About once a year in the Bahamas I get asked by someone if they can follow me home to the US as their electronic navigation system has failed.  I’ve even been asked in Bermuda if I could sail back to the US on someone’s boat for the same reason.

Electronic navigation systems, Electrical systems and occasionally the GPS system itself, have all been known to fail, take a holiday, or go on the fritz.  While the GPS system is pretty reliable even the Pentagon, the people that control the signal, now admit the GPS signal can and likely has been tampered with.  The potential for disruption is great enough the Navy is once again teaching Celestial Navigation at the Naval Academy.

I have experienced Electronic Navigation System failure, I broke the antenna on my only handheld GPS unit back in the early days of GPS, and I have experienced complete electrical failure, on a school boat with no GPS units aboard as the students were learning to navigate without GPS.

Each time I had a fall back plan so no harm was done or sleep lost.  Both times we made port safely without assistance, in fact,  the students were quite elated with their accomplishment.

So, this week’s question has to do with what would you do if you lost your ability to navigate with electronics? Here is the scenario…

You are two days out of Bermuda bound for Newport RI.  Wind is SW at 15k, you are reaching at 5 knots in a comfortable seaway.  The watch has just changed, the sunrise promising a nice day.  In another day or so you will be into and across the Gulf Stream.

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At 0800 you check the chart plotter and realize it has stopped giving you your position.  A check of the various parts of the system doesn’t reveal any problems.  At this point you haul out your handheld unit, it doesn’t turn on, checking the battery compartment you find the batteries have leaked and corroded the unit to the point it isn’t going to turn on.  Your VHF is old enough it doesn’t have a GPS readout, slowly you realize it will be Dead Reckoning either back to Bermuda or onto the US.

Bermuda is a small target, surrounded by reefs, a small navigational error here can have bad consequences and the weather by the time you get back to the Bermuda area isn’t going to be good so you elect to continue onto Newport.

The question for the week then is;

What are you going to do navigationally to ensure you can find Newport when you sight land in 4 days or so?

I expect a variety of answers to this question, I know what I would do but I would like to hear what you would do as well.  As always the answer, at least my choice, in two days