How to navigate with google earth

20 years’ worth of Tom’s cruising tips for skippers and crew have been

distilled into this pocket-sized book, published by Fernhurst Books, at £11.99

SKIPPER’S TIPS

MARCH 2016 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 33

Flummoxed by salty jargon?

Email [email protected]

and we’ll explain it in print

‘ Counter’

‘ Reverse

counter’

In the 1970s, yacht racing

rules fi nally ceased to favour

the true counter stern.

Because yachts still had

full hulls whose fi n keels

were part of the form rather

than a bolt-on extra, they

continued to have traditional

lines which needed fi nishing

off. The solution was the

‘reverse counter’. The best

were as pretty as this, but the

fashion was soon ousted by

fl at-fl oored cruising yachts

allowing wider sterns.

Far from the counter of a

corner shop, a counter stern

is found on classic yachts,

pilot cutters and some fi shing

smacks. It is the lines of the

boat extrapolated to a logical

conclusion and creates the

most elegant of ‘blunt ends’.

It served yachts well under

old rating rules and it created

sterns of great beauty.

Nothing else is a counter.

Rafting? Lash

the helm!

Lateral

thinking

with a

transit

I once lived on my old pilot

cutter moored between two

piles. She drew 8ft and had a

keel running the whole of her

45ft of waterline length. Get

that lot across the tide and you

knew you had a problem. As the

ebb set in, the lines would grow

thinner with the strain as the

massive posts started to bend in

towards us. Very nasty.

One night, a 35ft yacht rafted up to us at slack

water. The crew moored stern to the ebb and

went ashore, leaving their wheel free. As the tide

came on, their rudder whacked across to full helm

and dragged both of us athwart the full spring

tide. The results were expensive and my wife’s

comments to the returning crew are unfi t to

print. Since then, I’ve always been careful of my

helm, especially in a raft-up, locking or lashing it

amidships as the fi nal job on arrival.

We all know that
transits – offi cial or
natural – are used
to defi ne a safe line of position,
often for entering a port.
However, with a little lateral
thinking they can be employed
for fi nding a critical navigational
aid that you are just too far away

All very friendly, but just one rudder across throws in a wild card

Train your eyes to work out range at sea

Many of us have AIS these days, making collision

avoidance a lot easier than it used to be. Plenty of

sailors choose not to spend their money this way,

even those who don’t want to be totally reliant on

electronics. Bridge offi cers on small or medium-

sized ships generally take interest when a steady-

bearing yacht comes within two miles.

Unless we plan to stand on, that’s high time

for us to take obvious avoiding action. A couple

of ways present themselves for training our eyes

to judge the range of a ship. Radar, if we have it,

offers us an instant range. Failing that, start noting

vessels alongside distant wharves when you can

tell from your own position how far off they are.

Doing one or both of these for a summer helps a

great deal when you meet a ship in deep water.

At two miles’

range, you should

stand on or change

course. Get to know

that distance

to spot. In this case, the daymark

wasn’t my landfall but it was

going to matter on the run in so

I wanted to know what it looked

like. From the offi ng it was lost

against the grey background,

but the church was charted and

unmissable. All I had to do was

note the bearing on which the

two lined up, sail the boat onto

it, look in front of the church with

my binoculars and, Bingo!

To help fi nd a daymark, just

note its transit with a

conspicuous landmark