The natural Navigation: The Right Course, Naturally

Trying to be positive when there have only been a brace of sunbeams all August so far, I have been tinkering with the overcast shadow method. The theory being that plenty of light filters through the overcast clouds and that a thin blade can be used to average the source of this light, ie. the sun. It is better than nothing, sometimes, but it is important to be aware that the shadow will be thrown opposite the brightest light and there are no guarantees that this is where the sun is. Uneven cloud or tree cover are just two of the things that can throw it completely.

This morning, as our Land Rover rolled onto the Brittany ferry, or MV Bretagne as she likes to be called, I had a cunning plan. I would use the pretence of work to escape the mayhem that was sure to ensue on our return from our summer holiday. While our young boys tried and generally succeeded to convince their mum that two hours of singing clowns and suspect magic were preferable to another game of ‘destroy the duty free shop and then pillage the canteen’, I would slip out onto the deck with a notepad and pen.

The wind was SSW about force 5. The speed of the ferry meant that the difference between true and apparent wind was stark and varied significantly depending on whether you stood in the slipstream or behind a break of some sort. The waves, however, did not succumb to such vagaries and marched obediently…

Read More...

Early this evening Mrs G and I escaped for a quick wander aboard Golden Eye, my Contessa 32, in Chichester Harbour. One of the lovely things about the harbour is that when time is short or wind is in short supply it is possible to enjoy a potter on the water that is more akin to a gentle river cruise than a sail.

The 20hp diesel pushed us gently west into a low sun. A moon that was a day off first quarter hung to our left and the line down its midriff, the line between light and dark, pointed neatly down to south on the horizon. There was a gentle breeze. It was forecasted to be from the south-west and obliged by making its way dutifully towards us over the harbour water from between the sun and the moon.