Over the years there have been a lot of arguments concerning the pros and cons of paper charts vs chart plotters and GPS vs Sextants.  In light of recent reports in the press and from the government about GPS hacking there may be some validity to these arguments.

In the past most of the arguments centered around GPS failure due to electronic failure or lighting strikes.  One side arguing the necessity to carry paper charts and a sextant as a backup to GPS the other side arguing that with the price of handheld units it was easy to carry several GPS units in case of failure in one.

There was truth in both arguments,  while I have only had one GPS failure, a broken antenna on an early handheld unit) I have worked on several boats that suffered direct lighting strikes and one with a near strike that wiped out the electronics.  In today’s world with mass produced electronics GPS failure in a stand-a-lone unit or in a chart plotter remains a liability as does the threat of lighting.

Chartplotters themselves on the other hand are more prone to failure, I have experienced this as have several cruisers I’ve met in the last year.   In past years I have been approached by cruisers in both Bimini and Bermuda wanting help getting back to the US because their chartplotters had failed!

Now we can add in hacking/jamming which may, in some parts of the world be more of a problem than the old arguments!  It seems hacking the GPS signal isn’t that hard or expensive to do, it is a low wattage signal traveling 25,000 miles thru space and is vulnerable to disruption from inexpensive electrical jamming devices.  Since this problem was recently in the news you can be sure hackers everywhere, including the US, are now dreaming up ways to “mess with the system” so it is only a matter of time before boaters along the US coasts experience the problem.
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Governments around the world are concerned and are looking at installing eLoran as a backup system for navigation in coastal waters but that will be several years away from being a reliable working system.  In addition it will require us all who wish to use it the expensive of another piece of electronic gear.

Paper charts, dividers, parallel rules, handheld compasses, sextants, a log book and the skills to use them still have a place in our navigational tool inventory and will for many years to come.

Neither Coastal Navigation and Piloting or Celestial Navigation is difficult to learn, nor is the time required to learn either skill very long, once you have learned the basics then it is just practice to gain the confidence to use these skills in place of or in addition to electronic navigational devices.

Skill in traditional navigation is important, it is a fail safe back up to electronic systems that can and do fail.  Perhaps not that often but when it does happen for whatever reason you don’t want to be left wondering where you are or in what direction is home!  Knowing traditional navigational skills is just good sound seamanship.