Sailing offers an alternative to get away from the bustle of city traffic, and helps you relax and calm your mind. You can glide along in relative silence, quietly caressing the waves, where the sound and motion of water can take stress out of you.
As a learner, you would need to choose one of the three techniques of sailing navigation – conning, celestial navigation, and electronic navigation. A brief description of all the three is given below.
Conning - If you need to learn cruising in familiar home waters, you need acquire navigation skill called ‘conning’. Conning is also termed "eyeball & seat of the pants navigation", since you make most decisions with respect to local knowledge, and with minimal or no reference to charts and other helping guides.
You will need to rely on your experience and extensive local knowledge. As soon as you intend to venture a little further away from familiar home waters, you will need to develop a more involved set of navigation skills known as piloting, or coastal navigation.
Celestial Navigation – If you are a star gazer, and would want to be the types of navigators like Columbus and Charles Darwin to navigate using stars as the map and guide, then, you may require investing your time and money in learning the art and science of celestial navigation. The aim is to learn the art of safe navigation while using the minimum of resources – understand the methods that have been in use since Middle Ages.
Electronic Navigation - Today, electronic navigation systems provide easy and safe navigation to sailors. Most of the boats are fitted with systems such as GPs and Electronic charts. As a navigator, you will need to understand the principles and operation of all electronic navigation systems currently in use by crafts such as GPs, DGPS, Loran, Electronic Charts, Depth Sounders, and Knotmeters.
You would need to learn important navigational elements and terms such as position, distance, direction, and time. Familiarize yourself with other terms such as piloting, dead reckoning, knot, bearing, and heading.
Learning how to navigate could be slightly difficult at first. It becomes easier once you get the hang of it. You will become knowledgeable as you gain enough sailing navigation experience.
Getting a hold on the art of sailing navigation provides a sense of accomplishment to have harnessed the power of nature, you can drop anchor anytime, enjoy the scene, the smell, and the sea.
|
|