Navigation In Depth

I think we've navigated this thread into Bligh Reef!!!

"Go figure....as usual ....to be successful at anything whether from years ago or today...it takes the right combination of things at the right time."

OR it takes a product with little competition and a huge markup.

Frequently that niravana does not last long.

The Coast Guard released this information today.

There were 610 recreational boating fatalities in 2014, the second-lowest number of yearly boating deaths on record.

The lowest number of yearly boating deaths was 560 in 2013, according to data released by the Coast Guard.

The most boating deaths occurred in 1973, when 1,754 people died.

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Now I fully understand the difference between cause-and-affect and correlation. But it makes you wonder. What percentage of boaters were using electronic vs paper charts in 2013/4 vs 1973?

The answer is obvious. And yes, there are other factors at play here too. But as navigation has moved from throwing potatoes off the bow to integrated MFD's and autopilots, the results have been an incredible increase in safety.

One thing the CG didn't mention was the amount that boating was up over 2013 and 2014 over the previous 5 years. Those 5 years were the start of the transition to full electronics onboard. So more use with fewer fatalities. If only every analysis were so simple.

Electronic navigation doesn't make you immune from risk - no one ever claimed that. You're just less at risk the more you remove paper charts from use.

Jeffrey S said:

The Coast Guard released this information today.

Now I fully understand the difference between cause-and-affect and correlation. But it makes you wonder. What percentage of boaters were using electronic vs paper charts in 2013/4 vs 1973?

The answer is obvious. And yes, there are other factors at play here too. But as navigation has moved from throwing potatoes off the bow to integrated MFD's and autopilots, the results have been an incredible increase in safety.

One thing the CG didn't mention was the amount that boating was up over 2013 and 2014 over the previous 5 years. Those 5 years were the start of the transition to full electronics onboard. So more use with fewer fatalities. If only every analysis were so simple.

Electronic navigation doesn't make you immune from risk - no one ever claimed that. You're just less at risk the more you remove paper charts from use.

Click to expand...

Because people aren't drunk and falling overboard without life jackets?
I think you could pick any activity from 1973 compared to now and find it safer.

Note: I received lawn jarts as a birthday gift in 1973.

I doubt there are very many boating deaths attributed to cruising, either now or in 1973. I suspect the vast number of deaths are caused by drunks in go-fast boats and PWCs, people falling overboard, heart attacks, and so forth. I think to try to relate these statistics to paper vs electronic navigation is very wishful thinking.

If you want to relate it to anything it's most likely due to our overall nanny state thinking in which people are increasingly being protected from themselves. As Spy correctly says, you can pick any activity be it bicycling, driving, or boating and the statistics will show a falling fatality rate even as the number of participants increases.

I would venture to say that far more boating deaths have been avoided by the implementation of the little plastic interconnect wire between the kill button on an outboard and the driver's clothes than the change from paper to electronic navigation. And this despite the fact that a huge number of boaters probably don't use it.

That's the problem with statistics like this. It's easy to spin them to "prove" a point which in reality is not accurate.

I'm not saying this to defend paper chart navigation. I'm just pointing out another example of incorrect interpretation of statistics.

I actually think these statistics do relate to the electronic/paper argument. While it's likely true that smaller motorboats are where the fatalities mostly happen, they're one of the biggest adopters of electronic charting. And it's making them safer for all the same reasons it makes cruising boaters safer.

Marin said:

I doubt there are very many boating deaths attributed to cruising, either now or in 1973. I suspect the vast number of deaths are caused by drunks in go-fast boats and PWCs, people falling overboard, heart attacks, and so forth.

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I tend to agree as I can't remember seeing, hearing or reading about any boating deaths attributed to cruising. Maybe a few about sail boats caught in high seas. I take that back....there was Zopilote that hit the rocks & and you can bet that she had a full compliment of electronics on board! I'm not counting "Concordia's" Disaster and other commercial boats that were lost.

I moved here in 1979. From then until now the majority of boating fatalities (and accidents) here have occurred on the lakes and rivers in go-fast or small fishing boats, PWCs, canoes, kayaks and rafts. A good number of them involve alcohol/drugs and collisions, others are the result of people falling or being knocked overboard. Some are due to capsizing and subsequent drownings. And a few are due to medical emergencies. The same causes are true out in the saltwater although collisions are a minor or non-existent cause.

None of these things have squat-all to do with chart-based navigation of any kind. And I suspect the same situation exists throughout the country. The fact some of these boats may be fitted with electronic navigation devices is irrelevant-- chart-based navigation is not a factor in any of these kinds of accidents. As Walt pointed out, whatever navigation system was in use on the Costa Concordia (or the Exxon Valdez or the Washington State ferry Elwha) it didn't help avert the accident.

I understand your desire to relate the death-reduction trend to advances in navigation-- it's the business you're in. If the Coast Guard's statistics were for groundings instead of deaths I would agree with you 100 percent. But in this case I think you're just going to have to watch this one from the sidelines. Charts and navigation-- other than looking where the hell you're going-- aren't part of this particular game.

Jeffrey S said:

The Coast Guard released this information today.



Now I fully understand the difference between cause-and-affect and correlation. But it makes you wonder. What percentage of boaters were using electronic vs paper charts in 2013/4 vs 1973?

The answer is obvious. And yes, there are other factors at play here too. But as navigation has moved from throwing potatoes off the bow to integrated MFD's and autopilots, the results have been an incredible increase in safety.

One thing the CG didn't mention was the amount that boating was up over 2013 and 2014 over the previous 5 years. Those 5 years were the start of the transition to full electronics onboard. So more use with fewer fatalities. If only every analysis were so simple.

Electronic navigation doesn't make you immune from risk - no one ever claimed that. You're just less at risk the more you remove paper charts from use.

Click to expand...

For one willing to accept the difference between causation and correlation, you sure jump quick into making a statement of causation.

I think if you were to look into the details of each rec boating death, both in 1973 and in 2014, I will venture that most involved neither paper nor electonic charting.

Marin said:

I understand your desire to relate the death-reduction trend to advances in navigation-- it's the business you're in.

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I'm not sure where that comes from. People are going to use our data on a variety of platforms. Electronic charts and navigation has little to do with ActiveCaptain. It's like saying that TripAdvisor is interested in making sure you have Tom-Tom in your car. It doesn't really matter to them although they probably think it's pretty dumb to have a fold-out map in the car too.

No one is deciding whether to have only paper charts these days. Everyone has electronics - we're way past that. The reason I've created my position on paper charts is because I've been at too many helms seeing how people "use" paper charts today. Too many people think that the paper charts they have are backups. They're just not. If it works for you after you've seen my arguments and think those arguments are wrong for your particular case, then keep using them.

Jeff-- I totally agree with your previous post. We happen to have paper on our boat because we like it for various reasons and we know how to use it properly because we're in a generation that learned with it.

But we certainly don't navigate our boat with it and we don't advocate doing so for anyone. Not when we have plotters that show us what the currents are doing in the passes in real time and what the navaid flash patterns are and all the other cool stuff they do. And can overlay Active Captain, which is what I meant by saying you're in the electronic navigation business.

If a boater believes paper is a good backup for when the electricicals stop holding hands, great. Particularly if they know how to use the paper correctly. If a boater wants only electronics because the redundancy available today makes a total electronics failure so unlikely as to not be worth worrying about, great. Talking to anyone in the commercial aviation industry about the value of redundancy is preaching to the choir.

But paper vs electronic is not the solution to every known problem man has. In the case of dying while boating the vast majority of instances are and will continue to be caused by bad or impaired decisions on the part of the boater, poor judgement, carelessness, or involuntary in the case of a medical fatality. The type of charts on the boat is totally irrelevant to all this.

To use your car navigation analogy a co-worker was seriously injured in an accident the other month. A car ran a red light and T-boned him in the passenger door. Both vehicles had GPS navigation. Both drivers had it turned on. In neither vehicle did it have the ability to prevent the accident.

A red light-disable-the-accelerator device might have. But the type of navigation system in the car, folding map or electronic? Nope.

Same deal with boating.

Ski in NC said:

For one willing to accept the difference between causation and correlation, you sure jump quick into making a statement of causation.

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That's only because it was helping my argument!

Jeffrey S said:

That's only because it was helping my argument!

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That there is funny!!!!

Jeffrey S said:

I actually think these statistics do relate to the electronic/paper argument.

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You may THINK that...but no statistician worth his "salt" SHOULD draw that conclusion, without carefully examining whether other factors are at play. It's a long journey from conjecture to compelling evidence.



Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

JDCAVE said:

You may THINK that...but no statistician worth his "salt" SHOULD draw that conclusion, without carefully examining whether other factors are at play. It's a long journey from conjecture to compelling evidence.

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In the mid=1980s I had a notion of getting my MBA, which Boeing would pay for if I maintained a minimum of a specific GPA. So I started taking classes. The first two were an introduction to computing languages and statistics. I enjoyed the hell out of the computer class and came to despise the statistics class.

But it did have some value which I didn't realize at the time, of course. And part of that value was to understand the validity of what Jim wrote in his post.

The company I work for lives on statistics which are obtained in every way imaginable. While I do not work directly with them I am sometimes given projects that use statistics and the conclusions drawn from them to make or prove a point in the story I am being tasked to tell. And that very basic understanding of how to view and use statistics which I learned way back when has proven to be right on the money every time.

Deleted, duplicate post.

Thanks, I will.

This post started in the bunk on the boat about midnight on a rainy night in March while I was worrying about my GPS puck going kaput and then no nav computer. Being a long way from the slip and not having a spare I wondered if I could find my way home w/ paper charts.
And now here we are solving world problems, carry on lads, y'all are awesome.
Mike
Captain, M/V Old School

Gulf Comanche said:

This post started in the bunk on the boat about midnight on a rainy night in March while I was worrying about my GPS puck going kaput and then no nav computer. Being a long way from the slip and not having a spare I wondered if I could find my way home w/ paper charts.

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...And you clearly did (find your way home)!



Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

I did, Jim. On the boat I can be, or am, a thinker about things that can go wrong. Thinker is an easier word to swallow than worrier.

Gulf Comanche said:

Being a long way from the slip and not having a spare I wondered if I could find my way home w/ paper charts.
And now here we are solving world problems, carry on lads, y'all are awesome.
Mike
Captain, M/V Old School

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Gulf-- You were wondering about a valid situation. There are obviously a number of ways to deal with the situation as evidenced by the content of this thread.

Paper and the necessary tools and understanding to use them is one. Redundancy of electronics is another. A combination of both is still another. And the redundancy route has any number of possibilities when you include all the boat-powered and self-powered options that are available.

In this day and age I tend to agree with Jeff's basic premise that redundant electronics is the smartest way to go. The fact that some of us have been "defending" paper is not, I believe, because we feel it is superior as a backup (or primary) but that it's a viable backup IF...... the boater knows how to use it properly and likes using paper charts and doing the calculations and plotting that is necessary. Otherwise, as Jeff has correctly pointed out, they can be a real liability and put a boater in danger. Just as electronic navigation can be a liability if used improperly and without understanding.

As with most stuff having to do with anything, the only person who can determine what will work best for you is you. Whatever, if anything, you decide to do, I believe the most important thing is that what you choose as a backup navigation system or process should fit your comfort and confidence zones. So that when you wake up on a rainy night in March and think about how you're going to get home if a GPS puck craps out you'll have a solution that you have confidence in and are comfortable using.

Then you can lie there and worry about things like World Peace and who to vote for and who's going to win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and why licorice tastes the way it does.

Marin said:

Gulf-- You were wondering about a valid situation. There are obviously a number of ways to deal with the situation as evidenced by the content of this thread.

Paper and the necessary tools and understanding to use them is one. Redundancy of electronics is another. A combination of both is still another. And the redundancy route has any number of possibilities when you include all the boat-powered and self-powered options that are available.

In this day and age I tend to agree with Jeff's basic premise that redundant electronics is the smartest way to go. The fact that some of us have been "defending" paper is not, I believe, because we feel it is superior as a backup (or primary) but that it's a viable backup IF...... the boater knows how to use them properly and likes using paper charts and doing the calculations and plotting that is necessary. Otherwise, as Jeff has correctly pointed out, they can be a real liability and put a boater in danger. Just as electronic navigation can be a liability if used improperly and without understanding.

As with most stuff having to do with anything, the only person who can determine what will work best for you is you. Whatever, if anything, you decide to do, I believe the most important thing is that what you choose as a backup navigation system or process should fit your comfort and confidence zones. So that when you wake up on a rainy night in March and think about how you're going to get home if a GPS puck craps out you'll have a solution that you have confidence in and are comfortable using.

Then you can lie there and worry about things like World Peace and who to vote for and who's going to win the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and why licorice tastes the way it does.

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I think this is an excellent synopsis of the passage we all just made.

Well said.

True words Marin, all is well. Thanks to all for the conversation.