Passage without Charts or GPS at all.

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by David_Old_Jersey

My bet is that a lot of Polynesians didn't arrive,

Of course. They were trying to paddle from one Hawaiian island to another and ended up spalttered across the Pacific to New Zealand.

[roger.waite]

No problem as long as coasts are not too complex, and I can pick a relatively safe time & route. Lack of compass adds stress, but I know distances, terrain and contours around major points and islands. Offshore, can steer OK by day as long as I have a watch. But I would be looking for good vis and some high hills to make landfall.

Happily do it ... if mutinous crew set me adrift like Captain Bligh!

'Tis a great exercise. Another reminder to treat crew REALLY well.

[capngeo]

Pretty safe bet given the right venue. As a kid ( before even LORAN C) we used to run off 30-50 miles fish all day and come back in the evening BUT the west coast of Florida was hard to miss... Now aiming for a small island? No thanks!

[sneuman]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Comments welcome

I think the answer is in creativity. If we take all Nav things away and look from the boat with a totally blank mind at the situation we come up with creative ideas to solve the problems.

We all agree we could do it.

Slocumb did it after the famously cuddly goat ate the charts and Slocum made landfall of Tobago, Trinidad and then stopped in Grenada, Dominica and Antigua all without the chomped chart. But he doesn’t say anything about any difficulty in navigating there. Further he says he had only sailed the area in his youth. So it can’t be toooooo hard.

I also remembered Steve Callahan in Adrift saying he made a sextant from paper and a pencil – but I could never work out what the use would be when he was unable to make way. He just drifted.

So the scenario of a passage in pretty well known, to us, waters comes back to a few more basic ideas that we will creatively figure out as we go along, if and only if, we have the confidence in ourselves to do it.

It gets a little more difficult when as James says there isn’t any land and trying to stop in some water filled blob in the ocean within 2 or 3 miles after 100 traveled. That I couldn’t do. But we wouldn’t be 180 degrees off the course either.

Eric mentioned the wave patterns used by the old Polynesians (I say that because none seemed to remember how when I was there!), SNeuman with intimate knowledge; Unicorn Dreams about the cloud effects over islands; David with the mental map which I would draw; Zashin with aiming off like pilots did, and calculating exact tacks to keep course; KJ and Hannah with stars that they know; Surveyor with a hand made compass and given what boat junk we have could we all pop a wine bottle for its cork and magnetise a needle in the galley sink? As Atoll says some areas are easier just count the islands day or night and then turn; Boasun with more on (Bosun) birds; Conachair brings up when its eaiser to navigate a particular area day or night so the trip might have to be much longer but time is immaterial; Jesse and Phil with the obvious that as soon as boat work forces people to do without they just learned to remember, or learn to judge.

All great ideas useful in peoples own areas and Capttman says for everyone watch ships because we basically know where they often are going. I'f we don't we will quickly be wondering.

We could. That’s great that we know we have the ability in an emergency. Then here’s the next part: Would. That’s where everyone has said NO! Even Jack who undoubtedly can. I think it would be a great exercise for those that know they could. Obviously setting out to do it we would have the emergency, OK I’m lost, back ups, maybe a friend sitting below with a plotter – he’d be damn bored!

Even James’ idea of just doing it at sea and seeing how far off we are in 100 miles.

One day I will do it. The passage will no doubt take longer than normal and I might even have to stay awake now and again but I am fairly sure I can do it and do it safely. I just as sure we all can. Perhaps we all should?


Who wants to come with me?


Mark

In the case of Slocum, he was doing solo what he had done as captain of a crewed vessel many times before. That's got to count for something, at least at the landfall stage.

As for Callahan, I think if nothing else, you'd want to know approximately where you are. After all, morale made a big difference for him and having no idea where one is would probably have been a real morale killer.

Re: would? I would love to do an extended passage without looking at the GPS, in fact it's on my to-do list, because a) I'd like to put my celestial to the test and see if my skills are up to scratch and b) I'd like to see what it was like not too long ago.

Would I be able to not look at the GPS? I have often wondered.

[bewitched]

Some waters would be more dificult than others. My local Hong Kong waters would be fairly easy. If i'm in yellow water, i'm in the river delta and therefore south of Hong Kong. If the wave length is settled (ish - difficult to describe, but I know what it looks like), then I'm off the shelf and therefore 100 miles + east of Hong Hong. So if I'm appoaching from the south I stay off the shelf, cross the yellow bit, when it goes blue again and is full of plastic, turn left (that's where the sun went down).

If in the conundrum, we are permitted to use other clues, It would be even easier. China (to the north) fishing boats are very different to Macau (to the south) fishing boats. Which are different again to Hong Kong fishing boats. So just by looking at the boats around me i'd be fairly confident of my lattitude.

Oh, and then there's the steady stream of container ships and planes heading to HK at 10 min intervals.........

But to treat the subject a bit more seriously, I don't think I would have too much of a problem crossing the South China Sea to the Philippines (500ish miles) using only my eyes to observe wind and wave direction, the stars and the passage of the sun / moon and no other information. I don't think I'd arrive exactly where I wanted, but I don't think I'd be in any great danger at any time.

Would be fun to try one time, just to see the result.

[captain58sailin]

When I was young, this very idea was one of the things I wanted to do when I got my own honest to god ocean crossing vessel. I still want to do it, only not just for 100 nm. lets cross from Sanfrancisco to Hawaii, if you miss you just sail on for a few more days and eventually you will hit the edge somewhere. They say you can use the jet contrails to find Hawaii from the west coast. I have always had a fascination with the navigators of the islands that could cross the oceans. When I finish my refit Mark sign me up!

[captain58sailin]

As Capt. Ron would say "If we get lost we can always pull in and ask directions."

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by bewitched

I stay off the shelf, cross the yellow bit, when it goes blue again and is full of plastic, turn left

Priceless

Love the different colour fishing boats! The Med could do similar, but over a wider area.

Yea, the 500nm voyage would be a good one

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

They say you can use the jet contrails to find Hawaii from the west coast. !

When I did the Atlantic late last year I was well south and heading to St Martin and hadn't see any aircraft ofr most of the trip.
I wondered about the Contrail stuff and having a look at Google Earth decided the first place planes would cross would be on a line from London to Barbados. So I put a Red line on Google Earth. A week or 2 later I saw a plane right on that flight path!