Episode 13 - Nigel Rennie

Nigel Rennie is an experienced RYA Yachtmaster Examiner, Ocean Yachtmaster and sailing instructor with decades of offshore sailing experience.

In this episode of Oceans Unplugged, he shares insights into seamanship, ocean navigation and what it takes to become a world-class sailor.

A huge thank you to our core sponsor YB Tracking. None of this would be possible without your help and the service you provide to thousands of people every day.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Oceans Unplugged, Humbly Galactic, for more professional sailor, mariner, harbour authority, patrol officer, postcard officer, and lifeboat. In each episode, I'll be sitting down one-to-one with the people who push beyond the horizon. Ocean racers, explorers, throwers, and the leaders behind the world's most demanding expeditions. We'll expand on the guests as we get into it. Oceans Unplugged is proudly supported by YB Tracking, the global leader in race and expedition tracking technology, helping bring the world's toughest adventures to life in real time. This is our stories, unfiltered and in-depth. Hi and welcome back to Oceans Unplugged. You may know or have spotted that we've missed a session. But today I've got an amazing guest on. Now, the reason I asked for this guest to come on is after having Captain Ben McKinnis on. So we've got uh Nigel Rennie, who is an ocean yachtmaster examiner and a fellow of the Institute of Navigation. Um and uh welcome, Nigel.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Welcome, yes, so good to be on. Yes, it's the Royal Institute of Navigation, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Institute of Royal Navigation. Sorry, I always get it a bit wrong way around there. So for those who don't know you, although you are obviously considered one of the leading uh examiners and instructors uh in your field, um tell us a little bit about yourself um and uh how you became sort of a yacht master instructor examiner.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Well, um it started about 40 years ago uh in the army and changed units. Um never looked back. Had a fantastic week in the Baltic, and within a few months I bought my own kit form yacht, which you could buy in those days, and built that, started working with doing a lot of stuff with joint services and playing with uh big boats, which at the time was the Nicholas and 55s. So that was pretty much before we had GPS. So on longer passages, the mates' job was pretty much taking sites and other things, keep track of navigation, etc. Then um once you start skipping those boats, they want to be you to be an instructor and then an examiner. So there's nothing really that I sort of pushed for. I think I was more guided towards it realistically, and uh then got into racing uh and ocean racing, and then built up with race management and first of the bits and pieces, and it's just gone from there realistically. It's nothing that I sort of planned as a young lad and said I'm gonna be such and such. It's just taking opportunities as they arose.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, because uh obviously you haven't got a southern uh or south of England accent. So uh whereabouts did you start life in? It was it a landlocked part of the country?

SPEAKER_02 3:15

No, I was Sunderland, and my bedroom overlooked the sea, but I never sailed up north, and not until I joined the army and spent a few quite a few years in the army, then then it went it moved from there realistically. Sometimes it's gonna be pushed into a sport to appreciate how good it is.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, it it does. And as um some of our viewers may spot on your lovely polo shirt there, Warzash Sailing Club, and uh used to be the Commodore, and uh now is it your race officer or one of the principal race officers?

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Um well, not a principal race officer, we have some people far better than me doing that. Uh I'm a supporting race officer with the Spring Series, which I know you've taken part in a number of times.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

And uh yes, rear Commodore sailing, vice commodore, and commodore. Um it's six fairly full years as a volunteer in the flag officers role. Uh it's a big club, and now I'm pretty much involved with the training principal aspect of that club, which is a vibrant club, especially for youth sailing. We must have one of the biggest and best youth sailing sections in the country, which is uh really proud to be part of.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

That's good to see that we're bringing some young uh people into the sport and into the industry. And that's part of the reason why I wanted to get you on this week, because as you know, uh previously we had Captain Ben McKinnis on. And he, in our discussion with him, he sort of started talking about that when he was a cadet and when he was obviously with the RFA, they'd done a particular passage crossing the Atlantic Ocean, um, and they were using, as he jokingly referred to it, the sun gun. Um, and it definitely caused a little bit of a debate. Um, and there were some people that uh raised some interesting points uh from sort of the traditional background, going hundreds of years back, if not further, um, on how we discovered other parts of the world and the explorers and the navigators. So I I want to kind of get your knowledge and expertise on to sort of uh discuss and talk us through what what happens as a navigator. What's the process?

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Well, we have been doing celestial navigation for thousands of years. Um, I believe the Greeks knew the diameter of our planet thousands of years ago, um, just using shadow pins. So they knew that angles gave measurements, and measurements gave positions. Uh, moving on from that, they had very crude instruments then, um, some which were probably not the most healthiest in the world. Uh, blocks of wood and bits of string in your mouth. Uh, then cross staffs, which is a it's like a rule with a bit of wood that goes up and down. And by measuring angles, say with Polaris, you could you could get your latitude fairly accurately. Uh, a lot of it is probably spatial awareness with uh sun, moon, stars positions, uh, which is I think something we've we've naturally lost now. I think, but you've got to remember it's only the ones who survive who tells the story who tells the stories. There must be an awful lot of people who got it wrong over the the centuries who never get to tell their stories. Um is it complicated? No, it's not. Um it's really circles and triangles, and it's just blending in circles and triangles. Um and so that going into um the the more modern tables that we've we have now, which we first of all have marine navigation tables, then we've got the air navigation tables, which came in about 100 years ago and simplified it for a lot of the small boaters. Um we um we knew the principles hundreds of years ago. Um, but the kit we had wasn't quite as accurate. Uh we didn't have the sun protection, therefore, navigators probably had an eye patch uh from sun damage. And the the publications were a lot cruder as well, but they knew pretty much where the sun would be in celestial latitude, which we call declination, uh, on most days of the year. And we they knew that the equation of time issue, which we don't have exactly 24 hours in the day, we have slightly less or slightly more, by a couple of seconds each day, you know, over the whole year it means itself out, hence we get the um the mean time that we use we used to call Greenwich mean time.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Yeah, so obviously, before we get to taking the sites, um uh quite a few commentators uh and uh responders were talking about why do we have to even get to use the sextant and doing the celestial nav? What's up with dead reckoning?

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Well dead reckoning it works if you one have got an accurate um speed log or distance log on the back of the boat. Times are probably gonna be, I mean, a long time ago, that was literally a piece of wood on a bit of string, and you counted the knots in the bit of string over a set of time. There's variations of the theme of those. Uh, how accurate is your helmsman? I've sailed with an awful lot of helmsman. I I know that could not, well, they sell a banana course rather than a straight course. So you will you will need that ability to have a perfect straight course and an accurate log. Then how much control have you got over um tidal knowledge, current ocean currents, uh a half knot current crossing the Atlantic will move you 12 miles a day. So they they knew pretty much the the currents, the ocean currents hundreds of years ago, but did they have the accurate readings to do it? Then if you get in a storm or heavy conditions, dead reckoning is impossible.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Because obviously, we're talking about sailing boats at the moment rather than bigger ships, because quite a few of the commentators have been on larger ships or commercial fishing vessels. So is there kind of a big difference from small sailing yachts, large sailing yachts, and then going into motorised commercial vessels on that impact? Talk us through it.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

I suppose not being an expert on the big ships, um, or actually fishing boats, to be honest, uh the the larger the vessel, the more stable it's gonna be, the more constant the speed's gonna be, therefore your dead reckoning is probably gonna be more accurate.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

Uh whereas you get possibly a smaller fishing vessel, which is gonna, yeah, it's gonna bump on the waves a bit more, it's gonna crash into things a bit more. The weather plays the big factor in direct reckoning. Uh so which and I think the smaller the vessel, probably the bigger impact you're going to have on that.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So that brings into that brings into play some of the people that were talking about dead reckoning then, and and where some were saying it's very accurate, and others were saying, well, there's a bit more sort of wiggle room in it.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

As you know, in sailing instructions, every time or sailing is every time somebody asks you questions, what's the word we use to start the answer? It depends. Realistically, it depends on a number of factors coming into it on the accuracy, and it's having appreciation of the of those factors, which I think is the important thing. Um if you're a a large super tanker which has got a which is not going to deviate from course, it's an autopilot anyway. It's speed and course is constant. You've got good information on currents on board or tidal aspects, you're gonna be fairly accurate.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

I mean, I was I remember when I was at the port of Southampton uh working with some of the pilots. Um, quite often we would be uh or I would be told, obviously, that the more load that the vessel had, the less windage it would have, because obviously it's sunken into the water a little bit more. So I suppose even in heavy sea state, that would help have how much ballast they've got compared to being an empty vessel. Yeah. Um so with all of that in in play, I mean, how how long would it take for, because this is some of the the other people that have asked that have never been on a sailing boat, never been on a ship, how long would it take them to learn from knowing nothing to getting on a sailing boat and maybe taking them out for a day to get from I don't know, is it local, let's say handle to cows, how long would it take them to learn how to do that, either as a crew and then eventually as a skipper?

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Are you talking navigation or sailing?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Uh well, navigation and sailing. How I mean, obviously, you and I both know that there's separate courses for this, but yes. But if you have the context of this conversation, let's pretend I'm completely dumb, not just dumb.

unknown 13:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Um I'm gonna bring that word depends in again. Depends on their ability to what their background knowledge is. Yeah uh if somebody's got a fairly outdoor background uh and is good good learning, good with possibly numbers, um, good spatial awareness, uh, realistically, basic navigation, pilotage, and board handling without putting the sails up and down and doing tacking. Um realistically, well within the day, you should be capable of maybe take a small vessel. The challenge would be parking it, getting it off the jetty and getting it back on the jetty again uh with tides, that would take more work. So it there's a lot of factors to give a straight answer, and I would not like to give a straight answer on that realistically.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Well, let's look at within the RYA structure then. Yeah, from starting, what courses could someone who is listening and following, who maybe they're sort of around sort of 15, 16 years old, they're just about to do their GCSEs or finish their uh high school education, and they're considering a career at sea. Um, if they didn't want to go into shipping, uh they wanted to stay on yachts, where would they start and how long would it take them?

SPEAKER_02 14:43

There's some good uh professional sale training courses. I think you probably need to be 18 to start on those, uh, mainly because some of the qualifications have got age restrictions on them at the end at the end of the course. Yeah, so the there's a number of schools run professional sale training courses that'll take you from a novice, often referred to as the zero hero courses. Yeah, uh they take about four months, which is fairly intense. Yeah, and if you're doing it, you need to I recommend you do it with a school that's got a number of different boats available because you don't want to be a master of one particular yacht. Um so and they will take you all through the steps, which start with a competent crew. Uh, if you're not doing that sort of course, you can do a thing called start yachting prior to that, which is a two-day bit, and you can add that three days to make it competent crew. Yeah, that goes through then some of the theory courses for day skipper theory, uh, that's which basically allows you to sail about in really waters that you know on a boat that you're familiar with in the hours of daylight. However, if you're caught out in the evening or you had to leave just before dawn, you'd be okay realistically. That builds onto the coastal skipper side of it, uh, and it's building up seamalage realistically, yeah, uh, an experience. So, and with sailing, there's absolutely no shortcut to experience. You can read as many books as you want, but it's actually going out and actually getting a feel for it. The wind, the tide, the how we interaction, every day is different on the water. Only marginally in some cases, but every day is different. So it's getting that mileage up realistically. Lots of schools then run theory courses or one-day courses on say sea survival, engine maintenance, electrical maintenance, um, offshore safety, uh, which I think is one of the best courses going between the offshore safety covers. I often refer to it as the crime watch course. We go through everything can possibly go wrong with it on a boat. Then at the end of it said, actually, sailing is a very safe sport. But when things do go wrong, the press love it.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

So that side of it, sea survival is always good fun in the pool. Yeah. And then when exterior builds up, you got Yachtmaster Coastal, which and Yachtmaster Offshore, which I do a lot of examining with realistically. Uh, by which point you should be a fairly competent sailor in a good range of conditions. Then the pinnacle on top of that is what you really call Yachtmaster Ocean, which when the celestial navigation comes in, uh, you've got an ocean passage as well under your belt, which is more than 600 miles, uh, where you're more than 50 miles offshore for at least 200 of those.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Uh and then you'll be able to do the celestial and the steery course to back that up as well, which is one of my flagships.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

And so this brings us back to that celestial. If someone is going through a career at sea, so even if they want to sort of get to that pinnacle of being an ocean yacht master, they want to use that experience on large yachts or even super yachts, or even change over to doing a cadet ship, uh, to work on uh tankers, cruise ships, etc. This is a good sort of stepping stone, isn't it? For if for it should be.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Yeah. Because it shows awareness of sea, it shows do you know the collision regulations, uh, you shouldn't have a good and sandy of meteorology. Uh it would certainly save, make a lot of the phases of a cadet ship a lot easier. Yeah. Having some form of marine background. Um, not also going back on the even smaller side, you can go through the dinghy side as well, and the dinghy to dinghy instructions as well. So there's even a smaller side than the yachts you can actually move up to the systems with.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

And that all helps into going to sea and having an understanding of what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah. And I mean, so one of the things that whilst I was talking with Ben, obviously, through all of this tuition that we've just discussed, and most sailors globally, and I say sailors on yachting, we've become very used to using chart plotters, GPS. Uh, and uh as some people refer to them as sat mouse, it does my head in the it's just well they work all sat never rigidly at one point.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

That's why.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, that's the thing in the car that uh now talks to me and I have an argument with. But um so a lot of sailors have got used to using chart plotters um and GPS. Now the topic obviously with Ben came up about the increasing risk and the increasing um uh periods of GPS blocking, spoofing uh, or jamming around the world. And there is a website, GPS Jam, uh that you can go and look and you can see at what percentage the jamming is. So at the moment, in the Red Sea, the Baltic, some of uh the Caribbean area and and uh some parts of South America, and even through Western Europe, there is starting to be that stage. So obviously, with um Ben, I I spoke about so does this make the traditional seamanship and navigation things more important, a skill to learn and practice, um, or is this just a temporary blip?

SPEAKER_02 20:58

I don't think it's temporary. And we've now got situations where we that obviously the GPS jamming websites and things give you the main areas, but there's lots of incidents of minor jamming taking place. Uh there's a lot of criminality, even in the UK, we'll use GPS jamming facilities um for criminal purposes. I probably won't go into it here. I don't want to give anybody any ideas of a new career path.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

So go to sea, not to jail.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yes, yeah. So it is becoming a a major challenge. The larger ships are probably better suited to handling those situations than smaller yachts. The electronic navigation systems, ECDIS, uh, is far more advanced than our little chart plotters that we put on board boats. I mean, we can't even tell when our chart. Will actually last surveyed on electronic charting, whereas they can. So the information we would normally have on a chart, a paper chart, about how it's surveyed and whenever else, that's not available on electronic charting systems for us.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Really? I did not know that. I thought that would be in sort of the background software information.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

I can never find it. Really? So uh and I know lots of the people who don't know how to find it. So you may have a chart that's been digitized that was originally surveyed by lead line and sextants between 1876 and 1892.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

And they've taken I'm aware that there's large areas like that because Ella's been sailing through many of that part up in uh uh Canada and uh the Northwest Passage.

SPEAKER_02 22:49

So they uh then you also realize that we're looking at electronic charting from a view of it's this year's um card. This we've got it, therefore it must be updated to this year. No, that's just the last update they put onto it. Uh many areas uh are never surveyed, and it's the bits that we go into, as small vessels, that the challenge. The big ships stay in the big channels, they are surveyed, but it costs an awful lot of money to survey even a small area of sea. So even things like say Bramble's Bank or Shingler's Bank and areas off, say Leon Solid, how often are that going to be surveyed? Every couple of decades in some cases, if you're lucky, because there's no commercial interest in doing it. So who's going to pay for it? So the big ships, the big voyage areas, and we get left to one side. I wouldn't say left to one side. There's ways of bringing that up to date with crowd funding information or crowd pooling of information, pretty best described as. So we do have a slight act, a slight accuracy thing, I guess, with that. Uh the jamming and spoofing side of it, the jamming is actually very um rough and ready. You if you get your jam, you will just know because you just lose your position fix. This is where the ECTIS can actually use the tools on the screen to do manual plotting from external objects that we can't do on our little screens. So we have no backup risk lead to that. Uh the spoofing is where it makes you think you're somewhere you're not. So they change there's various bits of data from say GPS to do with its position, which is latitude, it's basically latitude, longitude, and altitude in celestial terms.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Uh the its identification number and a time signal, which is year, month, day, uh going down to microseconds. And then your little box picks all these signals up and works out the best position from all the all all these coming in. However, a spoofing a spoofing system will change some of the primary information, one of which it can change the date. So you're sailing on quite nicely, and your electronic navigation system says it's um 2026, and all of a sudden it switches to 2028. If you think that in computer terms, your laptop you're using at the moment, if your date changed two years in advance, it's going to say, sorry, Sunshine, the um your software license is now out of date.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

And it closes down. And for some of the aircraft flying in the skies, some of it will not reboot back into 2026 when they're actually out of the spoofing area. It causes challenges. Yeah. So for the small boat user, a lot of it comes down to what I call holistic navigation. Now, I'm a great fan of electronic navigation. I've used it this weekend in the Solin, examining for candidates. And my electronic navigation on my phone runs in the background. I've got two different programs that run in parallel because I've got different facilities on each one. So that's that's fine. So electronics, great, but we need to keep a thing called spatial awareness going. Using your depth sounder. Every time you put a fix in, look at the depth. Does it match? We're now no longer focusing on depth. Just bring us this holistic navigation, which ultimately is direct reckoning coming into it. I've been sailing for two hours at five knots. So I should be out 10 miles ahead on your next log position. Having that awareness going along, say a coast or across channel, having the spatial awareness of looking around and seeing certain features and going, if that's there, I've got to be out here somewhere. Depth comes into it, electronics comes into it, the your speed log as well as part of it. Celestial comes into it if you're possibly offshore or ocean. So some of it is possibly spatial awareness, depending on where you are in the world. And other parts is using your sun gun, sunspanner, uh sextant, whatever you want to call it.

unknown 27:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

And I I feel quite privileged that in my sailing career, we started off with some fairly crude navigation instruments, and now we've moved on to some quite advanced, but I can go back to the basics and bring it.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

It was a sort of uh topic of conversation uh on many of the reels with Ben, is that what we're talking about is not just a complete, like, oh, we have to go back to traditional navigation. There is definitely a part and a place of all means of navigation. And it I I remember on the back of the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers t-shirts, the pictures of the transatlantic, and it says not to be used for navigation. Everything is just an aid to navigation.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yes. Um it's a bit like saying looking at the collision regulations where it says the vessels should keep a lookout by all means available. Right? So you've got all of these tools. Why just focus on one? Bring the rest in, bring in radar. Radar has supremacy over everything, realistically, um, because it's you to it and back again. So radars, I think losing fashion with some vote owners because they I've got AIS, why do I need radar? I think it's a it's a different animal. Because AIS runs off of GPS. So if you don't if you've got a bad signal, you're report you're transmitting your signal incorrect.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Uh there's lots of the challenges as well that go with this. But not poo-pooing it. I'm just saying there's not use all of the use it all, use it all.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh, as you said, it's about using all that is available to you. So it just makes me think, as you say, you're using your radar. So on the pilot cutters, when we're in fog, yes, we had our chart plotter, yes, we had the charts, yes, we had the radar, but we'd always have the windows open on the pilot house so that we can hear as well. It's not just about sort of looking out the window, using you know, it's as you say, all means available to you sight, smell, electronic paper, it's all there.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

And if you're setting for it, have something down below listening because the engine signs of big ships travel a lot further through the oceans than they do through the fog.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh it it how many times have you been sat at anchor and it sounds like in Osborne Bay or something, and a ship is going past Norris Boy, and it it almost sounds like it's about to come through your hut your cabin.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Yeah, the only reassuring thing there is you know it hasn't got wheels on it, therefore it can't get to you.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

I don't know. We the the Hokusarker could definitely try to get further inland than others.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

That there's another story that I've probably wanted to go through.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Yeah, that's a long time ago. Um, so I mean uh because you you're known for teaching uh celestial uh uh navigation, I want to do a quick couple of uh quickfire questions, and I'll pick this tip up off of um uh Don McIntyre on his live stream ones of quick fire questions. So this is a true or false one. You have to be good at maths to do uh celestial navigation. False. GPS has replaced celestial navigation? No. False. False. Uh Dead Reckoning is outdated. False. Anyone can learn celestial navigation. Agreed. So just before I carry on on the rest, there's a load of apps on phones now where you can literally take your phone and sort of aim it around at stars. And I've seen uh there's a hill near where I live. In fact, uh you came up to the the place to come and um uh meet Dr. Louise uh Devoid in their circuit. Yeah, so uh we go up there quite regularly, and I quite often see parents with their kids and they've got their app out looking at the stars and learning about the constellations. Um right, so the next one North Star is all you need.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

It only works in the northern hemisphere and it only gives you latitude, so false.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

I thought you were literally gonna go, depends. Um electronic navigation should always be trusted.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Going back to Polaris quickly. Yep. If you if you take a sextant reading on Polaris, yeah, right, whatever the sextant reading is, is virtually your latitude within one degree.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Well, there's a top tip for you.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Um electronic navigation should always be trusted. False. And good navigators spend more time looking outside than at the screens.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

Yes. Head-up navigation. A lot of navigators learn what I call head-down navigation. They spend too much time at the chart table reading the books, and they haven't a clue what's going on on deck until it happens and it's too late. A good navigator is a bit like a swan on the surface with looking around, or a mere cat where they're everywhere looking round, and they'll go down and just things happen down below and they're going back up again. So it's an art that needs practicing. And to see a good navigator is actually it's really it's good to see. When you actually see how they're doing it, uh, especially on exams and things, it's a bit of a buzz you get somebody like this person's sharp. Yeah. And as far as everybody else is concerned, they don't see it.

SPEAKER_00 33:57

No, no. And that's where they keep it all going. Uh as you said, a bit like the swan.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

It's it's a little bit like parking in marinas. The best parkers, you never ever hear any noise, you don't hear them come in, you don't hear them go out. It's the ones who have challenges make all the noise.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yeah, that's a that's a positive point. Oh, definite point. So, I mean, obviously, we we just sort of said about a couple of others, but what would you say is the biggest mistake that modern sailors make?

SPEAKER_02 34:37

From what aspect? From navigation aspects?

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Well, see what we're talking about, navigation, yeah. We'll keep it to navigation.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Okay. Um, a lot of it is probably spatial awareness. Looking forward rather than looking backwards is a a major one. One of the one of my my formative skippers, going back a number of decades, uh, a couple of sayings, one of which was you should know where you've been, but you don't always know where you're going. So you're leaving a harbour and you're just going blindly into the abyss. However, you're not looking behind to see actually on track or not. So keeping a reference on your stern is what very few navigators do these days. Um, good example on exams, they leave, say, um, possibly cows, and they're aiming for a yellow boy on Bramble's bank area. They've not taken the tide into consideration, and they're going more sideways than they are going forwards. Then when you ask them where they are, they put their finger on the chart somewhere and you go, No, you're not there. How do you know? And I'm looking at the chart plot, and the chart plot says 17 metres, and where they're pointing has five metres.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

Because if they look behind, or if you're looking, you go away and you see where you're going to go, have you got some form of transit to work with? So it's having that spatial awareness rather than be head down on the screen in some cases. The knowing, yeah, the other saying was um, is it more important to know where you are or where you are not?

SPEAKER_00 36:23

I think it definitely knowing where you are is probably a good one, but also not knowing where you're not.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Knowing where you are not. So okay. The the art of knowing that I'm not on Brambles Bank, I'm not on the shingles, I'm not on Ride Sands, because you you have definite checks in place that you're not going to be there.

SPEAKER_00 36:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:45

Then realistically, where you are has got a bit more to play with, hasn't it?

unknown 36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

You never really know exactly where you are if you're moving, because you're always a little bit behind where you where you are now by the time you work it out, unless you're forward projecting, which is the uh an art in itself of looking at so yeah, knowing where you're not is a fairly good one, and it's part of that. Um yeah, again, it's a good example. You you know your height of tides, and say, for instance, you've got two metres height of tide, and your depth sign is reading say seven metres realistically. So you're five you're five meters uh on a chart, yeah. You can now ignore probably 95% of that chart, you can totally ignore. Because five meters, you can only be on that five meter contour line. Or yeah, yeah. So it's and depth is a the depth sound is such a useful tool that many people just do not actually concentrate anymore. Because it's just the screen says I'm such and such. So it's uh and it could probably go on and on on some of these bits, but it's it's all part of the holistic navigation aspect of it.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Um on I get questions quite a lot from um charterers and stuff. If I go and charter a boat in Turkey, um, how do I know that the the depth gauge is right? You you take a reading, tie a spanner to a bit of rope and drop it to the seabed and then measure it against what you've got. Yeah, that's one way, and then you know exactly as you say, that that piece of equipment is reading correct.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

Yes. And you need you need so it's offset. A lot of boats have it now set to the bottom of the keel, yeah. And we've now got charter boats that set the meter below the bottom of the keel, which um you so you need to know where the offset is going to be, holistically. That meter below the bottom of the keel is hard work in the soul, and because sometimes you're going in with a less than a meter clearance.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So especially if you're going up to Ashlet Creek. Uh that's very tight.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

I've not been in there in a yacht for decades, even though it's just across from the Hamble.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

Yeah, I know, yeah. I mean, obviously the boats that we're teaching on now are much bigger than the ones that when I first started teaching, with was something like the little Yamaha 32s and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

So that's yachting, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 39:27

Yeah, yeah. With John Good. With his type good, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

They were all these, yeah. Then you had uh boss as well, the full master, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Uh they were good at mud plugging, uh, but that's when we could teach running aground by running aground. Obviously, things have changed now.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

So capable of being run aground.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Yeah. Yeah, there is that. Um I remember a few years ago on a charter um that I was working with uh that the the charter or a boat had come back um and the next charter had been got on the boat and they they went out and they literally said this doesn't feel right, came back in. We lifted the boat up and the keel was wobbling, and it turns out that the previous charterer had reversed into something aground and it had shunted the keel forward and cracked all the matrix around, and it was like oops, yeah. So um, yeah, yeah, they're not designed to go as uh hard aground as they used to.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

They're not. It's the the build standards are a lot lighter now than ever used to be. Because I mean, originally it's yacht design, we built fiberglass boats the same way we built wooden boats, yeah. And that was all the stringers uh coming through it as well, all fiberglassed in. Then we came up with this concept of let's have it in a tray, because we want boats per week rather than weeks per boat in the in the the in the mouldings. So we'll make uh one moulding or just glue it in with a bit of stolker flex. And it actually in it's re it's a really very stiff combination, but it doesn't quite take the knocks. Um it's and and a small knock can actually then work its way with keel movements and tacking and everything else, or repeat of small groundings can do an awful lot of damage, yes. It just works it so eventually something snaps.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

No, it doesn't it ever. Um just as a couple of other uh quick questions because I I didn't make a couple of notes on this. So, why is dead reckoning called dead reckoning? I don't know. Oh uh I'm amazed actually, Nigel. I thought you'd know that one. So that's gonna be a Google question for both of us later then.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

It is, yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

I'm surprised uh that that you didn't know that. Yeah, you got me on that one. I'm surprised. And you know you're being in that case. No, oh well, I'll take it. Hang on, how many other questions could I ask? Have you still owned uh or do you still carry a sextant with you whenever you go out instructive?

SPEAKER_02 42:24

It depends what instructor I'm doing. Um going across channel this weekend, and let's see, this little baby it'll be be with me, which is uh a flying uh it's a basic uh 1940s flying bolt sextant, can we use one of my favourite little toys, and so that's so I often will take a sextant that's got a very small box, it'll carry box. I don't need to carry lots of paperwork because I've got short form versions of most of the publications, yeah. Uh it's a good interest generator because you get a sex, you're crossing the channel, which I'll be doing Friday nights, coming back maybe Sunday night. Um we'll have the moon out, certainly. Uh Venus in the evening, uh, certainly get possibly good sun sights. You get this thing out, and people go, ooh, what's this? Right? Can I have a go? Can I look at it? How does it all work? And it just opens people's minds up to actually another another method of navigation. Then we do a couple of sites and quite careful of getting within a mile or two, um, if the conditions are right. So then they go, wow, this is accurate. Because most people think it's good for 10 20 miles of navigation. No, it's it's accurate down to on a good day within a mile, mile and a half.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

But uh so when you're teaching, do And this is a final thought, really. When people are learning um celestial navigation, do they start learning on boats or is it better to start onshore? Does light pollution cause a problem?

SPEAKER_02 44:15

It can, I'll get one to that. But initially, learning, I would probably say the best way is actually do a classroom course first. There are online courses available. The only thing I like about the online courses is if they fill up my classroom courses with people who couldn't get on with the online course, which is I'm quite happy with. People learn stories better than facts. We discuss the stories, inter fact, interface the facts into the stories of why we do certain things in certain ways. Yeah, that then helps people understand. This is where it gets back to the people with math challenges, possibly. Once they learn the stories, the math becomes easier, you must think. So you build up, then once you know how to navigate a table, right? With various publications, then I would say don't go to sea with it until you can prove the beach is it or the harbor walls in the right place. So I always say you go down to say uh Hailing Beach, or actually we can do it in certain solvent in certain places at certain times of the day, and you just sit there and take lots of sights. And you can prove that Hill Head is where Hill Head should be on the chart. Yeah, then take it to sea. Because if you struggle on land, you can sit down and you're not moving at the same time, you can work it through. Once the boat's moving across oceans, it's very hard to catch up with it. So that's one aspect of it. You mentioned light pollution. Yeah. Now, obviously, you need to be able to see this the celestial objects. So without that, you're pretty well stuck.

unknown 46:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Light pollution is open ocean, you shouldn't get that much light pollution.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yeah, for start it's more for people starting out, isn't it? Yeah. On the shore.

unknown 46:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

I think what you're referring to there is as actually light affecting the darkness.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Right. Yeah. Okay. So is primary daylight. Yeah. All of the the twinkly things, we need two aspects. First of all, we need to be able to see the star or the planet or the moon. The second thing, we need to be able to see the horizon. So we can only do it in at twilight. So when there's just enough light to see the horizon, but there's enough darkness to see the celestial object. Now the moon is slightly different because the moon often creates its own horizon. So I'll tip I'll put the moon to one side. The moon is a raving lunatic though. So we use a thing called the twilight zone. Now, the twilight zone, before Amy puts any little sound effects in, is the period after sunset, but before it's totally dark, where you've got just enough light to see the horizon, and just enough dark to see the stars. Now, I always say do stars in the morning. Trying to do stars in the evening is stupid, realistically, because in the evening you're losing your horizon. You often have more atmospheric, so it's not really light pollution, it's more atmospheric pollution from haze. So during the day, the air heats up above the sea, it holds all moisture, you're slightly hazier on the horizon. You don't get the same clarity of the stars. Do it in sociable time, first thing in the morning, before dawn. You can practice on the stars you need to use because you can see them clearly, and all you're waiting for is the horizon. The atmospherics have cooled off, therefore the moisture in the air tends to settle back into the sea. You get dew on the on the decks of the vessel because of it. So you're sitting in getting a wet bottom doing it, but it's a lot easier doing in the morning than it is in the evening. And what we do is we'll plan, if that's the case, using the first publications, the best up to seven stars we're going to use. You then northern hemisphere, you may have Polaris, you may have Venus or Jupiter or Saturn or Mars and the Moon. So if you can't get a fix for that lot, there's something wrong. Yeah, yeah. Depending what depending on what's available.

SPEAKER_01 49:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:22

Well, thank you very much for taking the time, Nigel, to come on and have a chat to us. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on. If people do want to hunt you out and learn uh so much from you, I mean, many a year I've learned so much from you, but if they want to find you, how and where do they find you?

SPEAKER_02 49:41

I run a Facebook group called Astro Navigation Masters. Um there's two questions before you can get on to that, which is what's your interest? So long as you say I wish to learn, yeah, um, I agree with it, agree with the rules, my automatic assistant lets you in. Uh, if not, it won't be afraid. Um, or my email address is nrenny at aool.com. Um, so more than happy for people to email me. I'm fairly easy to find on Facebook social media, uh, or even Google me. I'll probably come up and Google as well. Uh, I've been on there enough times these days. And uh yeah, any questions I help with or courses, run lots, we're in about a dozen courses a year. So there's and other opportunities as well for for for private or beach or astro afloat. So there's lots of.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

At the moment, you work with a couple of the Golden Globe uh entrance, aren't you?

SPEAKER_02 50:43

Yes, yeah, yeah. Uh so yeah, two of the Brits. Yeah, keep my all teas the right place.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Uh so you won't mention anything about any football at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

No, I work I work with Henry next week, so yeah, uh last week, week before I forget it was, yes. So, which is great. I I love working with these people to have a an interesting look on the on the whole thing. They're coming from a different aspect to the average sailor. And it was very similar to working with the team of Maiden a few years ago and some of the Ocean Globe team there as well. Uh, really pleasurable bunch of people to work with. Uh a lot of fun. And not life friends made a lot of life friends made at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 51:35

I bet there are. Well, thank you very much, Nigel. And uh if you're interested in knowing more, look Nigel up and uh yeah, keep uh commenting, subscribing, following. It's been an absolute pleasure listening to all of your comments. So until next episode, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 51:53

Thank you.