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I
take boating safety pretty seriously. I think for me personally, the
allure of boating is the way it offers me a chance to be self-reliant
while I'm escaping the asphalt and concrete jungles where I must be in
order to make my living. I love being on the water, but I also
respect it and don't take it for granted. While most of my boating
is done on inland lakes right now, I still understand that at any time it
may be possible for the safety of myself and those I love to be placed
squarely in my own hands.
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| A little bit of preparation goes a long
way in this area, and we've put this section of the site together to help
you prepare yourself for whatever type of boating you're involved
in.
In the course
of a typical summer, I spend a great deal of time involved with navigation using the
Global Positioning System (GPS). At times I'm using my handheld Magellan 2000XL to
teach attendees at Hummercamp how
to navigate, while other times I'm navigating my 24' Chaparral Signature Cruiser through
such places as Lake Powell and Flaming Gorge. I've had a few opportunities to really
use the GPS unit as more than just a fancy speedometer and as a result am glad I've taken
the time to familiarize myself with it's operation.
An experience a few summers ago left me once again glad I had done my homework.
I had taken my boat up to Flaming Gorge with my best friend and my two daughters,
aged 2 and 4. The first day on the lake was pretty fair weather, but we woke the
next morning to fully overcast skies full of heavy, brooding, dark clouds. By the time
breakfast was underway, the clouds were starting to spit small spatters of rain and by the
time we were finished with our pancakes the rain had changed to heavy, wet, silver-dollar
sized snowflakes. The visibility dropped to less than a quarter of a mile as we
started to slowly motor back up the channel in search of the boat ramp.
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Out of habit, I had programmed a landmark, sometimes
referred to as a waypoint, into my GPS at the point where we unloaded the boat at the
ramp. On the way down the channel, we had navigated through Horseshoe Canyon, but in
order to make better time going back we decided to bypass the canyon and instead navigate
through a narrow, shallow passage that would shave a considerable amount of time off the
trip. As we motored along, the snow continued to fall haevier and heavier. At
times, I had almost zero visibility. Once through the narrow gap, we had to rely
entirely on the GPS to guide us back to within sight of the boat ramp.
While I was never really at any risk of getting
hopelessly lost, I did find comfort in knowing that I had my GPS along to guide the way
for me. You should take some time to learn some navigation skills, even if you never
expect to be out on the ocean of a large body of water. |
It's also important to note that former President Clinton announced (without much
fanfare) that the Selective Availability (SA) is now turned off of the GPS
system. If you're not familiar with what SA is, it's basically an
artificially introduced position error that civilian GPS units have been
receiving since the system became active. While GPS positioning in
and of itself is very accurate, up until now, civilian users have been
unable to get the kind of precise positioning as military units got.
But now, with SA turned off, civilian GPS receivers can now pinpoint
positions just as accurately as Military models do. We just found an
excellent book on GPS Navigation, it's called " USING GPS
" and
you can purchase it online right now. If you just want to learn more
about Boating Navigation in general, you may want to get yourself a copy
of " BOAT NAVIGATION FOR THE REST OF US; FINDING YOUR WAY BY EYE AND ELECTRONICS
". This is a great
book that breaks boat navigation into a simple, easy to understand
process. Definitely a must read for the beginning boater.
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| The U.S. Coast Guard has devoted a significant amount of our taxpayer dollars to
developing courses and online information to make us safer boaters. These resources
are an excellent place to start as you get yourself informed:
U.S. Coast Guard Navigation
Rules
U. S. Coast
Guard Auxiliary's Advanced Coastal Navigation (ACN) course
U.S. Coast Guard: Office
of Boating Safety
Another useful thing we found is a simple
"Float
Plan" form online, you fill it out, print it out and hand it off
to someone responsible. If something happens to you, you'll know
someone is informed about where you were going, when you were to return,
etc. A simple step, just takes a few minutes, but it might make all
the difference if something goes wrong.
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