I've been using Standard Horizon plotters for quite a few years. I have turned that grounding alarm on at times when in areas unknown to me. It is a very handy function, on the other hand it is annoying if configured incorrectly. I reckon that 98% of the people that have electronic navigation devices use less than 1/2 of the functions built in. Having stood in front of many nav screens, it is apparent that once I start showing the features, most people get this sort of deer in the headlight look, essentially totally overwhelmed.

Certainly that look is not applicable to the Team Vestus Nav guessers but reality reeks. If you are tired/stressed one makes mistakes. I think I am in the minority when I say I can easily see the mistakes they made happening to any body. Myself included. I have come very close a few times to critical grounding situations and only through Neptunes good graces do I not have a story to tell.

When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident... or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort. - E. J. Smith, 1907