Cruising Sailors Forum Archive

Crew on deck on those boats don't need to see position data

They are not short tacking up Narragansett Bay. 99% of the time, a data screen would show a blue sea background and a boat icon.
They have a navigator to give them optimum heading, etc. Helmsman and crew are intent on best course and trim.
I'll bring up Bermuda again.
I bet nobody today collides with Bermuda because they don't know it's there. And Bermuda is a lot smaller than that pile of coral in the Indian Ocean. People are AWARE of Bermuda. (Whoever discovered it wasn't, and would have had a very rude awakening were it not for lookouts -- and a boat traveling at maybe 5 or 6 knots . . .)
The navigator on Vestas was not AWARE of the danger. And by the time the depthsounder showed 40 meters, they probably didn't have time, at 18 knots, to avoid it.

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