Customer Reviews

Boat Navigation for the Rest of Us: Finding Your Way by Eye and Electronics

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have read or skimmed dozens of works on navigation. I have also navigated a variety of small boats along the coasts of Nova Scotia. None of the other books provided the degree of realistic and practical advice that this one does. It takes a pragmatic view that the typical small boat operator will use visual navigation where possible, backed up by judicious use of GPS/Loran and/or radar. In my experience, this is the way that most of us navigate. The book provides lots of excellent tips based on the author's extensive experience in small boats, ships, and the coast guard. It also debunks common misconceptions about GPS and LORAN accuracy and clearly explains how to use these tools. One caveat is that the book is biased to North America. This makes it clearer for an audience on this continent, but not as useful below the equator or in Europe or Asia. All in all, if you buy one book to help you learn or improve your small boat navigation skills, this would be the one I recommend.

First, this is a good book. It's useful, I liked it. I learned a few things, it was worth the money.

However, some of the background to the navigation "tricks" are questionable, to say the least. My first clue that I might have to watch out for apocryphal math ideas was in the first paragraph of the first page of the book, in the Acknowledgments, where Capt. Brogdon informs us that Newton invented logs and the slide rule (?!). This would be news to Napier and Oughtred, who actually did invent the slide rule twenty years before Newton was born.

Ok, fine, move on. The book is clear and interesting, and I get over my huffiness about the opening paragraph. On page 127 we get into the time = distance off trick, explained clearly. On page 128 the "math" behind the trick is delved into. It's wrong. He starts in the right place and ends in the right place, but sin(a-b)=(a-b)/60 is just wrong, that 60 doesn't show up until you change units to minutes. Sin(a-b)/(a-b) is about 1 for small (a-b), not 1/60.

So how serious is this? Not very. I think Capt. Brogdon knows his way around navigation very well, and he's a good writer, the book is very clear. Don't rely on the background math, but who really reads that stuff anyway, except people like me who are looking for word problems for their next Calculus class? So again, I get over my huffiness and move on.

I approve of keeping Loran-C in the book. I don't use it, but people still do and it's good to cover it. I also approve of Capt. Brogdon's fondness for depth sounders, I have a cheap fishfinder LCD on my outrigger sailboat, and it's very useful.

He's clearly an expert on setting up and not messing up your compass. Very useful and clear stuff there.

Good, so now I'm in a better mood. I move on to GPS.

The GPS section is fine, but this is where the book is most dated, as viewed from 2009. A lot has happened in GPS since 2001. Mapping, for example. An updated version covering mapping GPS would be excellent.

Finally, I wish publishers would spring for a real index in a book like this. A professional indexer would have made this book much more useful. The index included is cluttered, hard to read and badly organized.

Overall it's a good book. If you collect navigation tricks there's a lot to learn from someone like this who has done it for a long time and can write clearly. Skim over the background math and hope the publisher asks him to update it to mapping GPSs.

If you travel away from your home port, this book is invaluable. Simple, clear, useful. Combines traditional and GPS based methods.

Not a substitute for an ASA105 class, but a good introduction. The biggest take away from this book is that you should never trust any one tool. GPS can and does fail, maps are references, but may predate our more accurate navigation tools now, etc.
This is a good addition to chart 0 and a good reference to keep on board.

This is a great book. Obviously Bill Brogdon has a great deal of experience and he knows how to translate it to beginners