Map and compass

grid to mag add, mag to grid get rid

Quite often it was hard to work out the mag variation depending how old the map was but depending on the length of the leg to march on a bearing and by aiming off a bit it often made no difference

Navigation is more an art than a science. I delivered a boat to St Peter Port from Littlehampton with the new owner, it was his first time that far from land and he had a brand new Windy Mirage, lovely boat. All the electronic whistles and bells and computery GPS gadgets you can think of. I got my chart out, laid a a course and used the the compass.... he asked if I was going to make allowance for the tidal vector. As the variation and tide were working against each other, no, I couldn't be bothered and we would be fine. He was having kittens. We heaved to about half way across the channel for a pint and a pastie that I had brought with me.... we drifted for half an hour and he was worried that our course would be all wrong. We set off again on the same bearing... the casquets lighthouse, my waypoint, came into sight bang on the nose! People try to make it too complicated. Christ Alive, Drake had a magnetised needle stuck in a cork floating in an upturned coconut shell for a compass!
 
Navigation is more an art than a science. I delivered a boat to St Peter Port from Littlehampton with the new owner, it was his first time that far from land and he had a brand new Windy Mirage, lovely boat. All the electronic whistles and bells and computery GPS gadgets you can think of. I got my chart out, laid a a course and used the the compass.... he asked if I was going to make allowance for the tidal vector. As the variation and tide were working against each other, no, I couldn't be bothered and we would be fine. He was having kittens. We heaved to about half way across the channel for a pint and a pastie that I had brought with me.... we drifted for half an hour and he was worried that our course would be all wrong. We set off again on the same bearing... the casquets lighthouse, my waypoint, came into sight bang on the nose! People try to make it too complicated. Christ Alive, Drake had a magnetised needle stuck in a cork floating in an upturned coconut shell for a compass!

You are the man to learn ‘Day Skipper’ with. I started the theory bit, but gave in because of busy work commitments + the size of the instruments compared to my land Silva compass :D
 
For distance on roads I go back to the ancient Rome mile e.g. a thousand. A mile being a 1000 paces. Gets logical when you remember that a roman 'pace' is from the point the foot leaves the ground to when is touches down, around 5ft. For all you who are/were pre metrification you will remember a mile is 5280 feet.

They didn't teach that in lockdown.

tom
 
For distance on roads I go back to the ancient Rome mile e.g. a thousand. A mile being a 1000 paces. Gets logical when you remember that a roman 'pace' is from the point the foot leaves the ground to when is touches down, around 5ft. For all you who are/were pre metrification you will remember a mile is 5280 feet.

They didn't teach that in lockdown.

tom

1760 yards if you don't mind. :D
 
Did similar in the scouts and various outward bound courses.
For my generation compass & map-reading were essential skills for anyone venturing into the sticks.

Try looking at some of the hill-walking and Munro forums now...
Because of Covid, all sorts of numpties are heading up the hills. They get lost all the time because they lose signal on their phone.
Not only do they not have the equipment or ability to follow a map & compass, because they've just been following their phones, they have no idea, even roughly, where they are.

Some don't even have the ability to say which way is which when the sun is out...!
 
Navigation is more an art than a science. I delivered a boat to St Peter Port from Littlehampton with the new owner, it was his first time that far from land and he had a brand new Windy Mirage, lovely boat. All the electronic whistles and bells and computery GPS gadgets you can think of. I got my chart out, laid a a course and used the the compass.... he asked if I was going to make allowance for the tidal vector. As the variation and tide were working against each other, no, I couldn't be bothered and we would be fine. He was having kittens. We heaved to about half way across the channel for a pint and a pastie that I had brought with me.... we drifted for half an hour and he was worried that our course would be all wrong. We set off again on the same bearing... the casquets lighthouse, my waypoint, came into sight bang on the nose! People try to make it too complicated. Christ Alive, Drake had a magnetised needle stuck in a cork floating in an upturned coconut shell for a compass!

Clearly, somebody of your innate ability has no need for such trifles.
 
I wasn't sure where to post this, but its outdoors so here seems best.

when i was a kid i was in the cubs then scouts, we used to regularly do these games called "Parachute drops" although it didn't involve jumping out of planes.

This is how it went.

Kids would pile into the back of several vans with no windows and driven to a start point (each start point was different for each team (2 kids) )
sometimes an hour away, sometimes in wales in the middle of nowhere... usually on the moors.
then by using map and compass would have to reach a destination handed to us on a piece of paper.
sometimes you would have to pass through checkpoints and "check in"
first to arrive was the winner... usually one scout group against another.
some of these trips took a weekend and we had to camp out and carry on the day after.

probably doesn't appeal to this generation who prefer games consoles, but as a kid in the late 70s into the early 80s it was exciting stuff

I just wondered if there anything like this for adults?
i suppose its a form of orienteering, is anyone on here a member of a club or do anything like this?

Back to the question in the OP. I did some events around 20 years ago (feck me, 20 years!!!) called Ace Races. Four weekend long races at different locations each year. Night stages as well as running cycling, kayaking, a bit of climbing or abseiling and outdoorsy stuff like that. Each stage broadly similar: short run to checkpoint one where you were given a list of grid references for the rest of the checkpoints and the value (time) of checking into each one, so easy/close ones say five minutes, far flung or hard ones an hour or more. Some required an abseil to reach or to swim underwater or whatever. You then planned your route based on your running/cycling ability and how challenged you wanted to be. There were only two or three mandatory checkpoints such that the organisers would know roughly where you were. Each stage had a cut off time after which the clock ran at double time, then triple etc. When you checked back into CP1 your score was the elapsed time, less the points for checkpoints, plus any double/triple time. Stage time was 4-5 hours and if you did all the CPs efficiently a distance of 12-15 miles. Two or three stages a day plus at least one night stage. Friday PM to Sunday PM.

I discovered I was ok at navigating in the day but absolutely shite at night - I got very lost in Keilder once. Running speed was average to slow and I wasn’t a risk taker. The top guys were breathtakingly quick, super accurate with their navigating and route planning. The top three or four nearly always did every checkpoint within or just outside the cut off and generally had negative time at the end. They were Genuine elite athletes. I tried following one called Tom for a while. He muttered his navigation memory joggers under his breath while running (eg cross stream, 200 yards, wall then right) and would barely glance at the map for the next of his joggers. I managed to keep up for about a mile then he just powered away up a hill.

I think Ace Races got bought/merged with Rat Races who ran events on a different format (removing the navigation element) but are still going. They may have something in their event list though. I’m not fit enough anymore for this stuff. It was on an Ace race that I slipped and pinged my knee, although it was worn and hurting anyway . I carried on but a few days later I could barely walk and a couple of years after that had an arthroscopy and was advised not to run so much.
 
That does sound good, but an athletic sport version of the one i did.

The one i did was at a leisurely pace.
these days a kind of paper map version of Geocaching would help people read maps.

like others ive got lazy these days and use GPS devices and google maps.
still nice to go back and use paper though.
 
That does sound good, but an athletic sport version of the one i did.

The one i did was at a leisurely pace.
these days a kind of paper map version of Geocaching would help people read maps.

like others ive got lazy these days and use GPS devices and google maps.
still nice to go back and use paper though.
I did all those events with map and compass but surprisingly the organisers didn’t forbid gps devices as they didn’t view them as advantageous. But back then a garmin gecko was the height of sophistication though with no base maps or anything other than a direction of travel arrow towards one checkpoint and bread crumb trail of where you’d been.
 


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