where you are at.
When Rob and i did the Bimini race i decided to leave the gps off and navigate on compass to find the turn bouy. Felt way more comfortable doing it that way, learned basic navigation long ago. My thought was if gps goes out you now have zero referance to where you are at.
MOBILEMERCMAN
Founding Member / Competitor
So Dave, how did you do?
After doing that run I was humbled and learned a new level of respect and appreciation for navigation. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it would be with out a GPS.
Head straight out for 50 miles and find a pillow.
After doing that run I was humbled and learned a new level of respect and appreciation for navigation. I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it would be with out a GPS.
Head straight out for 50 miles and find a pillow.
Perlmudder
New member
glassdave
Founding Member / Competitor
we nailed it dead nuts. I have an inherant distrust of GPS, always have. I use them for general referance only. Tell ya the truth the coolest part of the race was loosing sight of land. One of the problems with running a gps on a straight out and back race like that is everyone is doing the same thing. Leave from point A, hit point B, turn around and go back to point A. Everyones course ends up being almost identicle and the faster boats coming in following their earlier track tend to be heading right into the outgoing boats. You need to follow off track slightly on the return leg.
phragle
Charter Member
you had to be good at math.. if you are going 50 miles at 90 degrees and the current is running at 7 degrees and 4 knots...you calculate the diviation needed on your compass heading which would vary by speed.... that would be dealing with the gulf stream.. or say you know the heading for the first turn bouy is 72 degrees and it is 15 miles away...you think you are going 60 mph heading 72 degrees..so if you arent at the bouy in 15 minutes...you f'd up
glassdave
Founding Member / Competitor
tell ya the truth i looked over the maps and location of the turn pin the night before. Guestimated on a heading taking into account for the gulf stream, it was only fifty miles and conditions were flat ( a nice constant). We also could see Genos rooster tail ahead of us for miles so that kinda helped to
great signature line Rob, you need to hang out with us more often. Think i may have a get together at the lake house pretty soon. I'll let ya know
Similar threads
