You are probably on the vanguard of this topic, and probably stealing active captn's future thunder! Would you venture to say that a compass is the 4th most dangerous thing on a boat?

I guess you are right, though. I can't say that we have used our fixed compass for actual navigation in many years, although it is used all the time to simply glance at when the electronics are shut off or to guestimate a rough bearing to something while underway. For that matter, we rarely use any of the 5 electronic compasses in front of us and take most necessary bearings off the chart plotter/radar by placing a cursor over it.

However, the electronic representations of compasses in our instruments are really only good for straight-ahead bearing - they provide no feel for relative bearing in 360* like a mechanical one.

On the other hand, I have had to remove/replace that compass many times over the years to access the steering, wiring, etc behind it. It has also gone through a lightning strike and has had completely different instruments installed around it since original calibration. So I have no confidence that it is still swung correctly and probably could be off 5-10* in some directions.

I guess its only real importance to us would be if we lost the autopilot and electronics and needed to hand steer on a starless night or in fog. This is very difficult for us without some reference point, particularly off the wind.

We do have 3 hand-bearing compasses on board (2 of them electronic, for those enjoying shaking their heads at us!).

Mark