sailboat navigation compass

• Compasses & Accessories
• Distributors
• Warranty & Return Policies
• Product Registration
• Service Request
• Service Locations
• Factory Reconditioning Program
• Frequently Asked Questions
• For Builders
• Ready to Boat by Ritchie Navigation
• Document Downloads
• Compass Manuals & Addendum’s
• Magnetic Compass Compensation
• Zone Balancing
• Engineering
• Construction
• Manufacturing
• Customer Stories

All Marine Compasses

Ritchie navigation has been manufacturing high-precision, american made compasses for the past 170 years. we specialize in magnetic compass and oem compass parts, to keep helmsmen secure through any voyage. with industry expertise and cutting-edge technology, shop from the world’s #1 compass manufacturer.

Ritchie Hampton Hoodie – Indigo

Ritchie Hampton Hoodie – Vintage White

Ritchie T Shirt – Schooner Blue

Ritchie T Shirt – Vintage Black

Trek Bracket Mount Breakup Camo (TR-31B)

Trek Bracket Mount Shadow Grass Camo (TR-31S)

Trek Flush Mount (TR-35)

Trek Surface Mount (TR-33G)

SuperSport Venture (SS-PR2)

Venture (sr-2).

Helmsman Flush Mount (HF-742, HF-742W, HF-743, HF-743W)

SuperSport Helmsman (SS-1002, SS-1002W)

• Multihull Sailor
• Real Estate
• Maintenance & Hardware
• Water Sports

Navigate Confidently Across Waters With the Best Boat Compasses

Sailing into open waters can be an exhilarating experience, but it can quickly turn into a real-life nightmare if you get lost. Whether you are a newbie who is just learning to ride a boat or an experienced sailor who loves taking in the salty air and waves, a boat compass can be your savior.

Not sure which compasses work? Rest assured, we have you covered with all the information you need to get your hands on one of the best boat compasses of 2024. Our favorite pick is the  TurnOnSport Boat Compass . This compass not only lights your path but also firmly adheres to your boat's surface, ensuring a smooth and efficient navigation experience. Keep reading to learn more about this compass and four other great options below!

Our Top Picks

• Best Overall: TurnOnSport Boat Compass Shop Now ➔
• Best Readability: Ritchie Navigation Boat Compass Shop Now ➔
• Best Value: COSTIN Multifunctional Boat Compass Shop Now ➔
• Most Versatile: Odowalker Electronic LED Boat Compass Shop Now ➔
• Most User-Friendly: DETUCK Boat Compass Shop Now ➔
• 1 The Best Boat Compass Buying Guide
• 3 Durability
• 4 Ease of Reading
• 5 Mounting Options

What is the lifespan of a boat compass?

Why is there a bubble in my boat compass, can a boat compass work on any kind of boat, what kind of maintenance is required for a boat compass, is a compass necessary if i have a gps system on my boat, related reviews, the best boat compasses, best overall.

TurnOnSport Boat Compass

The TurnOnSport Boat Compass brilliantly casts a glow on your path with its unique incandescent light display. This means no more fumbling in the dark. Simply connect the two power cords to your boat’s 12V dashboard power supply to illuminate the compass dial to ensure clear visibility during night sails. And this boat compass doesn’t just shine, it flexes with an adjustable bracket and a visible lubber line. We like that this enables you to tailor the reading angle to your sitting position and read directions with ease and clarity.

Crafted from durable, high-quality ABS plastic, this boat pivoting compass guarantees long-term usage. You can protect it from extreme sun glare with its one-side cover, and marvel at its handy features that sync the compass direction with your ship’s heading. And the dashboard compass displays not only your heading but also the 180-degree direction, guiding you back to your path effortlessly. Plus, installation is a breeze — you can either stick it on any flat surface with the EVA foam sticker or secure it with two screws. Not to mention, this large marine compass boasts of its waterproof and corrosion-resistant construction that promises long life even in the harshest marine environments.

• Easy installation
• Lights up in the dark
• Adjustable bracket
• Might be too large for some

Best Readability

Ritchie Navigation Boat Compass

This Ritchie Navigation Boat Compass has a 2 3/4-inch dial and surface mount that are engineered for high-end functionality and longevity. Its powerful DirectiveForce magnets swiftly lock on to the heading, ensuring precise navigation while out on the water. This compass confidently endures extreme temperature conditions, thanks to its high-temperature composite construction, extending its reliable operating range.

We love that the compass sports a compact, low-profile design that seamlessly integrates with your boat’s aesthetic. A movable sun shield takes the reins in reducing glare, improving readability on sunny days. And the built-in green night illumination and direct-reading dial facilitate clear visibility and accurate readings, even in low-light conditions. Compensators are conveniently incorporated into the design for easy deviation adjustment. Topping it all off, this product is 100% repairable, ensuring it stands with you for the long haul. And with a quick push-button removal feature, you can securely store this compass away when not in use. 

• Compact design 
• Direct reading dial
• Internal green night illumination
• Higher price point

COSTIN Multifunctional Boat Compass

COSTIN’s Multifunctional Boat Compass is made from high-strength engineering metal, ensuring robustness and durability that can withstand the test of time. Its fluorescent design, featuring a luminous magnet arrow and compass card, illuminates data in the dark after sufficient exposure to sunlight. The compass prides itself on its multifunctional nature, wrapped in a compact metal case for the ultimate portability.

We were impressed to discover that it comes with a foldable metal lid, a floating compass dial with a 360° scale, an adjustable prism lens, and a sighting telescope. Plus, a pouch and lanyard are also included, making it easy to carry on all your outdoor adventures. And this compass doesn’t shy away from harsh weather conditions thanks to its IP 54 waterproof grade and solid metal construction. Whether you’re hiking, navigating, camping, boating, or on an adventure, you can trust this compass to guide you reliably. Armed with a built-in bubble level, it enhances the compass’s accuracy and minimizes errors.

• Built-in bubble improves accuracy
• Waterproof and shockproof
• Manufactured from durable engineering metal
• Not accurate enough for some

Most Versatile

Odowalker Electronic LED Boat Compass

This Odowalker Electronic LED Boat Compass is crafted from high-quality ABS material, ensuring durability and longevity in all your adventurous undertakings. The adjustable magnetic declination sheet empowers you to customize the compass according to your needs, and the environmentally friendly make-up adds a touch of conscious to your navigation.

The incandescent light function transforms your night-time reading difficulties into smooth sailing, illuminating the compass for seamless direction reading even in low light conditions. We like that it caters extensively to different vehicles, becoming an essential navigation tool for cars, marine boats, trucks, and caravans. And the adjustable declination sheet and bracket serve as a helpful aid, allowing you to tweak the compass into the most comfortable and visible position. Plus, the inclusion of two power cords that can be connected to a power supply light or vehicle dashboard, turns up the brightness on your journey.

• LED light function
• Works for cars, ships, and more
• Comes with adjustable brackets
• Not as high-quality as alternatives

Most User-Friendly

DETUCK Boat Compass

DETUCK’s Boat Compass is an indispensable tool for nautical navigation, seamlessly indicating your forward direction via its red indicator line. Instead of the conventional compass that points to the geomagnetic north, it dynamically shows the direction you’re heading, providing comprehensive navigational aid (for optimal performance, the compass needs level positioning and freedom from magnetic interferences). The compass shines, quite literally, with its night lighting feature. By wiring to an external 12V power supply, the compass illuminates with a soft red light, enhancing visibility during night-time journeys. But if you’re like many of us and daylight voyages are more your speed, you do have the option to skip this connection.

The compass also offers an impressive magnetic declination adjustment feature. By utilizing the two provided holes, you can fine-tune the compass’s accuracy in both east-west and north-south directions, perfect for those seeking precision in their travels. Its easy-mount design means you’ll have it set up and ready in no time. Supplied with double-sided tape and screws, the compass adheres securely to your boat’s dashboard. As for accuracy, while sudden, continuous movements could momentarily disturb the compass’s alignment, it promptly repositions and corrects its direction. 

• Magnetic declination for proper accuracy
• Red light illumination
• Simple installation
• Not always accurate

The Best Boat Compass Buying Guide

Navigating confidently across waters is a crucial aspect of any boating expedition, be it a leisure trip or a fishing adventure. The key to seamless navigation is having the right boat compass by your side. This buying guide will explore how to choose the best compass for your needs, with a focus on vital attributes such as accuracy, ease of reading, mounting options, and more. 

Accuracy isn’t just about pointing towards the north but offering precise readings that allow you to navigate effectively. The magnetic needle or dial should respond swiftly and accurately to changes in direction. Look for compasses with a high degree of sensitivity and those that have been precisely balanced and aligned. Remember, an inaccurate compass can lead you astray, while a reliable one keeps your voyage on track.

When cruising on waters, your compass will be exposed to various elements. As such, it needs to be sturdy and weather-resistant. It should withstand exposure to extreme temperatures, saltwater, and sunlight without compromising its functionality or visibility. A high-quality boat compass is built with durable materials like high-grade plastic, brass, or even glass that offer longevity and reliable performance.

Ease of Reading

A boat compass must be easy to read, especially in challenging conditions. For clear visibility, the compass should feature large, bold numbers and letters and a contrasting background. And a built-in illumination system is also essential for night-time sailing. Some models even feature a red LED light that preserves your night vision while ensuring the compass readings are clearly visible.

Mounting Options

Your boat compass should be installed in a location where it’s easily visible and accessible, but not in the way of other operations. So consider the available mounting options. There are surface-mounted, flush-mounted, and bracket-mounted compasses. Surface-mounted compasses are easy to install but may take up more space. Flush-mounted compasses offer a sleek look but require a cut-out on your console. Bracket-mounted compasses offer flexibility in placement but may not be as secure. Choose a type that complements your boat’s design and your personal preference.

Lastly, the price of the boat compass plays a significant role in your decision. High-end models with advanced features and superior build quality will naturally be pricier. But, there are also affordable options that offer reliable performance. As always, it’s essential to strike a balance between quality and cost-effectiveness. Set a budget that suits you but doesn’t compromise on the essential features of accuracy, durability, and ease of reading.

People Also Asked

With proper care and maintenance, a good quality boat compass can last for many years, even decades. But, it's important to regularly check the compass for accuracy and signs of wear.

A small bubble in your boat compass can occur due to changes in temperature or altitude, and it usually doesn't affect the compass's accuracy. Of course, a large bubble can indicate that the compass is leaking its damping fluid, which requires repair or replacement.

Yes, a boat compass can typically work on any boat, whether it's a small kayak, a fishing boat, or a large yacht. But, larger boats may benefit from larger, more elaborate compasses with more features.

Regular maintenance for a boat compass includes cleaning the compass with a gentle cloth and mild cleaner, avoiding harsh chemicals that could damage the compass. It's also important to regularly check the compass for inaccuracies or issues with the gimbal (the component that allows it to tilt).

A boat compass is a reliable backup to a GPS. GPS systems rely on power and satellite connections, which can fail or be unreliable in certain areas. A boat compass, on the other hand, relies only on Earth's magnetic field.

Article Contributors

Sail magazine review team.

SAIL Magazine Review Team reports on best-selling products in sailing and boating. SAIL Magazine is reader-supported: When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Artificial Intelligence (large language models) may have been used in the research and creation of the content.

To ensure questions about product testing or a specific article are addressed, please contact [email protected]

Variation & Deviation: How To Apply Them To Your Compass

Despite being one of the oldest navigational aids, the magnetic compass still sits in pride of place next to the helm of almost every seagoing vessel.

Given its prominence, you would have thought it gives incredibly accurate readings, but you would be mistaken.

In fact, every magnetic compass is subject to two major effects that have the potential to throw you off course: Variation; and Deviation.

Variation compensates for the fact that the magnetic north pole moves around, while deviation compensates for local disturbance to the earth’s magnetic field caused by metallic objects close to the compass.

It follows, therefore, that variation is the difference between a true bearing and a magnetic bearing; and deviation is the difference between a magnetic bearing and a compass bearing.

It sounds complicated, but there is actually a very easy way of remembering it.

You just need to remember the phrase “Cadbury Dairy Milk Very Tasty” and you’ll always be able to apply variation and deviation in the correct place.

Of course, knowing where to apply them is only one part of the equation.

What you really need, is to know how to apply them. To do that, we’ll need to explore a little deeper.

What Is Variation?

In the context of a magnetic compass, variation is the difference between true north and magnetic north. 

True north sits at the geographic north pole and is the reference point for taking bearings on nautical charts.

Magnetic north is at the magnetic north pole and is the point at which the earth’s magnetic field lines converge. 

A magnetic compass is designed to align itself with the earth’s magnetic field lines, so it will point at the magnetic north pole, however, due to the fluid nature of the earth’s core, the magnetic pole constantly moves around so cannot be used as a consistent reference point.

To enable us to convert the magnetic reading from a compass into a true reading that will work on a chart, we simply apply variation.

Across most of the earth, there is a separation between the direction of true north and magnetic north, as illustrated in the diagram above. The angle formed is known as variation.

The amount of variation changes across the surface of the earth. In some locations, there will be zero variation, while in other locations there will be many degrees.

It is, therefore, vital that you know the variation at your location so that you can apply it correctly.

Variation Is Found On A Compass Rose

The easiest way to determine variation at your location is to look at the compass rose on a nautical chart.

In the image above, you can see the variation illustrated graphically with the arrow pointing slightly to the west of true north.

Further detail can be found in the middle of the compass rose, which in this case says:

VAR 4° 40’ W (2015)

ANNUAL INCREASE 6’

It gives us a precise value of variation for a particular year and tells us how to adapt it to give variation in any other year.

The main caveat of using a compass rose is that you should always use the rose located closest to your location. If you find yourself between two different compass roses, it is worth calculating variation at both to see if there is enough of a difference that you should interpolate in between.

Pro Tip: Remember that most vessels will only be able to steer to the closest degree, so there is no point interpolating if the difference is less than 1°.

Alternatively, most electronic navigational aids will also show you variation. You’ll be able to interrogate your electronic chart, or simply read it directly from your GPS screen.

Just make sure you know how to find it on your own navigational equipment.

What Is Deviation?

Annoyingly, a boat’s compass does not usually point towards the magnetic north pole.

The compass needle is deflected by local magnetic fields caused by metallic objects close by. It could be a tin of paint in a cupboard, the lead in your keel, or, if you are on a large ship, it could even be the cargo or the hull itself.

“Deviation is the difference between the direction your compass needle points, and the actual direction of the magnetic north pole. It is due to the fact that local magnetic fields, caused by metallic objects close to your compass, will push the compass needle away from the north magnetic pole.” Casual Navigation

Deviation is specific to your vessel and will vary according to your boat’s heading.

Imagine the situation where your deviation is caused entirely by your boat’s massive metal anchor on your bow. As you steam along, your magnetic compass will want to point towards both the magnetic north pole and your anchor.

If you are steaming due north, both will be in the same direction so you can expect zero deviation.

If you steam east or west, however, you can expect the compass to point mainly towards the north magnetic pole, but you’ll also expect it to be pulled slightly towards the massive lump of metal at your bow.

The difference between the two is your deviation.

Deviation Is Found On A Compass Card

As deviation is specific to each vessel, it is only possible to find by assessing your vessel.

You can do it yourself by performing a compass swing, or you can employ a compass adjuster to do it for you.

No matter which you choose, the end result should be a deviation card, also known as a compass card.

The deviation card might show numerical values, similar to the table above, or it might show a graph, which has just been produced by plotting the values onto a curve.

No matter which you have, the deviation card gives you a value for deviation for different headings on your boat, which you can use when correcting your compass bearings.

Applying Deviation To Compass Bearings

We have already discussed that deviation is the difference between where your compass needle is pointing and the direction of magnetic north.

When deviation is west, it means that your compass needle settles to the west of magnetic north.

When deviation is east, it means that your compass needle settles to the east of magnetic north.

This is an incredibly important concept to understand so that you can apply the correction in the right direction.

Let’s focus on a westerly deviation to see how it works.

In the diagram above, you can see that I have added a bearing of 068°(M) to illustrate how the magnetic bearing and the compass bearing differ.

The bearing measures 68° from the magnetic north pole, but it measures 68° + Deviation from the compass needle.

When the deviation is west, you must add it to a magnetic bearing to turn it into a compass bearing.

This leads us to a simple rhyme that helps to remember it:

“Deviation west, compass best”

Meaning that when the deviation is west, the compass bearing is going to be numerically higher than the magnetic bearing. Similarly,

“Deviation east, compass least”

When the deviation is the other way around, the compass bearing is going to be numerically less than the magnetic bearing.

Applying Variation To Magnetic Compass Bearings

Similar to what I have just explained with the deviation in the previous section, the easiest way to understand how to apply variation is to picture it.

In the absence of any deviation, variation is the difference between your compass, pointing at the magnetic north pole, and the direction of true north.

When the variation is west, it means that the magnetic north pole is to the west of the true north pole.

When the variation is east, it means that the magnetic north pole is to the east of the true north pole.

Again, we can focus on just the westerly variation to see how to apply it.

Measuring a bearing of 068°(T), you will need to add on a westerly variation to turn it into a magnetic bearing.

“Variation west, magnetic best”

Or you can apply it the other way around. If the variation is east, you take it away from a true bearing to get a magnetic mearing.

“Variation east, magnetic least”

Of course, applying variation and deviation separately is only part of the story. In reality, you need to apply them in a chain to be able to correct your compass readings to be true.

Correcting Compass Bearings To True Bearings

When correcting a bearing from your compass and turning it into a true bearing, we need to chain together the corrections of deviation and variation that we have already discussed.

Starting from our compass bearing, we apply deviation to get a magnetic bearing. We then apply variation to the magnetic bearing to turn it into a true bearing.

You can do it diagrammatically as I demonstrated previously, or you can use another mnemonic as a shortcut.

You first construct the order of the words using the mnemonic “Cadbury Dairy Milk Very Tasty”, then you use the word “Cadet” to see whether you add or subtract.

Compass – add – east

Very quickly you can construct the full cheat sheet for yourself and you’ll be sure that you will apply all the corrections in the correct order.

Personally, I prefer to do it diagrammatically and work it out every time, but the choice is yours.

Worked Example: Correcting A Compass Bearing

If we take the example that we have the following starting information:

Compass bearing: 070°(C)

Deviation 4°E

Variation 2°W

You can assume that you have read the bearing from your compass, you got the variation from your chart and your deviation from your compass card.

We then construct a blank table to get started, using the mnemonic.

Next, we can simplify the table and add our starting values.

Next, we need to work out whether to add or subtract the deviation from the compass reading. In this case, the mnemonic “Cadet” tells us to “add east”.

Similarly, the rhyme “deviation east, compass least” tells us that the compass bearing is going to be less than the magnetic bearing, meaning we should add it on.

Next, we need to determine whether we add or subtract the variation.

As we added an easterly deviation, it implies that we’ll need to subtract the westerly variation.

It works, the same going up the table. For example, if you started with the true bearing and wanted to find out the compass bearing.

You would just need to add the westerly variation and subtract the easterly deviation.

Pro Tip: I prefer using the diagrams rather than the mnemonics because it means that I’ll always do things correctly, no matter whether I am travelling up or down the tables.

Service Locator

• Angler Endorsement
• Boat Towing Coverage
• Mechanical Breakdown
• Insurance Requirements in Mexico
• Agreed Hull Value
• Actual Cash Value
• Liability Only
• Insurance Payment Options
• Claims Information
• Towing Service Agreement
• Membership Plans
• Boat Show Tickets
• BoatUS Boats For Sale
• Membership Payment Options
• Consumer Affairs
• Boat Documentation Requirements
• Installation Instructions
• Shipping & Handling Information
• Contact Boat Lettering
• End User Agreement
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Vessel Documentation
• BoatUS Foundation
• Government Affairs
• Powercruisers
• Buying & Selling Advice
• Maintenance
• Tow Vehicles
• Make & Create
• Makeovers & Refitting
• Accessories
• Electronics
• Skills, Tips, Tools
• Spring Preparation
• Winterization
• Boaters’ Rights
• Environment & Clean Water
• Boat Safety
• Navigational Hazards
• Personal Safety
• Batteries & Onboard Power
• Motors, Engines, Propulsion
• Books & Movies
• Cockpit Confessions
• Communication & Etiquette
• Contests & Sweepstakes
• Colleges & Tech Schools
• Food, Drink, Entertainment
• New To Boating
• Travel & Destinations
• Watersports
• Anchors & Anchoring
• Boat Handling
• ← Seamanship

Compass Basics

Advertisement

A magnetic compass may be old technology, but it's still an essential navigational tool.

This exploded view of a typical steering compass reveals two compensating rods that can be adjusted to reduce compass deviation. (Illustration: ©2017 Mirto Art Studio)

Many years ago, on my first Atlantic crossing, the only electronic instrument on the boat was an ancient and very temperamental radar. It seldom worked, and when it did, it used prodigious amounts of electricity. Our battery-charging options were limited, so most of the time it stayed switched off, only being brought into service in thick weather or when we were in busy shipping lanes. Navigation was done with a trailed taffrail log, sextant, and chart. But the most useful item on board was the magnetic compass. Sometimes we'd go for days without getting a reliable sight, so we relied on dead reckoning, using the compass course steered and the distance run to estimate a position. Information about prevailing currents and wind direction also helped.

Compasses come in all shapes and sizes, but for the purpose of this article, let's concentrate on the main magnetic steering compass and leave discussion of hand-bearing compasses, gyrocompasses, and other types for a future article.

A Low-Tech Necessity

Compasses, used on boats for centuries, work because a permanently magnetized needle always points to north, irrespective of the position of the boat. Many boaters think that, in these days of modern electronic-charting aids, compasses are no longer needed. Nothing could be further from the truth. A magnetic compass requires no electricity to operate, so it could be the one piece of navigational equipment that still operates on your boat when the proverbial you-know-what hits the fan.

As the boat turns, the compass continues to point at magnetic north, and the course is shown (relative to magnetic north) in reference to a line, which represents the boat's heading. A compass has what is known as the "card," divided into 360 degrees. Thus, if the card reads 90 degrees, you will be steering a course due east; 180, due south; and so on.

This compass at the helm of a sailing boat is well placed for visibility by the helmsman. (Photo: Mark Corke)

For a compass to work well, it has to be correctly installed and properly adjusted. Unfortunately, on a large number of boats, the compass has been installed incorrectly. And with the ever-increasing strain on dashboard real estate, the compass is often pushed out, literally. Electrical interference from chartplotters, radios, speakers, and other electronic aids may affect compasses if they are too close to each other, so an effort should be made to keep these as far away from the main steering compass as possible. A good minimum is 12 inches.

The skipper needs to be able to easily see the main steering compass. This usually means that it must be placed directly in front of the helm position with what is known as the lubber line — two pins or some type of marking — parallel to the centerline of the boat. The skipper merely glances down to see the course being steered.

When North Is Not North

In a perfect world, a compass would always point to true north, but there are factors that make this not so. Two errors have to be accounted for: variation and deviation. Magnetic north is not the same as true north, and this difference is written on the compass rose on the chart of the area you're cruising. This difference, in degrees, between true and magnetic, is known as variation, which must be compensated for when plotting a position.

A nautical chart has two compass roses, one inside the other. The outer one always points to true north, and the inner shows, in degrees and minutes, the variation in the area, either east or west of true north. Variation, which is caused by differences in Earth's structure, differs from area to area and changes by a very small amount each year. This is annotated on the chart inside the inner compass rose. For example, variation changes from about 16 degrees west in Maine to 6 degrees in Florida and 0 degrees in Louisiana.

The other compass error that must be accounted for is deviation. Deviation refers to errors in the compass itself that cannot be adjusted out. Factors that affect deviation include nearby boat electronics, electrical wiring, metal fittings, and radio equipment. Other things, such as the boat's engine, may also affect deviation. Anything magnetic (such as speakers) placed close by will surely increase deviation. To calculate the error in the compass, it must be "swung," whereby the boat is put on several known headings that are checked against the compass reading. This is typically done by lining up a set of transit marks and comparing the boat's course to the indicated reading. Any error is corrected by adjusting the built-in magnets on the compass, which are attached to compensator rods.

To keep track of compass deviation, you'll need a deviation card, which shows the difference in degrees between the compass reading and the actual course shown on the compass. Compasses that are professionally adjusted will be supplied with a card. But if you do the adjustments yourself, you need to make up your own card. Deviation should be no more than a few degrees on each heading, while variation could be quite a bit more, depending on location. Both deviation and variation (each of which may be added or subtracted) must either be accounted for when working out the plot on the chart or when communicating a compass course to steer to the helmsman.

No-Pressure Practice

Practice steering a compass course rather than following the chartplotter. It takes some getting used to, but when you need it, you'll know how to do it. You'll have more situational awareness and less strain on your eyes. On a sailboat, an added bonus is that steering by compass can keep you attuned to the wind. As the wind shifts, you may be able to harden up or crack off a few degrees, rather than trying to follow that line on the plotter. Novice helmsmen often complain that the compass is constantly moving, but it's worth remembering that the compass does not move. It's the boat that's moving!

A properly installed and adjusted compass is a valuable navigation tool. Buy the best one your budget will allow, and take good care of it. You'll be rewarded with years of service and accurate navigation.

Related Articles

The truth about ceramic coatings for boats.

Our editor investigates the marketing claims of consumer-grade ceramic coatings.

Fine-Tune Your Side Scan Fishfinder

Take your side-scanning fishfinder off auto mode, and you’ll be spotting your prey from afar in no time

DIY Boat Foam Decking

Closed-cell foam flooring helps make boating more comfortable. Here’s how to install it on your vessel

Click to explore related articles

Contributing Editor, BoatUS Magazine

A marine surveyor and holder of RYA Yachtmaster Ocean certification, BoatUS Magazine contributing editor Mark Corke is one of our DIY gurus, creating easy-to-follow how-to articles and videos. Mark has built five boats himself (both power and sail), has been an experienced editor at several top boating magazines (including former associate editor of BoatUS Magazine), worked for the BBC, written four DIY books, skippered two round-the-world yachts, and holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest there-and-back crossing of the English Channel — in a kayak! He and his wife have a Grand Banks 32.

BoatUS Magazine Is A Benefit Of BoatUS Membership

Membership Benefits Include:

Subscription to the print version of BoatUS Magazine

4% back on purchases from West Marine stores or online at WestMarine.com

Discounts on fuel, transient slips, repairs and more at over 1,200 businesses

Deals on cruises, charters, car rentals, hotel stays and more…

All for only $25/year!

We use cookies to enhance your visit to our website and to improve your experience. By continuing to use our website, you’re agreeing to our cookie policy.

Marine Navigation: How to Navigate a Boat

How to Navigate a Boat

• Decide on your method: electronic navigation or traditional (analog) navigation.
• If using electronic navigation, start by operating your GPS or chartplotter.
• Make note of your real-time position, speed and direction of travel.
• To get from point "A" to point "B," create a waypoint.
• String waypoints together to create a route; utilize auto-pilot when applicable.
• For traditional navigation, use: a compass, charters, parallel rulers and dividers.
• Stay within sight of land and use major landmarks as points of reference.

Electronic Marine Navigation

Thanks to modern tech, navigating with a modern GPS/chartplotter is a piece of cake. You can pull up an electronic map (though mariners always refer to their maps as “charts”), which shows your real-time position, speed and direction of travel, and more.

Locating your position is as simple as looking for the boat icon and/or GPS coordinates on-screen. To get from point “A” to point “B,” all you’ll have to do is create a waypoint.

• Depending on how advanced your chartplotter is this might mean scrolling a cursor across the chart, then creating a waypoint by pressing a button.
• In other cases you might have a touch-screen and merely need to tap the position you’d like to create a waypoint at.
• Then, you’ll want to press a “go to” button (or give the screen a swipe, as appropriate for your chartplotter).
• With the navigation from your present position to the waypoint then initiated, the chartplotter will give you a compass course to steer. Most chartplotters also have one or more “steering screens” to choose from, which will display both the desired compass course and the one you’re currently following.
• Use the chartplotter menu to pull this steering screen up, and you’re ready to follow the unit as you steer an accurate course to the waypoint. You can also plot in multiple waypoints and string them together, into a “route.” 

The most important thing about creating waypoints and routes and then navigating to them is to look closely at the chart, and make sure you won’t be trying to cross any major obstructions like a finger of land, restricted areas, or waters which may not afford your boat it’s minimum draft (how much water your boat needs to avoid running aground).

There are many other electronic items that assist in navigation, like radar  and autopilots . But these are naturally a bit more advanced. What about using a navigational app on your cell phone? There are a number that can prove helpful to boaters, including a wide range of iOS boating apps and Android boating apps .

However, boats and cell phones don’t always mix well; the moist environment and risk of shock damage are ever-present, and cell phone coverage can be sketchy or non-existent in many boating areas. As a result, you should never rely completely on a cell phone for navigating a boat.

Traditional Marine Navigation

Electronics can and do fail, so it’s also important to gain a basic understanding of the tools you need for analog navigation, and keep them aboard your boat at all times. These include:

• Charts for the waterways you travel

Parallel Rulers

With these basics, as long as you’re within sight of land and major landmarks you can figure out where you are and where you’re going.

A compass tells you which direction your boat is heading in—north, south, east, or west – as measured in degrees relative to magnetic north. There are 360 degrees representing a full circle. Zero degrees on the compass is north, 180 degrees points south, it’s 90 degrees to the east, and 270 degrees leads to the west. So a glance at your compass tells you what direction you’re travelling in, at any given time. When you steer your boat to a specific degree on the compass to maintain a straight course, you call this your “bearing.” So if you’re cruising to a restaurant for lunch and it’s directly to your north, you’ll be steering a zero-degree bearing. If it’s to your south you’ll steer a 180-degree bearing, and so on.

Charts are simply maps of the water and waterways, with special marking for water depths, channel markers, lighthouses, and restricted areas. NOAA produces charts for US waterways which can be viewed online for free , but to get printed versions you have to purchase charts or books of charts (for larger areas) from a NOAA certified agent . You can also pick up charts and chart books for your local waterway in virtually any marine supply store.

Parallel rulers are two rulers attached by a pair of swiveling arms, so you can swing the rulers close together or far apart but they will always remain perfectly parallel. By doing so repeatedly, you can “walk” the rulers across a chart. Why in the world would you want to? Because it will allow you to determine the exact compass bearing of any course you may want to steer. All charts have a compass rose with all 360-degrees printed on them. Place the ruler on top of the chart, on the course line you’d like to steer. Then walk the rulers to the compass rose, and viola—you know what compass bearing you need to steer your boat on to run the course.

Dividers have two arms that are attached at one end, and can be pulled apart to different widths at the other end. These are used to measure distance. All charts have a key which shows scale by miles and nautical miles. Hold the dividers up to the scale and pull them apart until the arms’ width equals the chart scale for a mile or any increment of miles (it’s common to see one, five, 10, or even 20 mile increments depending on the scale of the chart). With the dividers set you can then use them to measure the distance between any two points on the chart.

Marine Navigation Basic Tasks

With these tools in hand—or at the helm—you can accomplish the three most basic navigational tasks: figuring out where you are, where you want to go, and following a course to get there.

Where is Your Boat?

• To figure out where you are, look around and locate three charted landmarks like navigational aids, bridges, or water towers on shore.
• Point your compass (which means pointing your boat, unless you have a handheld compass) at them one at a time.
• Record the bearing.
• Then set your parallel rules on the compass rose so it matches the bearings and, one by one, walk them until they intersect with the landmark for the corresponding bearing and draw a line down the edge of the ruler.
• After doing all three lines, they will intersect to create a small triangle—and that’s your location.

How to Navigate to Where You Want to Go

This is just a matter of identifying your location and destination, then determining the corresponding compass bearing between the two places. Set your boat’s compass to match the bearing, and you’re ready to get underway.

Following a Course

Now that you know how to get a bearing, following the course is easy—all you have to do is steer the boat to keep the compass on that bearing. You’ll notice that keeping a boat on course can be difficult, especially with smaller, faster boats, and if you can keep your path within five or so degrees of the intended course you should consider it a job well done. Now get out there, and navigate!

Read Next: Boating Safety Guide

You Might Also Like:

• How to Dock a Boat
• How to Use a VHF Radio
• Weather Safety Tips for Boaters
• Pre-Departure Checklist
• Explore Boat Types

Join Our Newsletter!

Get community news, buying bargains, and how-to guides at your fingertips.

Please verify you are a human

Access to this page has been denied because we believe you are using automation tools to browse the website.

This may happen as a result of the following:

• Javascript is disabled or blocked by an extension (ad blockers for example)
• Your browser does not support cookies

Please make sure that Javascript and cookies are enabled on your browser and that you are not blocking them from loading.

Reference ID: 2a988bc9-69ec-11ef-9398-e9dfc4aa3814

Powered by PerimeterX , Inc.

Sailing Navigation Tools: A Comprehensive Guide

by Emma Sullivan | Jul 21, 2023 | Sailing Adventures

Short answer: Sailing navigation tools

Sailing navigation tools refer to equipment used by sailors for determining their position, planning routes, and navigating at sea. These include compasses, charts, GPS devices, sextants, and electronic navigation systems. These instruments aid in calculating direction, measuring distances, and ensuring safe passage during sailing expeditions.

How Sailing Navigation Tools Can Enhance Your Nautical Experience

Sailing is not just a hobby; it’s an adventure that pushes us to explore the vast expanse of the open waters. As sailors, we not only rely on our intuition and knowledge but also on advanced sailing navigation tools. These tools are like trusted companions that enhance our nautical experience in ways we couldn’t have imagined.

Let’s dive deeper into the world of sailing navigation tools and how they revolutionize our time on the water.

Firstly, one cannot discuss sailing navigation tools without mentioning GPS (Global Positioning System). GPS has become an indispensable tool for modern sailors as it provides accurate positioning information in real-time. Gone are the days when navigating solely relied on traditional methods like a compass and celestial observation. With GPS, you can precisely pinpoint your location, track your course, and even set waypoints to guide you along your journey. This not only ensures safety but also adds an element of convenience allowing you to focus more on enjoying the beauty of the sea.

Another remarkable tool that enhances your nautical experience is electronic chart plotters. Imagine having access to detailed charts right at your fingertips! Electronic chart plotters use GPS data to display digital maps, offering valuable information about water depths, hazards, marinas, and much more. You can customize these charts according to your needs and easily visualize routes before embarking on a voyage. This foresight allows you to plan better and avoid potential dangers, making every trip a stress-free delight!

One cannot underestimate the importance of weather instruments when it comes to sailing navigation tools. Weather plays a significant role in determining sailing conditions – from wind speed to wave height – which ultimately affects safety and comfort onboard. Equipping yourself with weather instruments like anemometers (wind speed), barometers (air pressure), or even sophisticated weather software gives you real-time data on current conditions as well as forecasts. By staying ahead of changing weather patterns, you can make informed decisions about adjusting your route or seeking shelter when needed, making your nautical experience not only safer but also more pleasurable.

Now, let’s venture into the realm of autopilots. Embracing technology in sailing often means relinquishing control, but not in this case. Autopilots take some of the workload off your shoulders by automatically steering the boat as per preset instructions. This feature allows you to free up valuable time to enjoy the company of your crew or simply immerse yourself in the serenity of the sea. Whether it’s a long passage or a short trip, having an autopilot ensures precise and consistent navigation while adding a touch of luxury to your sailing experience.

Lastly, we cannot forget about AIS (Automatic Identification System). This ingenious tool enhances safety at sea by exchanging vital information between vessels. AIS displays data such as vessel identity, position, speed, and course on compatible devices like chart plotters or radar screens. By knowing where other vessels are heading, you can avoid collisions and navigate safely through busy traffic zones. The peace of mind that comes with AIS is unparalleled; it allows you to focus on enjoying the wonders of sailing without constantly worrying about other ships lurking in the distance.

In conclusion, sailing navigation tools have revolutionized how we approach and enjoy our nautical adventures. From GPS providing real-time positioning information to electronic chart plotters offering detailed charts on demand – these tools have elevated our sailing experiences beyond what was once imaginable. Weather instruments keep us informed about changing conditions while autopilots ensure smooth journeys with added comfort. And lastly, AIS serves as a guardian angel guiding us through crowded waters safely.

So why limit yourself? Embrace these advanced technologies because they aren’t just enhancements; they are catalysts for unforgettable moments and unbeatable memories on the high seas!

Exploring the Various Types of Sailing Navigation Tools

When embarking on a sailing adventure, navigation tools become your best friends. No matter how experienced you are as a sailor, having the right tools at hand is essential to ensure a safe and smooth voyage. In this blog post, we will delve into the various types of sailing navigation tools that every sailor should be familiar with. From traditional compasses to advanced GPS systems, let’s explore these indispensable instruments that keep sailors on course.

1. Compass: The trusty companion of sailors for centuries, the compass remains an essential tool onboard any boat. This simple yet ingenious invention uses Earth’s magnetic field to determine direction accurately. With its needle always pointing north, it allows sailors to navigate without relying solely on landmarks or celestial bodies.

2. Sextant: Take a step back in time and imagine yourself as an adventurous sailor during the era of exploration. The sextant was their secret weapon for celestial navigation! Employing angles between heavenly bodies and the horizon, this handheld instrument allowed sailors to determine their latitude and longitude accurately by observing the sun, moon, stars, and planets.

3. Nautical charts: A sailor’s map filled with intricate details is what sets nautical charts apart from regular maps. These specialized charts provide vital information about water depths, hazards like reefs or rocks, currents, tides, buoy locations and aids to navigation – everything necessary for plotting your course effectively.

4. GPS (Global Positioning System): Stepping into the modern age of sailing technology brings us face-to-face with GPS devices—a marvel that revolutionized navigation techniques at sea. Using signals from satellites orbiting Earth, GPS receivers precisely calculate your position in real-time anywhere on the planet within moments!

5. Electronic Chart Plotter: Imagine combining a nautical chart with GPS technology – introducing the electronic chart plotter! These smart devices display navigational data directly onto digitalized marine charts based on input from GPS or other sensors onboard your vessel.

6. Radar: Don’t let fog or darkness ruin your voyage—get equipped with radar! Using radio waves, radar allows sailors to detect and locate nearby vessels, landmasses, or hazards even in adverse weather conditions. It provides an invaluable early warning system for collision avoidance.

7. AIS (Automatic Identification System): A more recent addition to the world of sailing tools is AIS. This sophisticated technology enables ships to communicate their positions, course, speed, and identification information to each other electronically. It enhances situational awareness by displaying real-time data about surrounding vessels on a chart plotter or dedicated AIS display.

8. Logbook: While not a navigation tool itself, keeping a logbook remains crucial for sailors to record essential information about their journey. Documenting details like distance sailed, course changes, weather conditions, and any notable events aids in assessing progress and ensuring accurate navigation when planning future voyages.

As you set sails towards your next maritime adventure, make sure you equip yourself with these indispensable navigation tools. Whether you prefer the charm of traditional instruments like compasses and sextants or rely on advanced technologies such as GPS and radar, their combined use ensures safe passage through the vast seas while honoring the spirit of exploration that fuels every sailor’s heart. So get ready to navigate confidently as you conquer the waters using these various types of sailing navigation tools!

Step-by-Step Guide: Mastering the Art of Using Sailing Navigation Tools

Are you ready to embark on a thrilling sailing journey but feel overwhelmed by the vastness of the open sea? Fear not, for we have compiled a comprehensive step-by-step guide that will equip you with the skills to master the art of using sailing navigation tools. Whether you are a seasoned sailor or just starting out, this guide will provide you with detailed instructions, sprinkled with professional expertise, witty anecdotes, and clever hacks. So hoist your sails and let’s set sail towards greatness!

Step 1: Know Your Tools

Before we delve into the depths of sailing navigation, it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with the essential tools at your disposal. From traditional gadgets like compasses and charts to modern electronic systems such as GPS units and chartplotters – understanding their functionalities is paramount. Professional tip: Remember that having multiple navigation tools ensures redundancy and reduces reliance on a single source.

Step 2: Get Acquainted with Nautical Charts

Nautical charts are like blueprints for sailors; they reveal intricate details about water depths, currents, buoys, and hazards. Our witty suggestion: Think of them as treasure maps leading you to victorious seafaring escapades! Understanding symbols, scales, and depth contours will enhance your ability to interpret these masterpieces accurately.

Step 3: Master Celestial Navigation Techniques

Ahoy there! In an era where technology governs our lives, learning celestial navigation techniques can be seen as an ode to seafaring pioneers. By utilizing the sun’s position during daylight or stars’ alignment at night time (with sextants or star finding apps), ancient sailors established their location – proving that even before Siri existed, humans had ingenious ways of navigating.

Step 4: Navigate with Electronic Chartplotters

Tap into technological wonders by acquainting yourself with electronic chartplotters. These savvy devices combine GPS data with digital charts providing real-time boat positioning. With a touch of cleverness, you’ll be able to plan routes, mark waypoints, and even receive weather updates – all while calmly sipping your morning coffee.

Step 5: Tap into Weather Patterns

We can’t control the weather, but we can certainly make informed decisions based on meteorological forecasts. Understanding how to access weather data using satellite communication systems or internet resources provides valuable insights. Knowing which way the wind blows will allow you to plot an optimal course and avoid unwanted surprises mid-voyage.

Step 6: Embrace Radar for Safe Navigation

Picture yourself sailing through dense fog or encountering unexpected obstacles in low visibility conditions. Fear not! Radar is here to save the day. By emitting radio waves that bounce off objects and return as echoes, this ingenious device can detect other vessels or solid structures in your path. For an added touch of professionalism, don’t forget to dramatically exclaim “I’ve got them on radar!” whenever someone passes by.

Step 7: Utilize Electronic Navigation Apps

In this digital age, there’s an app for just about everything – including sailing navigation! Equip your smartphone or tablet with electronic navigation apps like Navionics or iNavX. With features like real-time AIS (Automatic Identification System) vessel tracking and integration with your onboard instruments, these nifty tools provide accurate information at your fingertips.

Step 8: Brush Up on Sailing Terminology

To truly master the art of using sailing navigation tools, familiarize yourself with nautical jargon that seasoned sailors use effortlessly. Cleverly incorporating expressions like “Make fast” (secure something tightly), “Head up” (steer closer to the wind), or “Prepare to tack” (change direction) will not only impress fellow sailors but also add a touch of wit and authenticity to your seafaring experience.

By following this step-by-step guide filled with witty banter and professional wisdom, you’ll soon find yourself navigating the open waters with confidence and mastery. So, seize the helm, adjust your sails, and embark on an extraordinary sailing adventure where you are the captain of your own destiny! Bon voyage!

Frequently Asked Questions about Sailing Navigation Tools Answered

Navigating the vast and unpredictable waters is no easy feat, which is why sailors rely on a wide range of navigation tools to ensure a safe and successful journey. If you’re new to sailing or simply curious about the tools used by experienced sailors, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog post, we’ll answer some of the most frequently asked questions about sailing navigation tools, unraveling their purpose and shedding light on their importance. So grab your sextant and chart plotter, and let’s set sail on this informative journey!

1. What are sailing navigation tools?

Sailing navigation tools encompass an array of instruments specifically designed to aid sailors in determining their position, plotting routes, calculating distances, monitoring weather conditions, and avoiding obstacles at sea. These instruments vary from tried-and-true devices that have been used for centuries to modern electronic gadgets that utilize advanced technology.

2. Which traditional navigation tools are still widely used today?

While technology has revolutionized many aspects of sailing, several traditional navigation tools remain widely used due to their reliability and simplicity. One such tool is the sextant—an intricate instrument used to measure angles between celestial bodies (like the sun or stars) and the horizon. By recording these measurements alongside precise timekeeping methods like using a chronometer or GPS device, sailors can accurately determine their latitude and longitude.

Another essential tool is the nautical chart—a detailed map specifically designed for maritime use. These charts provide crucial information such as water depths, coastal features, navigational aids like buoys or lighthouses, as well as other hazards such as rocks or wrecks.

3. How have modern electronic gadgets enhanced sailing navigation?

Advancements in technology have undoubtedly made navigating at sea more efficient and precise than ever before. Electronic Chart Display and Information Systems (ECDIS) have revolutionized traditional paper charts by providing real-time positioning information, automatic route planning, and up-to-date data on tides, currents, and weather conditions. GPS devices have also become a staple onboard, offering accurate positioning using satellite signals.

Furthermore, radar systems play a vital role in modern navigation, allowing sailors to detect other vessels or obstacles even in poor visibility conditions. AIS (Automatic Identification System) has also gained popularity by providing information about nearby ships’ positions and intentions, further enhancing safety at sea.

4. Are there any tools specifically for measuring wind direction and strength?

Yes! Sailing relies heavily on harnessing the power of the wind, so it’s crucial for sailors to monitor its direction and strength continuously. Anemometers provide real-time measurements of wind speed, while wind vanes indicate its direction relative to the boat’s heading. These tools are often integrated into electronic displays known as marine instruments or multi-function displays (MFDs) that consolidate various data points simultaneously.

5. Can smartphones be used as sailing navigation tools?

While smartphones offer many useful applications for sailors through various navigation apps available on both iOS and Android platforms, they should not be solely relied upon for critical navigational tasks. Smartphones may lack the durability and accuracy required in demanding maritime environments. However, when combined with traditional navigation tools or dedicated marine electronics designed for harsh conditions, smartphones can serve as a useful supplementary aid.

In conclusion

Sailing navigation tools encompass a wide variety of instruments that cater to different aspects of maritime exploration. From traditional devices like sextants and nautical charts to modern electronic gadgets such as GPS devices and ECDIS systems—the options available today are vast. By combining time-honored techniques with cutting-edge technology, sailors can ensure their safe passage across oceans while embracing the rich history behind these essential navigational tools. So whether you’re charting your course using celestial sightings or plotting your route with digital precision, rest assured that you’ll be well-equipped to navigate any voyage that lies ahead.

Essential Sailing Navigation Tools Every Sailor Should Have

Title: Navigating the Seas with Finesse: 8 Essential Sailing Navigation Tools Every Sailor Should Have

Introduction: Embarking on a sailing adventure is a thrilling endeavor that demands precision, knowledge, and well-equipped navigators. Whether you’re gliding through calm waters or tackling stormy seas, having the right tools at your disposal can be the difference between smooth sailing and being adrift in confusion. So, let’s dive into a world where professional seamanship meets wit and cleverness as we uncover the eight essential sailing navigation tools every sailor should have.

1. Nautical Charts or Electronic Chartplotters: In a digital era, it’s easy to overlook traditional nautical charts. However, these age-old maps remain an invaluable asset for sailors of all levels. Combining meticulous detailing and rich information about tides, currents, hazards, and landmarks, nautical charts offer a tangible connection to maritime history while providing a reliable backup if electronic systems fail. On the other hand, electronic chartplotters merge precision with convenience by displaying your vessel’s position on an electronic screen alongside vital navigational data.

2. Compass: No sailor worth their salt would dare leave port without a trusty compass by their side. This timeless instrument guides seafarers by pointing towards magnetic north—allowing for accurate course plotting and orientation even when GPS signals are disrupted or unavailable due to solar flares or malicious interference.

3. GPS Navigation System: While maintaining appreciation for traditional methods, harnessing modern technology like Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation systems is essential for sailors seeking precise positioning accuracy in real-time. These compact devices receive signals directly from orbiting satellites to pinpoint your location with impressive accuracy—an indispensable tool when entering unfamiliar waters.

4. Binoculars: As Jack Sparrow famously said in Pirates of the Caribbean: “It’s not just about living forever; it’s about living with yourself forever.” Similarly, binoculars empower sailors to survey the vast horizons, keeping a watchful eye for approaching vessels, navigational markers, or land masses. Investing in high-quality binoculars enhances safety and situational awareness while allowing you to take in breathtaking coastal views like a true seafaring connoisseur.

5. Automatic Identification System (AIS): Conjuring thoughts of James Bond’s gadgets, AIS is an impressive technology that brings efficiency and sophistication to the world of sailing navigation tools. This maritime transponder system allows vessels equipped with AIS to broadcast their identities, positions, course, speed, and other critical information to nearby ships. Integrating AIS into your navigation repertoire adds an extra layer of security by helping you avoid potentially dangerous encounters.

6. Marine Radar: When fog blankets the sea or darkness falls upon your watery realm, reliable marine radar becomes a sailor’s trusted ally. Operating on principles similar to those used by bats and dolphins, radars emit radio waves that bounce off objects—detecting obstacles such as other boats, islands, or even wayward buoys along your intended route. With its ability to penetrate inclement weather conditions or lackluster visibility spells—it’s like having Superman’s X-ray vision when it matters most.

7. Sextant: Bringing back a touch of romantic nostalgia from days of yore, the sextant remains pivotal for skilled navigators aiming for impeccable celestial navigation proficiency. Reflecting light off celestial bodies such as the sun or stars onto mirrors and measuring angles accurately can determine latitude at sea without relying solely on electronics. A sextant symbolizes the profound connection between sailors and the night sky—an elegant tool steeped in mystique.

8. Handheld VHF Radio: Last but not least on our list is the trusty handheld VHF (Very High Frequency) radio—a staple communication tool for any sailor venturing beyond sight of land or near busy shipping lanes. In the event of an emergency, it provides a direct line to help—a vital feature when time is of the essence. Additionally, VHF radios allow sailors to communicate with nearby vessels or harbormasters, enhancing safety and exchanging valuable information about navigational hazards or weather conditions.

Conclusion: By embracing these eight essential sailing navigation tools, every sailor can navigate the seas confidently with a blend of professional expertise and wittiness. Armed with nautical charts alongside electronic chartplotters, compasses next to GPS with binoculars in hand, AIS coupled with marine radar—all topped with sextants and handheld VHF radios—you’ll embark on maritime adventures fully prepared for whatever Mother Nature throws your way. So hoist those sails high, unleash your inner mariner spirit, and let these tools be your guiding stars amidst the vast oceanic landscape!

Tips and Tricks for Maximizing the Benefits of Sailing Navigation Tools

Title: Unlocking the True Potential of Sailing Navigation Tools: Expert Tips and Clever Tricks

Introduction: Setting sail on a vast ocean is both thrilling and unpredictable. To navigate these expansive waters with confidence, sailors rely on the power of cutting-edge navigation tools. However, merely possessing these tools is not enough; understanding their intricacies and utilizing them to their full potential can significantly enhance your sailing experience. In this blog post, we will share invaluable tips and clever tricks that will unlock the true benefits of sailing navigation tools, helping you embark on memorable seafaring adventures.

1. Familiarize Yourself with Your Sailing Navigation Tools: To harness the full potential of any tool, comprehensive knowledge is essential. Take the time to familiarize yourself thoroughly with your chosen sailing navigation tools before embarking on any voyage. Read the user manual, attend training sessions or workshops offered by manufacturers or experts in maritime navigation technology.

2. Master Electronic Chart Plotter Systems: Electronic chart plotters are versatile tools that simplify navigation significantly. Maximize the benefits they offer by mastering their use beforehand. Learn how to mark waypoints effectively, plot courses accurately, and customize settings to match your preferences.

3. Stay Updated with Satellite Imagery: Sailing involves engaging with constantly changing situations at sea. Be sure to utilize satellite imagery services provided by navigation tool manufacturers or third-party providers regularly to stay updated on real-time weather conditions, currents, and other navigational hazards that could affect your voyage.

4. Utilize AIS for Enhanced Safety: Automatic Identification System (AIS) has revolutionized maritime safety by enabling vessels to track each other’s movements accurately. By integrating AIS data into your sailing navigation system, you gain valuable information about nearby ships’ speed, course, identification details while ensuring effective collision avoidance techniques.

5. Leverage Voyage Logging Features: Voyage logging features available in modern navigation systems provide an excellent means to review past journeys, learn from experiences, and improve future performances. Utilize these features to document critical highlights, record adjustments to navigation plans and evaluate your overall performance as a sailor.

6. Combine Traditional Navigation Techniques: While sailing navigation tools have become more advanced, they shouldn’t replace traditional navigation methods completely. Knowledge of traditional techniques such as celestial navigation, dead reckoning, and pilotage will complement your digital tools and act as reliable backups when facing unforeseen circumstances or technological failure.

7. Optimize Power Consumption: Sailing journeys can be lengthy, requiring efficient use of available power resources. To maximize benefits without compromising safety or convenience, optimize the power consumption of your navigation tools by adjusting brightness settings and disabling unnecessary features when not required.

8. Explore Third-party Navigation Apps: In addition to conventional sailing navigation instruments, explore third-party smartphone apps that offer additional functionalities such as tide predictions, marine charts port directories, anchorage guides, local points of interest and more. These supplementary apps can enhance your overall navigational experience while offering handy information at your fingertips.

9. Take Advantage of Online Communities: To expand your knowledge base on sailing navigation tools further, engage with online communities comprising experienced sailors and maritime enthusiasts. Participation in dedicated forums or social media groups provides opportunities to discuss tips and tricks related to specific tools or troubleshoot any challenges you may encounter during your voyage.

Conclusion: Navigating the vast expanse of the ocean is immensely gratifying when armed with proper sailing navigation tools utilized to their fullest potential. By implementing the tips and tricks provided in this blog post—familiarizing yourself thoroughly with your chosen toolset; mastering electronic chart plotters; staying updated through satellite imagery; leveraging AIS for enhanced safety; utilizing voyage logging features effectively; combining traditional techniques with modern technology; optimizing power consumption; exploring third-party apps; and engaging with online communities—you are well-equipped to embark upon exhilarating seafaring adventures while maximizing the benefits of sailing navigation tools. Bon voyage and safe travels!

Recent Posts

• Sailboat Gear and Equipment
• Sailboat Lifestyle
• Sailboat Maintenance
• Sailboat Racing
• Sailboat Tips and Tricks
• Sailboat Types
• Sailing Adventures
• Sailing Destinations
• Sailing Safety
• Sailing Techniques

Sailboat Navigation: How to Navigate on Water

Mastering sailboat navigation is of paramount importance for sailors of all levels of experience. Whether you’re a seasoned sailor or a novice setting out on your first boating adventure, having a solid understanding of marine navigation is essential for your safety and confidence on the open waters. By honing your navigational skills, you can ensure that you navigate waterways with ease and make informed decisions to avoid potential hazards.

In this guide to sailboat navigation, we will delve into the intricacies of navigating a boat. Whether you prefer electronic or traditional methods, we will cover them both. We will explore electronic navigation techniques, including the use of GPS systems and chartplotters, which provide real-time information and streamline your navigation process. Additionally, we will delve into traditional navigation methods, equipping you with the necessary skills to navigate using natural references such as compasses, charts, parallel rulers, and dividers.

The Art of Sailboat Navigation

Navigating a boat is a unique skill that differs significantly from driving a vehicle on land. Unlike roads and signs, the waterways present a dynamic environment with minimal navigational markers, and visibility can be limited due to fog or the absence of recognizable landmarks. Becoming a proficient marine navigator requires years of accumulated knowledge and advanced learning. However, with a solid understanding of the basics, navigating most inland and nearshore waterways under normal weather conditions becomes a manageable task. Let’s break it down into simple steps.

Electronic Navigation

Electronic navigation has revolutionized the way boaters navigate the waters. With advancements in technology, electronic navigation systems have become remarkably user-friendly, making them a popular choice among boaters. The benefits of electronic navigation include:

• Real-time Information Electronic navigation systems, such as GPS (Global Positioning System) or chartplotters, provide you with accurate and up-to-date information about your boat’s position, speed, direction of travel, and more. This real-time data enhances your situational awareness and helps you make informed decisions while on the water.
• Ease of Use These systems often feature intuitive interfaces, making them easy to operate. They typically have user-friendly menus, touchscreens, and controls that allow you to navigate through various features effortlessly.
• Convenience Electronic navigation systems simplify the process of charting your course. They eliminate the need for traditional paper charts and manual calculations, saving you time and effort.

You can find some helpful tips about GPS Navigation here !

Operating GPS or Chartplotter

To make the most of electronic navigation, it’s crucial to familiarize yourself with the features and operation of your GPS or chartplotter. Here’s a general overview of operating these devices:

• Familiarization Take the time to understand the different functions and settings of your GPS or chartplotter. Refer to the user manual or online resources specific to your device for detailed instructions.
• Position Acquisition Ensure that your device has acquired a strong GPS signal for accurate positioning. This may involve waiting for the system to connect to satellites or adjusting the device’s settings to optimize signal reception.

Creating Waypoints and Route Planning

Waypoints are specific locations on your navigation route that serve as markers for your journey. To create waypoints on your chartplotter:

• Manual Input You can input coordinates manually, usually in latitude and longitude format, to mark a specific location as a waypoint.
• Interactive Method Some chartplotters allow you to scroll a cursor across the digital chart or use a touch-screen to tap the desired position, automatically creating a waypoint.

Route planning involves connecting multiple waypoints to create a planned course. This allows you to chart a path that aligns with your intended destination or desired route. Some advanced chartplotters even offer autopilot capabilities, enabling your boat to follow the planned route automatically.

Following the Route and Chart Considerations

Once your route is established, your chartplotter will provide you with guidance on following the course. The device will display a compass course to steer, directing you toward each waypoint. It’s important to refer to the steering screen on your chartplotter, which shows both the desired compass course and your current heading.

While electronic navigation offers convenience and accuracy, it’s essential to exercise caution and consider chart considerations. Study the chart carefully, paying attention to potential obstructions such as landmasses, restricted areas, or shallow waters that could pose risks to your boat. It’s advisable to have backup plans and be aware of the limitations of your electronic devices. Remember, electronic navigation should be used in conjunction with other navigational tools and techniques for a comprehensive and reliable approach to marine navigation.

Traditional Navigation

While electronic navigation has become increasingly popular, traditional navigation methods still hold significant importance, especially as a backup when electronic devices malfunction or lose power. It’s essential to have a solid foundation in traditional navigation techniques, as they provide valuable skills and knowledge that can save the day in unexpected situations. By familiarizing yourself with traditional navigation, you can navigate effectively using natural references and maintain your course even when modern technology fails.

The compass is a fundamental tool for determining the direction in which your boat is heading. It provides readings in degrees relative to magnetic north and serves as a reliable reference point during navigation. By referencing the compass, you can steer your boat accurately along a chosen bearing, ensuring you stay on course even without electronic assistance.

Charts are detailed maps specifically designed for waterways. They contain crucial information such as water depths, channel markers, lighthouses, and restricted areas. Obtaining and utilizing charts for your intended routes is vital for traditional navigation. You can purchase printed versions or access online resources that provide free digital charts . Understanding how to interpret charts and extract pertinent information is essential for safe and effective navigation.

Parallel Rulers

Parallel rulers are invaluable tools used in traditional navigation to determine the exact compass bearing of a course you wish to steer. These rulers consist of two straight edges joined by adjustable knobs. By “walking” the rulers across the chart, you can align them with the compass rose, providing you with the desired bearing. Parallel rulers allow for accurate and precise course plotting, helping you navigate along your intended route.

Dividers, also known as navigation dividers, are essential tools for measuring distances on a chart accurately. These tools consist of two hinged arms with pointed ends that can be adjusted to the desired width. By adjusting the dividers according to the chart’s scale, you can determine the distance between two points with precision. The chart’s key will provide the necessary scale information in miles or nautical miles. Dividers help you measure distances along your planned route, ensuring you maintain accurate positioning throughout your journey.

By utilizing the compass, charts, parallel rulers, and dividers, you can navigate using traditional methods and rely on these tools as backups or primary navigation techniques when needed. Traditional navigation provides a solid foundation for understanding the principles of navigation and is an essential skill for all boaters, complementing and enhancing electronic navigation systems. It ensures you have the knowledge and capabilities to navigate safely and confidently, regardless of technological advancements.

Basic Navigational Tasks

Determining your boat’s location.

To navigate effectively, it’s crucial to determine your boat’s location on the water. Here’s how you can ascertain your boat’s position using navigational aids:

• Identify Charted Landmarks Look for at least three charted landmarks, such as navigational aids, bridges, or prominent features on the shore. These landmarks should be visible and recognizable from your boat.
• Use a Compass Point your compass towards each landmark one at a time and record the corresponding bearing. The compass readings should be in degrees relative to magnetic north.
• Plot Your Position With the compass bearings obtained, place the parallel rules on the compass rose of your chart. Adjust the rulers until they intersect with the landmarks on the chart, creating a small triangle. This triangle indicates your boat’s location.

By using this triangulation method, you can determine your boat’s location with a reasonable degree of accuracy, even without electronic navigation devices.

Navigating to Your Destination

Once you know your current location and have identified your desired destination, it’s time to chart a course and navigate towards it:

• Determine the Compass Bearing Calculate the compass bearing between your current location and the destination. This involves identifying the direction you need to steer to reach your desired location.
• Set Your Boat’s Compass Set your boat’s compass to match the determined bearing. This ensures that you are steering your boat in the correct direction towards your destination.
• Consider External Factors Take into account external factors that may affect your journey, such as wind and currents. Adjust your course and steering to compensate for these factors and maintain your intended path.

Following Your Course

Maintaining a steady course is essential during navigation. Here’s how you can follow your course effectively:

• Continuously Monitor Your Compass Keep a close eye on your boat’s compass to ensure you stay on the desired bearing. Make small adjustments to your steering as necessary to stay on track.
• Account for Deviations Understand that small deviations from the intended course are inevitable, especially in challenging conditions or due to external factors. Aim to keep your boat within a few degrees of the desired course, making periodic adjustments as needed.
• Utilize Navigation Aids Make use of visual aids and markers, such as buoys or landmarks, to assist you in staying on course. These aids provide valuable reference points and help you maintain a consistent heading.

By diligently monitoring your boat’s compass, making necessary adjustments, and utilizing navigational aids, you can successfully follow your course and reach your destination safely and efficiently.

Remember, mastering basic navigational tasks is essential for any boater. These tasks form the foundation of marine navigation and allow you to confidently explore the open waters while maintaining a clear sense of direction and control over your boat.

Embracing Technology for Enhanced Navigation

Radar systems.

Radar systems offer a valuable technological advancement in marine navigation, providing real-time information about your surroundings. Here’s what you need to know about radar systems:

• Situational Awareness Radar helps enhance your situational awareness by detecting and displaying nearby vessels, landmasses, and potential obstacles. It allows you to identify other boats, track their movements, and take appropriate actions to avoid collisions.
• Navigating in Low Visibility Radar is especially useful during low visibility conditions, such as fog or darkness, when visual references are limited. It helps you navigate safely by providing a clear picture of the objects and vessels around you.
• Understanding Radar Displays Familiarize yourself with the various elements displayed on the radar screen, including radar targets, your boat’s position, and other relevant information. Learn to interpret radar echoes, differentiate between stationary and moving objects, and adjust settings to optimize the radar display for your specific needs.

While radar systems are incredibly beneficial, it’s important to understand their limitations and use them in conjunction with other navigation methods for a comprehensive approach to marine navigation.

Autopilot Systems

Autopilot systems offer convenience and assistance by relieving you of the constant task of manually steering the boat. Here are key aspects of autopilot systems:

• GPS and Compass Integration Autopilot systems utilize GPS coordinates and compass data to maintain a steady course automatically. By inputting your desired destination or following a pre-planned route, the autopilot system can steer your boat while you attend to other navigation aspects.
• Windex Integration By combining GPS, compass, and wind data, the autopilot can follow a specific angle to the wind. It ensures that the sails are properly trimmed to capture the maximum amount of wind and propel the boat forward effectively.
• Monitoring and Override Capabilities While autopilot systems can handle routine navigation, it’s important to continuously monitor their performance. Be prepared to take manual control whenever necessary, especially in challenging situations or when unexpected obstacles arise.

Nautical Mobile Apps

Nautical mobile apps offer a wide range of features to assist boaters with navigation. Here are the benefits and some cautionary notes regarding the use of these apps:

• Real-time Charts and Weather Updates Nautical mobile apps provide access to real-time charts, allowing you to view your boat’s position and track your route. They also offer weather updates, tides, and currents information, enabling you to make informed decisions about your journey.
• Route Planning and Navigation Tools Many apps include route planning functionalities, allowing you to create and optimize your navigation routes. They may provide features such as waypoint creation, automatic route suggestions, and navigation alerts to enhance your overall navigation experience.
• Cautionary Notes While nautical mobile apps offer valuable resources, it’s important to exercise caution when relying solely on them for navigation. Factors such as cell phone reliability, battery life, and connectivity can impact their effectiveness. Always have backup navigation methods in place, such as paper charts and traditional navigation tools, to ensure you can navigate even if your mobile app becomes inaccessible.

By embracing technology in marine navigation, you can enhance your overall boating experience and improve your navigational capabilities. Radar systems, autopilot systems, and nautical mobile apps offer valuable tools and information that, when used appropriately, can increase your situational awareness, streamline your navigation process, and help you navigate safely and efficiently. However, always remember to complement technology with traditional navigation skills and remain vigilant to ensure a comprehensive and reliable approach to marine navigation.

Mastering sailboat navigation is a critical skill for boaters. In conclusion, mastering marine navigation is a continuous journey of learning and practice. By combining the knowledge and skills presented in this guide with hands-on experience, you can become a proficient navigator, ensuring your safety and enabling you to explore the open waters with confidence.

So, set sail, embrace the art of marine navigation, and enjoy the exhilarating adventures that await you on your boating journeys. Fair winds and safe travels!

Similar Posts

Anchoring Tips for Beginners

Are you ready to set sail on a journey to become anchoring aficionados? Anchoring a sailing yacht may seem like a simple task, but let me tell you, it’s no small feat. It requires a blend of nautical knowledge, careful planning, and a dash of luck (and a pinch of salt, if you ask any…

How to Sail Around the World on a Budget

Sailing around the world is a dream for many adventurers, but the idea of circumnavigating the globe can seem daunting, especially when considering the potential costs involved. However, with careful planning, a bit of know-how, and a willingness to live frugally, it’s possible to embark on this adventure without breaking the bank. In this article,…

Top Sailing Safety Tips for Beginner Sailors

Sailing on a yacht is a thrilling experience that allows you to explore the beauty of the open water. However, it’s important to prioritize safety when embarking on a sailing trip. Yacht safety is not only essential for the protection of those on board, but also for the boat itself. Neglecting safety protocols can lead…

13 Beginner Sailing Tips: Your Guide to Getting Started

Sailing can be an exhilarating experience, but for beginners, it can also be overwhelming. The thought of controlling a boat while being surrounded by water may seem daunting, but fear not, with the right knowledge and preparation, anyone can learn how to sail. In this article, we will share some beginner sailing tips that will…

How to conduct a safety briefing on a sailing yacht

Sailing is a thrilling and adventurous activity that requires a certain level of knowledge and skill to ensure the safety of the crew and vessel. One of the most critical aspects of sailing is conducting a safety briefing before setting sail. A safety briefing is essential to ensure that all crew members are aware of…

The 6 Points of Sail: Diagram of Wind Direction and Sail Trim

Points of sail are the different angles at which a sailboat can sail in relation to the wind. Understanding these points is crucial for anyone who wants to learn how to sail, and it’s usually taught in sailing schools. Each point has its own characteristics that determine the boat’s speed and direction. The main points…

Caribbean Sailing School & RYA Training Centre

• RYA Instructors
• Sailing Yacht
• Grenada and the Grenadines
• Testimonials
• RYA Start Yachting
• RYA Competent Crew
• RYA Day Skipper
• RYA Coastal Skipper
• RYA Yachtmaster Preparation
• RYA Yachtmaster
• Mile Building Sailing Charters
• International Certificate of Competence
• RYA Essential Navigation and Seamanship
• RYA Day Skipper Theory
• RYA Coastal Skipper Theory / Yachtmaster Offshore
• RYA Yachtmaster Ocean Theory
• RYA Specialist Short Courses
• RYA Online Theory Courses
• RYA Start Powerboating Level 1
• RYA Powerboat Handling Level 2
• Course Schedule
• How To Get To Grenada
• Useful Links
• Caribbean Charters & Regattas
• Registration Form

How To Use A Compass For Marine Navigation

www.WestMarine.com

A compass is the most crucial navigational instrument used on board a marine vessel. Learning how to use a compass to navigate is easy on one of our  learn to sail courses . From there it is just plain sailing!

Whether you are on a sailboat or a motorboat, a fixed reference is an essential aid to pointing the vessel in the planned direction. If you do not have a distinguishable reference on the horizon (or stars), then the compass is your only option.

How To Use A Compass & GPS

So why’s that important? Because where you are heading and where you are pointed are not the same thing! Current causes a sailboat to move over the ground in a direction different from that in which the boat is pointing. Even if there is no current, a yacht also carries leeway (sideways drift to leeward) which pushes the boat off course. Together, the leeway and current will cause a boat’s track to be very different from its heading. If the skipper is unaware of this fact, he could be in for a big navigational shock!

Calculating A Course To Steer Using A Compass

Credit: RYA.org.uk

What makes the compass a unique tool is it’s ability to tell you exactly which direction you are steering in. It has definitely not been made redundant by electronic devices, like GPS, but works to enhance their navigational purpose.

For example, if you compare the COG (course over ground) from the GPS to the course you steer by compass, you can detect if there is a cross current. By using simple calculations, you can find out the direction and speed of the current and plan your course to steer to offset it. The GPS cannot tell us the correct course to steer, but we may use it to check the accuracy of the compass.

Our RYA Day Skipper Theory course will teach you how to plot a course to steer and then you will get to put the plan into action on the RYA Day Skipper Practical course. SIGN UP TODAY!

• Visit Our Blog about Russia to know more about Russian sights, history
• Check out our Russian cities and regions guides
• Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to better understand Russia
• Info about getting Russian visa , the main airports , how to rent an apartment
• Our Expert answers your questions about Russia, some tips about sending flowers

Russian regions

• Altay republic
• Irkutsk oblast
• Kemerovo oblast
• Khakassia republic
• Krasnoyarsk krai
• Novosibirsk oblast
• Omsk oblast
• Tomsk oblast
• Tuva republic
• Map of Russia
• All cities and regions
• Blog about Russia
• News from Russia
• How to get a visa
• Flights to Russia
• Russian hotels
• Renting apartments
• Russian currency
• FIFA World Cup 2018
• Submit an article
• Flowers to Russia
• Ask our Expert

Tomsk city, Russia

The capital city of Tomsk oblast .

Tomsk - Overview

Tomsk is a city in Russia located in the east of Western Siberia on the banks of the Tom River, the administrative center of Tomsk Oblast.

The population of Tomsk is about 570,800 (2022), the area - 295 sq. km.

The phone code - +7 3822, the postal codes - 634000-634538.

Tomsk city flag

Tomsk city coat of arms.

Tomsk city map, Russia

Tomsk city latest news and posts from our blog:.

10 November, 2019 / Tomsk - the view from above .

History of Tomsk

Foundation of tomsk.

According to a large number of archaeological finds, people lived on the territory of today’s Tomsk long before its foundation. At the end of the 16th century, by the time the Russians began to actively explore this region, Siberian Tatars and nomadic peoples at war with them lived here.

In January 1604, a delegation headed by Toyan, the prince of the Eushta Tatars, came to Moscow to the Russian Tsar Boris Godunov with a request to accept them into Russia and to protect them from the attacks of warlike neighbors - the Yenisei Kyrgyz and Kalmyks. In response, Boris Godunov signed a charter on the construction of a town on the lands of the Eushta people on the banks of the Tom River.

In June 1604, the fortress of Tomsk was founded on the southern promontory of Voskresenskaya Mountain towering over the right bank of the Tom. Therefore, the City Day of Tomsk is celebrated on June 7th. In the fall of 1604, all construction work was completed. Tomsk became an important strategic military center. Throughout the 17th century, it protected the local population - in 1614, 1617, 1657, and 1698, the fortress repelled the raids of nomads. In 1635, the population of Tomsk was about 2 thousand people.

More Historical Facts…

Tomsk in the 18th - early 20th centuries

In the 18th century, the borders of Russia moved far to the south and east, the raids of nomads stopped, and Tomsk lost its defensive significance. In 1723, about 8.5 thousand people lived in the town. From the middle of the 18th century, due to its remoteness from the European part of the country, it was used as a place of exile. After the creation of the Siberian Route, which ran from Moscow through Tomsk, the town became an important transit trade center.

In 1804, Tomsk became the administrative center of the huge Tomsk Governorate, which included the territories of the present Republic of Altai, Altai Krai, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, and Tomsk Oblasts, East Kazakhstan Oblast (Kazakhstan), western parts of Khakassia, and Krasnoyarsk Krai. It also became the cultural and economic center of the south of Western Siberia.

From the late 1830s to the middle of the century, the population of Tomsk grew rapidly thanks to the increasing gold mining in Siberia. In 1888, Tomsk University was opened - the first university in Siberia. At the end of the 19th century, during the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, it was decided that it should go much south of Tomsk. As a result, it lost its importance as a transport hub.

By the beginning of the 20th century, over 60 thousand people lived in Tomsk. The city had electric lighting, trams, and a telephone network. By 1914, Tomsk, with a population of 114 thousand people, was among the 25 largest cities of the Russian Empire and ranked first in terms of trade turnover in Siberia.

Tomsk after 1917

After the revolutionary events of 1917, Tomsk became a center for the opposition to the Bolshevik forces in Siberia. Until the end of 1919, the city served as a place for the formation and training of units of the White Army.

The period from 1918 to 1940 was a time of relative decline in Tomsk. There was a significant outflow of the population to the fast-growing Novosibirsk and other cities located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, because Tomsk lost the status of the administrative center of the region. In 1925, Tomsk became part of Siberian Krai. In 1930, it was transformed into West Siberian Krai. In 1937, Tomsk became a city of Novosibirsk Oblast.

During the Second World War, about 30 enterprises from the European part of the USSR were evacuated to Tomsk, which became the basis of the city’s industry. During the war years, the volume of industrial production in Tomsk tripled. From 1940 to 1944, the number of residents increased from 145 to 178 thousand people. On August 13, 1944, Tomsk Oblast was formed, and Tomsk became its administrative center.

In the post-war years, new industries appeared in Tomsk - optical-mechanical, electrical, mechanical rubber. Metalworking and mechanical engineering, food and light industries grew significantly. The development of the city and the region was also largely connected with the beginning of the industrial development of oil and natural gas fields.

In 1970, Tomsk, which had a large number of preserved monuments of wooden architecture of the 19th century, was given the status of a historical city. In 1989, the population of Tomsk exceeded half a million people.

In the 1990s, in Tomsk, as in most cities in Russia, there was a decline in industrial production, especially in mechanical engineering focused on military government orders. In 2004, Tomsk celebrated its 400th anniversary.

Pictures of Tomsk

Tomsk entrance sign

Author: Tsigankov Konstantin

On the street in the historical center of Tomsk

Author: Vladimir Kharitonov

In the residential area of Tomsk

Author: Dmitry Afonin

Tomsk - Features

Tomsk is located in the very heart of Siberia, about 3.6 thousand kilometers east of Moscow, on the border of the West Siberian Plain and the spurs of the Kuznetsk Alatau on the right bank of the Tom River, 50 km from the place of its confluence with the Ob River. The city is located on the edge of a taiga natural zone.

It was named after the Tom River on which it was founded. The researchers of the 18th century derived the hydronym “Tom” from the Ket word “tom” meaning “river”. The City Day of Tomsk is celebrated on June 7.

The climate in Tomsk is continental-cyclonic (transitional from European temperate continental to Siberian sharply continental). Winter is harsh and long, the average temperature in January is minus 17.1 degrees Celsius, in July - plus 18.7 degrees Celsius.

The international airport Tomsk (Bogashevo) named after Nikolai Kamov offers regular flights to Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Surgut, Krasnoyarsk, Barnaul, Ulan-Ude, Ufa, Nizhnevartovsk, and a number of other Russian cities.

The current coat of arms of Tomsk is based on the coat of arms adopted in 1785. The silver horse was placed on the coat of arms as a sign that “the horses of this area are the best and the Tatars living nearby have stud farms”. The silver horse remains the symbol of Tomsk to this day.

Tomsk is the oldest educational and scientific center in Siberia. Today, students make up one fifth of the population of Tomsk - more than 117 thousand people.

Wooden architecture of Siberia is a bright page in the history of Russian architecture. In Tomsk, wooden architecture is original and expressive. It is here that whole groups of wooden buildings of the late 19th - early 20th centuries have been preserved. You will need at least three days to explore the large number of local attractions.

Main Attractions of Tomsk

Voskresenskaya Gora (Mountain) - the place where Tomsk was founded. Here you can see such sights of Tomsk as Beloye (White) Lake, Voskresenskaya (Resurrection) Church built in the rare Siberian Baroque style in 1789-1807, the Makushin House of Science - an architectural monument of the early 20th century, which houses the puppet theater “Skomorokh”, the Polish Church (1833). The best view of the surroundings opens from the Museum of the History of Tomsk.

Museum of the History of Tomsk . The building of this museum stands out for its unordinary architecture - a stone building crowned by a wooden observation tower, which you can climb and see Tomsk from above. Here you can find exhibitions about peasant and merchant life, a collection of porcelain, and other interesting historical and archaeological exhibits. One of the most interesting exhibits is a wooden monument to the Russian ruble - a copy of a 1 ruble coin, but 100 times larger than the original. Bakunin Street, 3.

Lagernyy Sad (Camps Garden) - a park with an area of about 40 hectares located on the right bank of the Tom River. Several thousand years ago, ancient settlements were located on this very place. The park got its name due to the fact that the summer camps of the Tomsk infantry regiment were located here in the 18th-19th centuries. Today, it is a huge green area with a large population of animals and birds.

Novo-Sobornaya Square - the central square of Tomsk. The architectural appearance of this square began to take shape in the 1840s. In 2003, the square was decorated with a fountain, in 2004 - a monument to the students of Tomsk, and in 2006— the Victory Alley memorial complex.

Tomsk Regional Museum of Local Lore - the largest museum in Tomsk Oblast with more than 140 thousand exhibits. The museum occupies an Empire style mansion of the 19th century and is dedicated to the history and culture of the Tomsk region. Among the most interesting collections are bronze items of the 5th-2nd centuries BC, old handwritten books, Russian silver coins, ceramics, furniture, personal funds of major researchers and architects. A tour of the museum can take several hours. Lenin Avenue, 75.

Tomsk Regional Art Museum . It is housed in a magnificent red brick and sandstone mansion built in 1903. This museum has an excellent collection of paintings, graphics, sculpture, arts and crafts, and icons. The exhibition includes canvases created by European painters of the 16th-21st centuries, Russian and Soviet artists of the 18th-21st centuries. Nakhanovich Lane, 3.

Architecture of Tomsk

Beautiful wooden buildings of Tomsk

Author: S. Shugarov

Wooden Lutheran Church of St. Mary in Tomsk

Church of the Resurrection in Tomsk

Museum of Wooden Architecture . The exposition of this museum is devoted to the main periods in the history of Tomsk wooden architecture. The building of the museum is an architectural monument of federal significance. The main exhibits are wooden fragments of houses (window frames, cornices, pilasters, examples of carved decor). Dozens of contemporary craftsmen showcase their talents in artistic woodworking in a separate hall. Kirov Street, 7.

The First Museum of Slavic Mythology . This museum offers a look at the origins of the Slavic religion - or rather, what was before the arrival of Orthodoxy. The museum collection is dedicated to Slavic epics, folk tales, and their heroes. Zagornaya Street, 12.

“The NKVD Investigative Prison” - a memorial museum located in the basement of the former NKVD prison. It is dedicated to the memory of people who suffered from repression during the Soviet era. The complex consists of the Square of Memory and the exhibition itself. The permanent exhibition is housed in a makeshift prison hall, cells, and the investigator’s office. The collection consists of documentary materials, photographs, handicrafts of prisoners, and their personal belongings. Lenin Avenue, 44.

Monument to Anton Chekhov - an unusual sculpture standing on the embankment of the Tom River opposite the restaurant “Slavyansky Bazar” (the oldest restaurant and one of the oldest buildings in Tomsk, Lenin Square, 10). The monument was created by sculptor L.A. Usov with voluntary donations. The master embodied the image of Chekhov “through the eyes of a drunken man lying in a ditch” according to the inscription on the pedestal. In 1890, during his visit to Sakhalin, Chekhov stayed in Tomsk for a week and found this city boring and not worthy of attention.

Monument to Happiness - one of the most original monuments of Tomsk. It is a bronze figure of a full, extremely pleased, and impudent wolf from the great Soviet cartoon “Once upon a time there was a dog”. Shevchenko Street, 19/1.

Epiphany Cathedral (1777-1784) - one of the oldest churches in Tomsk. This magnificent building constructed in the Siberian Baroque style is located in the very heart of Tomsk. Lenin Square, 7.

White Mosque (1914) - a majestic building constructed in the neo-Moorish style with stone carvings, lancet windows, and doors. Lugovoy Lane, 18.

Siberian Botanical Garden . The garden covers a huge area, more than 120 hectares. There are almost 8 thousand species of plants here including tropical and subtropical. Most of the trees, shrubs, and flowers can be found outdoors. Its grandiose greenhouse is one of the largest and highest in the world. Lenin Avenue, 34/1.

Picturesque architectural monuments of Tomsk:

• “House with Firebirds” (1890) - a fine example of wooden architecture built by the merchant Zhelyabo as a wedding gift to his daughter, an architectural monument of federal significance (Krasnoarmeyskaya st., 67/1),
• “House with Dragons” - one of the symbols of Tomsk with 7 bizarre carved dragons (Krasnoarmeyskaya Street, 68),
• “House with a Hipped Roof”, also known as the Tomsk Regional Russian-German House - an elegant mansion built at the beginning of the 20th century for the wealthy merchant G.M. Golovanov, a masterpiece of wooden architecture not only in Tomsk, but throughout Siberia (Krasnoarmeyskaya st., 71),
• The mansion of the architect S.V. Khomich (1904) - the architecture of this building is so eclectic that it rather resembles a fabulous gingerbread house (Belinsky, 19),
• Tomsk State University - this building of the oldest university in Siberia, founded in 1888, is one of the most recognizable symbols of Tomsk (Lenin Avenue, 36),
• Garrison House of Officers named after N.N. Yakovlev - a beautiful brick building with original decor (Lenin Avenue, 50),
• Tomsk City Hall (1899) - an eclectic three-story mansion built of red brick and light sandstone located in the city center (Lenin Avenue, 73),
• The estate of I.D. Astashev (1842) - a magnificent palace that once belonged to the gold miner Astashev, one of the most beautiful buildings in Tomsk (Lenin Avenue, 75).

Tomsk city of Russia photos

Tomsk views.

Tomsk Railway Station

Tomsk Regional Drama Theater

House with a Hipped Roof in Tomsk

Author: Stanislav Smakotin

Sights of Tomsk

Monument to Happiness in Tomsk

Monument to Anton Chekhov in Tomsk

Red Mosque in Tomsk

The questions of our visitors

• Currently 3.02/5

Rating: 3.0 /5 (181 votes cast)

Ultimate Guide to Nautical Chart Navigation (Plotting, Reading)

Whether you're on your dream vacation, heading out for a short weekend, or dreaming over the winter, you'll be looking at charts. Large-scale charts, small scale charts, harbor charts - what are all those symbols and how do you use them to find your way in the world?

How to read a chart, plot a course and navigate?

• In order to read a chart, you interpret longitude and latitude lines to determine your coordinates, which is your position.
• You have to understand and interpret different symbols like depth, scale, and navigation marks.
• Using these symbols, you find a safe course and plot it on the chart.
• Find the direction of this course using a compass.
• Maintain direction using the compass readings.

If you're new to navigation this can overwhelm, especially if you're looking at a crowded electronic vector chart. This guide gives you all the basics on how to read a chart and use it to plot a safe course from where you are to where you want to go.

On this page:

Navigation basics, reading a chart, using a chart - plotting a course, dead reckoning - pulling it all together, master chart navigation with one course.

A nautical chart is like a road map. It shows you the expected lay of the land and gives references for finding your way to somewhere when don't know the path.

On land you've got roads, which limit where you can drive and how much trouble you can get into. If you're on Interstate 95 and you know the next exit number, you're good for figuring out where you are and how to get where you're going. No one will put a big rock in the middle of the highway that you won't see until you hit it.

But one patch of water looks a lot like another. When you can see land it's easier to figure where you are. If you get fog or it's night time or you're far out to sea, you have nothing to make one patch of blue look any different from another. And even if you can see landmarks, they won't help you if you can't identify them. And the water may cover hazards like rocks and shoals that you need to avoid. Eyeballing a lighthouse on land won't help you miss a shoal unless you know where the shoal is relative to your boat.

A nautical chart shows things under water and describes the landmarks and references you can see. Navigation is traveling a planned course from start to finish, using the chart to avoid obstacles and hazards. To understand how to do this, you need to understand how we refer to places in the world.

Geographic Coordinates

Centuries ago cartographers devised Geographic Coordinate system to locate any place on the world. Lines of latitude range from 0° at the equator to 90° at the poles and run parallel to the equator. Lines of longitude run from the north to the south start at 0° in Greenwich, England and run to 180° West and East.

We express Geographic Coordinates as Degrees/Minutes/Seconds (e.g. 35°43"25'), or with a decimal instead of Seconds (e.g. 35°43.424). There will also be a letter at the end to designate the hemisphere. They are always in pairs, with latitude followed by longitude.

An example of a complete coordinate is:

41° 39' 48" N 071° 26' 44" W

This will be a little over 41° North of the equator, and a little more than 071° West of Greenwich, England. If a longitude is only two digits (like the example), add a zero to the front of it to avoid confusion.

With a road map, I can give you directions to that place by saying "From Post Road, take a left on King Street, then another left on Water street." But coming by water those directions are useless. Coordinates tell you where something is, then you can find it with your charts.

How to recognize latitude lines

Latitude lines will be North or South of the equator and are always parallel to each other. One minute of latitude is equal to one Nautical Mile . So every degree of latitude is always 60 nautical miles from the next. If you have two latitude positions, you can estimate how far apart they are in a north/south direction.

We'll find this very convenient later on when we're measuring distances and plotting courses.

How to recognize longitude lines

We designate lines of longitude West or East, relative to Greenwich England. For example 071° West is a line running roughly through Cape Cod on the U.S. East Coast. But 071° East is near Kabul, Afghanistan.

Because they run from the North Pole to the South Pole, lines of longitude are not always the same distance apart. Picture slicing an orange into sections - two straight cuts from the "poles" on a curved orange result in a section of peel pointy on each end and fat in the middle. You can not use longitude lines to measure distance .

Using Degrees and Math

Degrees, minutes and seconds may seem counterintuitive when you work with geographic coordinates. But it's all based on circular geometry, or "clock math." Just like an hour has sixty minutes and a minute has sixty seconds, a degree also has sixty minutes and a minute has sixty seconds. Electronic navigation tools often use decimals instead of second, but the concept is the same. Thirty seconds is half a minute (.500), forty-five seconds is .750, etc.

The only mistake you have to watch for is adding minutes and seconds. While 50 seconds plus 20 seconds equals seventy seconds, with "clock math" that's one minute and ten seconds, or 1"10' or 1.167".

Outside of latitude and longitude lines, another other key component of navigation are the earth's poles. The True North pole as a geographic location is at latitude 90° North at the very top of the planet on the axis of rotation of the earth where the longitude lines converge.

But the North pole we use for navigation with compasses, known as Magnetic North , is about 500 Km away from true north, and it drifts. When you're thousands of miles from the north pole, a compass will point to the magnetic pole, not the true north pole. This may be a difference of 15 degrees or more, and the amount of variation is different depending on where you are in the world.

This data is well tabulated and predicted, and we can make adjustments so what you plot on paper matches what you see on your compass.

This article teaches reading paper charts, since paper charts are the basis of navigation for chart plotters and electronic charts. There are variations in how electronic charts may display information, especially vector charts , but once you know paper charts e-charts are easy. We’ll take you through each part of the chart, explaining the key information needed for basic navigation. Raster charts on your plotter look just like paper charts.

How to read latitude and longitude lines

At the top and bottom of the chart, you'll see a scale of numbers for longitude. On the left and right edges of the chart, you'll find the latitude scale. At certain points on the chart, reference lines will run from north to south and east to west at fixed intervals. The corners will show you the degrees and minutes where the scale starts, though points on the scales may be marked with minutes or even seconds.

Near the edges of the chart you will often find a distance measuring scale to measure a mile, half a mile, a kilometer, and so on. As we learned already, we don’t need that since we have lines of latitude running down the sides of the chart. Every minute of latitude is one nautical mile, so every chart has a built in scale even if they don't add a separate one.

Scales, Depths, and Notes

Somewhere on the chart will be a bit of text describing in some detail what the chart is. Not all of this applies to plotting a basic route, but it's good to know things like how old the chart is.

Some critical pieces of information include:

• Scale. The chart scale will be a ratio, for example “1:25,000" or “1:500,000". With this ratio, one unit as measured on the chart equals 25,000 of the same units in the actual world. If you measure a centimeter on the chart, it's 25,000 centimeters (or 250 meters) in the real world. One inch on the chart is 25,000 inches in the world, or 2,083 feet.
• Depth soundings. Numbers will be sprinkled over all areas covered in water to show depths. Somewhere you will find the notation "Depths in UNIT" where UNIT is feet, meters, or fathoms. This is significant, make sure you understand what the soundings mean or you may end up aground. Soundings are taken for low tides, there may be water on a spot at high tide.
• Navigational Marks. Any notes on the mark system used and it will probably note the buoyage system.
• Tides and Currents. In areas with noteworthy currents and tidal swings, they may provide critical details.
• Special Marks, Notes or Considerations. Denoted with black, red or purple text, special notes may pertain to anything from fish trap locations, anchorages, military restrictions zones, or anything else which may affect navigation through the covered areas.

Compass Rose

Every chart will have a compass rose. Some may have more than one. The compass rose should have two circles, the outer denoting true north, and the inner showing magnetic north. There will also be variation data to calculate magnetic north from true, and information about the annual expected change in the position of the magnetic north pole.

We will use the compass rose later when we plot lines and courses and measure angles to determine numeric directions.

Depths and Contours

A good chart will have many depth soundings - small numbers on the bottom of the water parts of the chart. But not too many, for readability. It will also have contour lines. These lines connect soundings of the same depth to show you the relative shape of the bottom. Contour lines at ten-foot intervals, for example, will show you how the bottom shallows out or drops off. The closer the lines, the steeper the drop.

Many charts with land on them also show contour lines on land, showing hills and land structures. These are useful to determine where you are from the hills and valleys you expect to see.

Chart colorations are the reverse of what a novice might expect - shallows are blue, shading to lighter colors, then white for the deepest places on the chart. The darker the blue, the shallower the water .

Symbols, Marks and Lights

The most useful information on the chart is the various marks and symbols. Every sailor should have a copy of U.S. Chart Number 1 , the master list of all symbols, signs and objects you will see on any U.S. government chart. Some details may vary on charts from other countries, but most of the symbols and abbreviations are used on almost all English language charts. It's a great reference to learn chart reading and is available as a free download. You can also order a paper copy for your nav station.

Download the US Chart Number 1 here (pdf )

Aids to Navigation

Permanent government or private marks will be on a chart with a detailed abbreviation describing their markings and how to identify them. Most aids are showing the way around a hazard, or the way to the best navigation channels. Small scale charts without much detail may not show all marks in an area. It’s important to have detailed charts for harbor approaches and coast lines.

Aids to navigation include buoys, day marks, lights, beacons and a few less common marks. The symbols and lettering at each mark describe how you can identify them with color, shape, lighting, and light patterns.

In this example, you can find government two marks and a lighthouse.

• G "1" Fl G 2.5s means green mark,. numbered "1", with a flashing green light every 2.5 seconds.
• R "8" Fl R 4s BELL is a red mark with the number "8" and a red light that flashes every 4 seconds and a bell.
• WARWICK Oc G 4s 66Ft 12M is Warwick Light, with an occulting (mostly on) green light with a 4s cycle. It is 66ft tall and visible for 12 nautical miles.

Most of the descriptions aren't hard to puzzle out once you get the pattern down, but now and then you have to go have a look at Chart Number 1 .

A chart will also show a variety of permanent hazards and dangers. The example above shows "Round Rk" as a rock awash at low tide. You can also see "Spring Rk," "Old Pier Rk," and "Barden Rk" which do not show as being awash but are shallow enough to be notable. They should show anything which may pose a hazard. Changes since they printed the chart will not be on there. Most chart authorities produce a periodic Notice to Mariners reporting any changes.

When land shows on a chart, it may show standpipes, towers, flagpoles and other permanent structures if they may be helpful to navigation. You can sight these with a compass to get your position and use them to get your bearings. In the sample below, you can find a monument, a tower, and a chimney as visible landmarks from the water.

The Gloucester Fisherman's Memorial shown on the chart sample.

Putting it Together

You've got the latitudes and longitudes, depths, landmarks, and aids to navigation. You should be able to read the chart samples to see how you might find your exact location even without a GPS. It the sample chart above from Gloucester, MA, if you sail right to that G "9" marker near Babson Ledge, you will know exactly where you are.

Practice if you can, sitting on your boat or on shore with a chart and trying to pick out the landmarks and aids. Also try it at night.

Plotting a course from one place to another isn't complex, it's a matter of breaking the trip down to segments, or legs , each with a known course and distance and safe to navigate. When you string a series of legs between waypoints around known hazards and land masses to reach your destination, you've plotted a course.

To do this exercise, you will need a paper chart, a sharp pencil (not a pen), a parallel ruler , a set of dividers (sometimes called a "compass"), a starting point and a destination.

Learn to Plot Your First Course If you have never plotted a course before, we recommend first reading our full guide on how to plot your first course . It will walk you through the entire process step-by-step.

Laying in the Course

To plot a course, first look over the chart to see what is between your start and your destination. You can even trace a rough course with your finger, noting hazards like islands, shallows and rocks you want to avoid.

Make a mark at the start of your course, a buoy outside your marina is a common starting point. From there, pick a point in the general direction of your destination with no hazards between the start and the first mark. Placing a mark near a government aid is convenient, but do not put your mark ON the aid to navigation. For one, you don't want to hit the mark, so don't aim right at it. Second, everyone else is plotting to that mark too, and you don't want to pile up on the water if visibility gets poor.

Place your mark a little away from the government mark on the safe navigation side. With the straight edge of your parallel rule, draw a line from the starting mark to the first mark. Check the line to make sure it doesn't run over any hazards or depths shallower than your draft. If you find problems, erase the line and pick another point and repeat.

Once you have a safe first leg, find another mark on the way to your destination from the first leg. Draw another line to the new mark and check for hazards. Repeat this process for each leg until your last leg ends at your destination. Your course shouldn't run through any shallows or hazards.

When the line is complete, it still needs to be measured and marked before you know what courses you have to steer to get where you're going.

Measuring Lines and Marking Your Course

We use parallel rules to create lines with a known compass heading, or to measure the compass heading of line you drew on your chart. The compass rose is the gauge to measure and draw your lines. We will use the parallel rules and the compass rose to measure the course to steer on each leg, and the dividers to measure the length.

The Course to Steer

Take the outer edge of your parallel rule and place it along the first leg of your course. Now, pressing gently on the rule on the course to hold it in place, move the other ruler away from the line towards the compass rose. With luck, you'll reach it in the first move. Most of the time you will have to "walk" the ruler across the chart to the compass rose. The goal is to maintain the same angle on the rulers as the line you're measuring, so take it slow and smooth and don't make jerky motions. If you wiggle the rulers, start over.

Maintaining pressure on the first ruler, open the rulers toward the compass rose. When you can't move it any more, put pressure on the leg you just moved, move the other leg up until it's touching the leg you're holding down. Then put pressure on the first leg again and open the rulers towards the rose. Repeat and walk the rulers until you reach the center point of the compass rose with the outside edge.

Once the edge of the ruler is through the center of the rose, read the headings from the points on the outside of the rode. The outer circle will show numbers for the true bearing, the inner circle is for magnetic. Note the bearing on a scrap of paper.

In the center of the compass rose, you will see a measure for variance on the north line of the compass. This is the difference between true and magnetic north on the current chart. Next to that will be a year, with a number and direction. For example, it may read 18°35'E 1994 2'E . This tells you your compass will read almost 20 degrees from true, and it the variance changes two seconds every year.

In most cases you can ignore that, unless your chart is very old or the annual change is large. In 2020, the chart above has 26 x 2' = 52' of additional variance, or almost a degree change in heading. If (years ago x annual change) is less than a minute you can usually ignore it for short legs. A degree change in course on a five or ten mile leg won’t take you out of sight of your next mark. If it's significant, for East variance, you ADD the annual change to the magnetic course you recorded, otherwise subtract it.

When you have the final magnetic course measurement, write it over the course leg with a "C" for course, the course, and "M" for magnetic. If your course is less than 100° put a leading zero on it to avoid ambiguity. For example, record a 92° magnetic course as C 092M , or 273° we write as C 273M .

Leg Distance

There are several was to use dividers to measure your leg lengths, you'll figure out which works best for you and some techniques work better in some situations than others.

The easiest is, if your leg is short enough, to spread the dividers between the two points on the leg. Then move them to the latitude scale on the side of the chart and see how many minutes of latitude they spread out. That is the leg length in miles. You may have to interpolate or make a rough guess at partial seconds on large-scale charts.

Another method is to open the dividers a fixed, measured distance such as a mile. The choice depends on the length of your leg. Put one divider leg on the starting point of the leg, and the second leg on the course line. Now rotate the dividers around the second leg and put the first leg on the mark. Walk the dividers down the course line while counting how many lengths you measure, then you have the miles in the leg.

Except for the last rotation, that will be a fractional distance and the divider leg will go past the mark. Push the dividers together until the leg is on the mark, then measure on the latitude scale how long the fractional amount is.

Record the leg distance under the course like with “D” plus the length of the leg and the units you measured. A 7.8 mile leg we write as D 7.8 NM . If you use a different unit, note it. But most sailors do navigation with nautical miles.

You will want to complete these steps for each leg of the trip. I also like to record the course details and the Lat/Long of each waypoint on a separate sheet for easy reference during navigation.

Measuring and Plotting Points

To measure a point and get the geographic coordinates, find a government mark on your chart, like the "R8" in the first example chart. You can see two reference lines on that chart, one for one for longitude and one for latitude. Find the reference lines on your chart and follow them to the edge; and you will see the actual latitude or longitude.

With the divider, put one leg on the mark you picked to measure. Expand the dividers to put the other leg on the nearest latitude reference line, measuring shortest difference between the two. If you drew a line from the mark to the line, it would be perpendicular to the line so visualize that as you measure. If you rotate the dividers on the leg on the mark, the measurement will be right when it only touches the reference line in one place.

Now move your dividers to the latitude scale on the chart and put the reference line leg on the same line on the scale. Be careful not to change the divider measurement; most will be tight enough to stay fixed. The other divider leg will sit on the actual latitude reading for the mark. The scale will vary with the detail of the chart, but you should be able to record a full latitude reference from that point. If it only shows minutes or seconds, look at the top or bottom of the scale for the degrees and minutes. Write it all down.

Repeat the process with the longitude reference line. When you finish, you will have the Lat/Long coordinates of the point you measured. You don't have to do this for a manually plotted course, but it's not a bad idea on principle. And you will need to do it if you plan to enter the manual course into a GPS or chart plotter.

Want Another Course Plotting Example? If you have never plotted a course before, we recommend first reading our full guide on how to plot your first course . It will walk you through the entire process step-by-step.

Now that you can read a chart and plot a course, it's time to put this knowledge to work. Before chart plotters and the GPS, sailors navigated by dead reckoning . When old-time sailors used a sextant to get a position, they could only use it to calculate their latitude. We cannot derive longitude with celestial navigation, and few sailors knew the math to make it work, anyway.

Dead reckoning is nothing more than estimating your position on a chart using your known speed and course. There is a specific notation to record this, and techniques to refine the accuracy when you can fix a position. You need a speed log and a compass, with that you can estimate your position from a known starting point.

Note - many consider Dead Reckoning an obsolete skill in the age of the GPS. While there is some truth to this, it is an important skill to have in case you find yourself without a GPS or chart plotter. It's an excellent backup, and like plotting a course on a paper chart, it keeps you in tune with and alert about the waters you're sailing through. Electronics fail; when we're offshore we record our position hourly on paper, just in case we need to start a DR plot due to instrument failure.

Making the Basic DR Plot

Somewhere in your plotted course, you will pass known government marks or a reference that will give you an exact position fix. You can cheat and use a GPS if you must, but don't refer to it after that in this exercise.

The general process is:

• Every hour on the hour, note your speed through the water and magnetic course on a piece of paper.
• On your paper chart, find the last dead reckoning point (or known fix).
• With your parallel rules, move a line with to your magnetic course to the last known mark. This is the reverse of measuring the line. Put your parallel rules on the course through the center of the compass rose, then walk that line to your last DR mark.
• Draw a line on your course the same length as your average speed in knots from the last mark.
• Put a dot on the mark, and a half circle around the top half to show it's a DR position.
• Record the time under the DR mark and note speed and distance on the line between the points.

There are a few more specifics, but that general process will give you an estimate of roughly where you are.

If you make a course change, add a DR plot at the change. If you don't change course on the hour, you will have to do a little math. Draw the course line to the course change in the same way, but the length of the line will have to be a fraction of your boat speed. This is the number of minutes since your last DR position divided by 60 minutes. Multiply this fraction by your speed to get how many miles long the DR line needs to be at the course change.

Dead Reckoning Errors and Inaccuracy

At its best, DR plotting is a good estimation of your position. You want the best estimate you can, and there are factors which will push your DR plot away from your actual position. Do not treat dead reckoning positions as an actual fix, DR is a tool to get you to a place where you can get a better fix from an aid to navigation or a landmark for accurate navigation.

Some factors which can reduce the accuracy include:

• Current. Tidal currents may be invisible to you, but a one knot current sweeping you sideways or pushing you backwards will make your DR estimate off by a mile after an hour. If you know the currents for an area, you can correct for this by adding a vector for the current to your DR course and speed line and plotting that as the DR position. Note the correction on the plot.
• Leeway and drift. Similar to current, but leeway is sideslip in your boat. All sailboats sideslip a little, it's the nature of the forces that make a boat sail against the wind. The heading on your compass will not fully match your forward progress as your boat slips a little away from the wind.
• Variable Speeds. The best you can do for your estimates is the average speed of your boat over an hour. If the wind is variable this may be difficult to figure. Do your best, but if you have a big lull for half an hour, think before using the full boat speed if the wind picks up before you record your DR.
• Compass Deviation. Metal objects on a boat can affect a compass heading. The effects vary with the direction the boat is heading. Imagine a compass with a magnet a foot away. The compass will point mostly north, but a little towards the magnet. Now move the magnet in a circle around the compass; the readings will change slightly but still stay mostly north. On your boat, the magnetic interferences will change as the boat sails in different directions. A profession can “swing” a compas and give you a deviation card for your boat. You use this to build the known deviation into your courses to eliminate this inaccuracy. Most electronic compasses calculate deviation during calibation, consult your manuals and calibrate if you aren’t sure if your compass is calibrated.

Correcting the DR Position

The longer you sail on dead reckoning, the more inaccurate your estimated position will be. If you're sailing near shore, you can correct this by fixing your position, or getting a known position to correct your DR plot and start plotting from the new accurate position.

A simple way to fix your position is to sail near a mark on your chart. For coastal navigation, you've likely plotted your course relative to government marks because they are convenient. This is to give you a periodic fix as you pass waypoints on your course. When you come close to the mark, record your position with the time, and circle the position dot to show it's a "fix" and a good known position.

Another fix technique needs at least two visible landmarks or aids to navigation you can identify, and a hand bearing compass. To start, take a bearing on the first point and record it. As quickly as you can, record a bearing to the second mark. If you have time, repeat the bearings. You want to hurry because the boat is moving and the more time between bearings, the greater the error.

Find each mark you took bearings for on your paper chart, then take your parallel rules and draw a line from each mark on the sighted heading. The marks should intersect, and the intersection is your rough position. If you took multiple bearings, you can draw more lines to get a sense of the uncertainty introduced by your boat speed. Circle the intersection and note the time, then use this as the basis for your next DR plot. This is less accurate than finding a mark, but will let you correct your DR plot for accuracy. There are several other techniques such as the running fix and more complex uses of a compass, landmarks, and math that are outside the scope of this guide.

Dead Reckoning and the GPS

GPS navigation makes all this DR plotting seem like a lot of unnecessary work. That doesn't mean it's not worth learning and doing. On coastal cruises it keeps us tuned in to the sailing, though we also record GPS fixes on shorter legs and at course changes.

It is important that sailors understand not only how to push the right buttons on the chart plotter, but how navigation works. Not that we're expecting a calamity that will take down your electronics or make the GPS system unreliable, but it can and has happened.

Electronic navigation makes all of this very simple, but it's good to know how to find your way without it.

When you're ready to master chart navigation, I recommend you check out the Coastal Navigation course at our partner NauticEd. It is quite excellent. They cover chart navigation in-depth and will guide you through multiple quality exercises to make sure you really practice your new skills. It is really affordable as well.

You'll leave Coastal Navigation Clinic with an understanding of:

• The Charts and how to use navigation tools
• True north and magnetic north - and variation and deviation
• Determining your position using various techniques such as dead reckoning, running fixes and triangulation
• What to do with your GPS position to get you to your destination
• Set and drift from wind, tides and current
• How to simply determine your heading based on Set and Drift

Check out NauticEd's Navigation Clinic now .

Hi Anybody can help and tell me how to find a one to one tutor to teach navagstion plotting?

Hi Alan, you can find a great course on navigation at NauticEd. I’ll email you the link.

Thanks for this article! I found it helpful and easy to understand. In the section “Dead Reckoning - Pulling it all Together” you wrote, “we cannot derive longitude with celestial navigation”. A method using lunar distances to find longitude first started being used in 1763: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_distance_(navigation )

Leave a comment

Find anything you save across the site in your account

MJ Lenderman Keeps It Raw

On a steamy afternoon in the middle of June, I met the twenty-five-year-old singer and guitarist MJ Lenderman for beers at Old Town Bar, a dim and unfussy Manhattan tavern that’s been in more or less continuous operation since 1892. Though Old Town is revered for its turn-of-the-century atmosphere—the fifty-foot mahogany bar, the rickety dumbwaiter ferrying hot frankfurters from kitchen to dining room, the majestic bank of porcelain urinals that Pete Wells, a longtime restaurant critic for the Times , once described as “so grand they turn the act of urinating into something sacramental”—it has largely escaped the type of broad canonization that attracts throngs of tourists. Instead, it remains the sort of joint where a person can stagger in, swig a whiskey, grouse to the barkeep, and reëmerge onto the street thirty minutes later, dizzy but cleansed. (The bar’s most public-facing moment was in 1992, when the rap trio House of Pain filmed the video for its single “Jump Around” in the dining room—the d.j. scratched from the men’s toilet.) Lenderman and I grabbed a high-backed wooden booth.

This month, Lenderman will release “Manning Fireworks,” his fifth album in five years. He is often described—accurately—as the next great hope for indie rock, or however one might now refer to scrappy, dissonant, guitar-based music that’s unconcerned, both sonically and spiritually, with whatever is steering the Zeitgeist. “Manning Fireworks” could have been released in 1975, or 1994, or 2003, but that is not to say it’s deliberately nostalgic; Lenderman is simply making the kind of warm and astringent rock and roll that has felt untethered from time since 1968, when Neil Young released his self-titled début.

In conversation, Lenderman is low-key, affable, and bright. He’s tall and lanky, with a halo of messy brown hair, and often dresses in a T-shirt and jeans. We ordered a round and began discussing the unsung art of assembling a tour rider, the list of faintly desperate culinary requests submitted to a venue in advance of a show. “There’s gonna be a hummus plate on there—that’ll happen,” Lenderman said, laughing. “I don’t think you even have to ask for that. We usually get a box of leafy greens—I’ll do fistfuls. We had this idea recently that we were gonna start asking for a rotisserie chicken.” An inspired choice, I offered—high-protein, cheap, easy to cram into a mini-fridge. He shook his head. A mistake. “Apparently, they shop for the rider the night before, so we’re looking at day-old.”

Lenderman was born in Asheville, North Carolina, an arty and historic town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and he’s lived there for most of his life. (“Manning Fireworks” was recorded in Asheville, at Drop of Sun Studios.) He started learning the guitar when he was about seven or eight, but music has always been omnipresent in his life: his father played the guitar, his mother the clarinet, and his three sisters sang. Lenderman’s paternal great-grandfather was the jazz musician and bandleader Charlie Ventura, whom DownBeat magazine declared the best tenor saxophonist of 1945. “He played with Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich. He was decently famous in the bebop world,” Lenderman said. In 1949, Ventura briefly hired a young Charlie Parker to play alto sax in his band. A concert listing in this magazine attempted to capture the fury of their sound, at the jazz club Royal Roost: “Here you’ll find lovers of bebop trembling like aspen leaves as they listen to Billy Eckstine and the bands of Charlie Ventura and Charlie Parker, who perform in a milieu that suggests the sprint hour at the six-day bike races.” Lenderman isn’t much of a bebop guy (“I don’t really listen to it—I haven’t tried,” he said), and his guitar playing suggests more of a long, downhill coast, no hands. But there’s a through line of wildness in both discographies. I told Lenderman that I responded in an instinctive way to the laxness of his work, so anomalous in an era in which technology makes it easy to defang, neuter, smooth. “I definitely think about that,” Lenderman said. “A lot of the stuff that has really resonated with me throughout my life is that way. I’ve just always liked that sound. It feels real to me.”

Lenderman self-released his first album, in 2019, when he was twenty years old and scooping ice cream at a shop in Asheville. “I quit, expecting to probably have to figure something else out, but then I just kept touring, and for the most part I haven’t had to work since,” he said. In 2022, Lenderman released the rowdy and sardonic album “Boat Songs.” On “You Have Bought Yourself a Boat,” he skewers upward mobility, briefly affecting a kind of seething Gen X disdain:

It’s plain to me to see You have bought yourself a boat Since the last time you and me spoke Your laundry looks so pretty.

On “Hangover Game,” another highlight from “Boat Songs,” Lenderman sings about Michael Jordan’s performance with the Chicago Bulls in Game Five of the 1997 N.B.A. Finals, during which Jordan was reportedly suffering from food poisoning brought on by a gnarly late-night pizza. (“This was a heroic effort, one to add to the collection of efforts that make up his legend,” Phil Jackson, the Bulls’ coach, later said of the incident.) Through the years, rumors have circulated regarding Jordan’s behavior the night before the game: Was he, in fact, partying at Robert Redford’s chalet in the mountains of Utah? Had he flown on a private jet to Las Vegas to gamble? Over squealing guitar, Lenderman offers his take (“Remember that I am no detective,” he said at the time):

He looked so sick It was all over the news But it wasn’t the pizza And it wasn’t the flu Yeah, I love drinking, too.

“Boat Songs” brought Lenderman renown, landing on best-of-the-year lists at Pitchfork and Rolling Stone . In 2023, Lenderman signed to ANTI- Records and put out a live album, “And the Wind (Live and Loose!),” culled from two club shows he’d played that summer. Live albums are not as common as they once were (about fifty were released in 2023, compared with something like a hundred and forty-five in 1989), and they’re even more unusual to see from younger, non-legacy artists. Yet it felt right to capture the squall. “When ‘Boat Songs’ was made, I was, like, ‘I’m really buttoned up here!’ ” he said. Spontaneity—a lighthearted kind of recklessness—feels crucial to Lenderman’s vision. I asked him if it is possible to write that looseness into his work, or if it simply has to emerge in the performance. “Every time I sit down to write, it’s like starting from scratch again,” he said. “I have journals full of all sorts of disconnected stuff. I’ll fall out of phase with it sometimes, but I try to write every day. The hardest part is revisiting it and having to interact with my own bullshit.” He paused. “Sometimes I surprise myself.”

Many of the songs on “Manning Fireworks” feature a narrator in the throes of a dire existential or emotional crisis—a series of rock bottoms. I wondered if Lenderman was especially drawn to the rhetorical potential (or at least the grim humor) of moments in which it appears as though things simply cannot get worse. When the stakes are that low, everything is possible. (“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” as Janis Joplin famously sang.) Lenderman’s antiheroes are bored, dissatisfied, self-aware, and down bad. “I think it’s funny when people are put in a real situation, exposing them to who they really are,” he said. “A lot of the books I like to read—Harry Crews, Larry Brown—deal with the same stuff.” On the song “Joker Lips,” over guitar and mellotron, he sings,

Please don’t ask how I’m doing Draining cum from hotel showers Hoping for the hours To pass a little faster.

Lenderman’s wry lyrics and arch delivery recall both the Kentucky musician Will Oldham and the poet and songwriter David Berman, two titans of nineties indie rock—each signed to the label Drag City—who perfected a deadpan tenderness. “Will Oldham’s music blew open some doors for me. Certain things he’d sing shocked me,” Lenderman said. “I was, like, ‘You can do that? It doesn’t have to be so serious?’ Those two, in particular, really opened me up to how important words can be in songs.”

In Lenderman’s lyrics, humor and pathos are inextricably linked: “We sat under a half-mast McDonald’s flag,” he recalls on “You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In,” a breakup song that’s equal parts devastating and droll. The line always kills me. Lenderman is hyperaware of the ways in which the modern American landscape can feel absurd, especially to a person whose heart is open. Still, the album is not without moments of earnestness and sorrow, and several songs on “Manning Fireworks” suggest the excruciating dissolution of a relationship. On “Bark at the Moon,” a ten-minute, droning lament that closes the album, Lenderman’s nasal, crackling voice sounds especially yearning: “SOS / I took off on a bender / You took off on a jet.” He lets out an “Awooo!” that suggests Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” a canny reference in a song that already shares a title with an Ozzy Osbourne track about werewolves. (“That was a little joke,” Lenderman said.)

Link copied

Recently, Lenderman and his then girlfriend, the musician Karly Hartzman, moved together to Greensboro, a couple of hours northeast of Asheville. “I guess I should mention me and Karly broke up,” Lenderman said. “We moved to Greensboro together, still, after that happened. We already had the plan,” he said, shrugging. “I’m gonna move out pretty soon, but I’ll probably stay close to that area, maybe more toward Durham.” Lenderman and Hartzman are both members of Wednesday, a burly and vulnerable ensemble that Pitchfork once called “one of the best indie-rock bands around.” The group’s most recent album, “Rat Saw God,” is both feral and perceptive. Hartzman’s lyrics remind me of the Mississippi novelist Barry Hannah’s writing; Hartzman’s, too, is granular and true, awake to the goriness of life in a small Southern town. (Musically, Wednesday falls somewhere between the country rumbling of the Drive-By Truckers and the melodic squeal of early Dinosaur Jr.) Hartzman started the group, but Lenderman has been a member since 2019. The breakup was amicable, as far as these things go. “I’m still in the band,” Lenderman said. When I asked if working together had been a sizable stress on their relationship, he thought about it for a moment. “We experienced a lot of stuff together that nobody else can understand. My bandmates have partners at home, and that causes its own tensions.”

Earlier this year, Lenderman was featured prominently on Waxahatchee’s “Right Back to It,” a song about feeling skittish and flickery in a relationship but trying to hold steady. It’s a gorgeous, complicated tune—my favorite of 2024 so far. When listening to Lenderman and Katie Crutchfield, the musician behind Waxahatchee, harmonize on the chorus (“I let my mind run wild / I don’t know why I do it”), I often feel as if my feet have briefly lifted off the ground. Though Lenderman never belts, his voice can carry a surprising amount of feeling. On “Wristwatch,” one of the best songs from “Manning Fireworks,” he imbues clever lyrics with real, modern heartache:

I’ve got a beach home up in Buffalo And a wristwatch that’s a compass and a cell phone. . . . I’ve got a houseboat docked at the Himbo Dome And a wristwatch that’s a pocketknife and a megaphone And a wristwatch that tells me I’m on my own.

He spent a lot of time getting the vocals right. “That was one of the benefits of doing it over a bunch of short sessions, over the span of a year. I could listen to mixes and be intentional about that kind of thing. Enunciation, tonal stuff, singing through my head instead of somewhere else. A few songs are more acoustic-based, and those were done pretty live,” he said. “ ‘You Don’t Know the Shape I’m In’ was guitar, vocals, drums, and upright bass, all in the room together. I’d never gotten to do vocals as part of the live recording before.”

I asked Lenderman if he ever found all the attention of the last couple of years—the sudden but fervent acclaim for both “Boat Songs” and “Rat Saw God”—paralyzing. “Yeah, for sure,” he said. “But I think I’ve grown a lot.” He recently abandoned all social media. “Now I don’t see what people say about my music. Part of it was that if someone says something bad that obviously doesn’t feel great. But if someone says something good about me then it’s, like, ‘O.K., well, they’re dumb,’ ” he said. “That’s not a great way to be thinking about it.” He occasionally still lurks on X, but Instagram was easy to quit. “I would waste six hours a day watching Reels. No joke. I was hate-watching stuff, so my algorithm was so twisted,” he said, laughing. “Bad music, bad everything. I was in a lot of group chats with friends who were sending pretty cursed job-site footage. Disgusting stuff.” He added, “Most people that I need to talk to have my number.”

As we closed out our tab, I asked Lenderman what he wanted from the future. “That’s a good question,” he said. “I don’t really know. I’m not interested in growing so much. I want to be financially stable as a musician but also have a second to chill and collect my thoughts.” He considered it a little more. “I guess I want to keep getting better.” The idea reminded me of a line from “She’s Leaving You,” in which Lenderman, his voice burlier than usual, sings of moving forward. It’s one of the new album’s most memorable refrains: “It falls apart / We all got work to do.” ♦

New Yorker Favorites

An Oscar-winning filmmaker takes on the Church of Scientology .

Wendy Wasserstein on the baby who arrived too soon .

The young stowaways thrown overboard at sea .

As he rose in politics, Robert Moses discovered that decisions about New York City’s future would not be based on democracy .

The Muslim tamale king of the Old West .

Fiction by Jamaica Kincaid: “ Girl .”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .