Customer Reviews

Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation, 3rd (Sea Kayaking How- To)

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The complete guide to finding your way and getting there safely. Burch, the director of the Starpath School of Navigation in Seattle, Washington, covers every topic that I can imagine is relevant to sea kayaking, including reading and using navigational charts, dead reckoning and piloting, determining paddling speed, estimating distance from a landmark, maintaining a heading while paddling in a crossing current, and tidal effects relevant to navigation. Each example is accompanied by clear diagrams which help illustrate sometimes difficult points. This book is written specifically with the kayaker in mind; it's not an adapted version of a small-craft navigation manual. Burch strove for completeness when writing this seminal manual, but also kept the layperson in mind by maintaining his clear style throughout the text. His years of teaching experience and immense navigational knowledge are obvious from reading Fundamentals. The book will take more than one read to absorb all important information and all the techniques the author decribes, but you will never need another source. This is the kayak navigation book to buy if you plan on doing any sort of ocean kayaking.

This book tells you what you need to know about navigation to safely paddle a sea kayak in the great outdoors.

It tells you how to read a nautical chart, how to use a compass or GPS, and how to navigate by "the seat of your pants". The book desicribes fundamental saftey issues and tells you how to avoid getting run over by large ships, trashed in tide rips, or hopelessly lost in the fog .

This book is absolutely REQUIRED reading for anyone serious about covering large distances in a sea kayak. If you paddle, get this book and read it many times!!! The material in this book has to be second nature to you if you want to be safe in "big water".

I purchased this book at the suggestion of a top sea kayaking coach. I should note that many paddlers consider this book the encyclopedia or "standard" of sea kayaking navigation books. The book is lengthy and appears to be comprehensive, however, I found it to be poorly organized and presentation lacking. It is a decent desktop reference on the subject, if you are looking for specific information on a sea kayaking navigation topic. It is tough to just pick this book up and learn navigation. It is really not layed out for self-instruction.

I would strongly recommend "Simple Kayak Navigation" by Ray Killan over Burch's book. It is concise, easy to understand, comes packed with excellent examples, and has just the right amount of humor.

Burch's legendary book is full of information, but really is not a book I consult to renew my skills or solve a navigational problem. As an encyclopedia of navigation for small human-powered craft this book has use. It's a good read after one has mastered basic navigation from a practical standpoint. Simply too much information. Much of that contained could be edited severely and would be of more practical use. Burch is a great fact-presenter, but navigation is a subject that needs to be mastered through presentation of basic facts repeated in practical ways. Burch speaks too far over the heads of most beginning and intermediate navigators. This book didn't really make sense to me until I'd read it yearly for a number of years. Because of this fact, I only recommend it to navigation "junkies" who already have a firm understanding of all nav foundation topics.

This is the definitive guide to compass and chart navigation by kayak. It is superbly written, giving detailed, sustained attention to every conceivable facet of compass and chart navigation. You won't find a more detailed guide. This is on par with some of the finer books written about navigation in any sphere of boating, not just kayaking, and it rewards re-reading with an ever-expanding knowledge of navigational concepts.

That said, it is not for the faint-of-heart. This is not a "Navigating for Dummies" book that can be quickly indexed and flipped to a quick answer. It is designed to be READ CAREFULLY, page-by-page, in sequence. Early concepts get returned to and expanded on in later sections. The best approach is probably to digest it chapter by chapter, familiarizing yourself carefully with the core concepts before moving on to subsequent chapters. If you do, you will end up knowing more about navigation than even some of the most experienced kayakers, and you will also have a host of quick tips (like estimating distance to an object on the horizon, etc.) that will make you able to reliably calculate your (relative) position even without a compass or chart.

I highly recommend this guide, but only if you are willing to actually read it. It will not serve you if you treat it like a "quick-reference" guide expecting to input a question and spit out an answer. Once you read it carefully, though, you'll be able to answer all of your own navigation questions very well.

I was lucky enough to be a student of David Burch. I enrolled in a coastal navigation course offered by The Starpath School of Navigation back in 1987. Dr. Burch is a Rhodes Scholar, has a PhD in physics, is a world renowned navigator and author of many books. His credentials are impressive but his teaching skills are more so. The how and why I learned to navigate are as follows.

My fondest childhood memories took place on my grandfather's Grand Banks 42 motor yacht. As a boy we cruised the San Juan Islands, British Columbia, and Alaskan waters. Boating was in my blood! Sadly grandfather died along with my boating days. When I graduated from college, I decided to boat again after a long sabbatical. I knew nothing of boating other than I loved the water. Enrolling in Starpath was hitting a bullseye to attain my new goal.

The text used in the course was The Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation. Don't let the title fool you! The lessons learned in this book can be applied to paddleing a small kayak or skippering a VLCC - Very Large Crude Container ship. I learned more in six weeks than any class I attended at Eastern Washington University. I became an expert: chart reader, knew the difference between small scale and large scale charts, knew all the chart symbols, how to triangulate my position, the importance of reading depths, and what compass variation/deviation was. I learned how to find distance off land: using luminous and nominal ranges of light houses, use a hand held kamal, or use the height of an object's square root to find distance. I learned how to: navigate in pea soup fog, paddle or sail in strong currants, dead reckon, read buoys, navigate at night, and most importantly to feel confident.

The Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation is to used with books like: The United States Coast Pilot, Washburn tables, currant guides and tide tables, The Coast Guard's Light List - just to name a few. All are packed away in my navigation bag along with tools like a parallel ruler, spreaders, and hand held bearing compass. I don't just rely on GPS! Boat yards are full of damaged hulls, bent shafts, and broken motors, caused by people who don't spend the time to learn to navigate. Boating is knowledge intensive. Too many depend on GPS and end up in trouble because they haven't bothered to learn the basics. One can either learn to navigate or become familiar with the emergency channel 16 on a VHF radio. There is no excuse for damaging a boat and putting passengers lives in danger!

After completing the course work, I successfully paddled the San Juan Islands in Washington State - what a blast! We avoided tide rips, took advantage of currents, and made it to every port "safely." I loved using my new knowledge and was confident out in the "big water." Now we have a 25' sailboat that we take out on the west side of Vancouver Island - the Pacific Ocean! Without David's book, I would have forfeited countless experiences. The book is readable, to the point, and above all NECESSARY. I can't recommend this book more. I have a large library of boating books but The Fundamentals of Kayak Navigation is the one I refer to most. It's illustrations, thoroughness, and scope are unsurpassed. Check out Starpath's other books too. They will serve to better anyone's boating career...

- Ken Fritz author of The United States Radio Directory: A Traveler's Favorite Companion 2008-2009

I am just finishing my first reading of Fundamentals of kayak navigation.

If you are new to navigating from a kayak this book will provide you more than enough navigational principals and information to plan an open water expedition or tour along some coast line.

Kayaks typically travel areas too close to shore for commercial and the average power boater. Other times we cross over into truly open water occupied by the big boys.

In these near and off shore areas, kayakers have the same need for navigation as our big boat brethren but not the storage or equipment space; electrical power; nor their height above the water.

A kayaker's needs and space for performing navigational work is severely limited in comparison to other boaters. The affects of wind current & tides can be more pronounced on self powered vessels such as a kayak.

Burch provides many good tips and techniques for performing and managing your navigational tasks within our available space.

When presenting a principal or technique, he goes into just enough detail to explain a little of the why along with the what that needs to be done.

Burch offers techniques based on your palm or finger width to solve navigational tasks. He offers several rules of thumb that should get you close enough to solve navigational tasks.

Knowing the accuracy of your compass is critical to navigation. Burch offers a method for "swinging" your Kayak compass to identify errors.

He doesn't ignore the modern electronic world either. One chapter discusses GPS and other electronic navigational tools. The book includes references to on-line resources as well.

I have several years experience sailing Arctic Oceans, the waters above the Aleutian Chain, and along the Northwest Coast of the US. Through Burch's book I've learned how to scale down what I know about piloting and navigating larger vessels to fit my kayaking needs.

During my second reading of this book I'll begin assembling the book's tips, tools, techniques, and rules of thumb to build my own kayak navigation kit.