years ago, I had an handheld VHF that I jamed in my foul weather gear while we were stuck in a channel.

The visibility went down to less than 50' of useful distance. I was looking while trying to keep my heading. I had a sense that we were turning. I though it was the wind shifting, but it seemed wrong. I turned the wheel, the compass didn't move at all.

I move back to turn and look over my shoulder, as soon as I got a foot farther from the binnacle compass, it showed we had turned.

This was before we had chart plotters at the helm.

It was one of those moments where if I had just stared at the compass, we would have gone aground in channel that went from 10' to 18" with little warning.

It wouldn't have the the end of the world, but it would have been pretty nasty with the wind pushing us onto a shelf with all that rain and chop.