What will Happen to you when GPS goes Down

[s/v Jedi]

I guess all the RDF beacons have ceased operating?

I even used a RDF with the handle that turned the antenna on top.

[Bowdrie]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I even used a RDF with the handle that turned the antenna on top.

Yep, me too.
My last RDF was a "Sailor" model, the one in which a portable antenna could be clipped on to a hand bearing compass.
It was a nice little unit, I used it along with a Magnavox Sat-Nav.
Of course there was a Zenith Transoceanic radio on board also.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Bowdrie

Yep, me too.
My last RDF was a "Sailor" model, the one in which a portable antenna could be clipped on to a hand bearing compass.
It was a nice little unit, I used it along with a Magnavox Sat-Nav.
Of course there was a Zenith Transoceanic radio on board also.

Exactly. I also had their VHF with the large mechanical dial… one or two crystals for each channel for half/full duplex and the matching MF/HF unit. There was a whole wall of green boxes lol

[boatman61]

Pilot charts, compass and dead reckoning for oceans and charts with old fashioned navigation for coastal.

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Pilot charts, compass and dead reckoning for oceans and charts with old fashioned navigation for coastal.

I remember crossing between Lowestoft and Ijmuiden. You simply steered straight East or West. The tides would set you to the North like crazy, then turn and set you to the south like crazy, and yet after a 100nm crossing you end up within a nm or so of where you want to go. Just a compass.

[senormechanico]

I remember sailing around in the San Juans in Washington State before GPS.
People (in medium to small power boats especially) would come into an anchorage and blithely ask, "Where are we?"
They had absolutely NO IDEA about navigation.

[MicHughV]

This reminds me of a couple I met several hundred miles offshore.

I was headed for Bermuda, when I spied a sail on the horizon and soon determined it was heading my way.

Sure enough, about 30 minutes later, a smallish sloop pulls along side me, maybe 26' in length. Aboard was an elderly couple, myself and shipmates questimated to be in their 80's. They were both brown as berries and naked as the day they were born.

They asked me for "directions" to Bermuda, I sweah, I'm not making this up. Their only, and I mean "only" navigation tool that they had onboard was a schoolboy atlas.
We learned that they had left from Key West some two weeks ago, headed for Bermuda.

I gave them a lat/long fix, a compass bearing and pointed my hand to the horizon. "go thataway" I told them.

They required nothing else, thanked me and started their engine and were soon a blip on the horizon.

I pulled into St. George's a few days later and kept an eye out for them, but never saw them, but they could have been anywhere there.

So see....a schoolboy atlas is all you need

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

I remember crossing between Lowestoft and Ijmuiden. You simply steered straight East or West. The tides would set you to the North like crazy, then turn and set you to the south like crazy, and yet after a 100nm crossing you end up within a nm or so of where you want to go. Just a compass.

Yeah.. its pretty much the same for Poole to Cherbourg...