At Sea, Tropical South Atlantic
We have been sailing four days now north into the tropics of the South Atlantic Ocean. Time at sea like this puts us in mind of the traditions of the seafaring people of the world. Our beautiful binnacle riding above the bridge of Endeavour on “monkey island” as this small deck is called, houses our magnetic compass. The binnacle is surrounded by all the electronic wiring and antennas which allow modern ships to sail as we have, four days out of sight of land, and arrive, as we expect to tomorrow, at the tiny island of St. Helena, a speck of land in the vast South Atlantic Ocean. The magnetic compass has been used at sea for centuries, first in China and for the past 1000 years in the west, and until recently was the only aid to navigation which, entirely on its own, with no human manipulation or adjustment, allowed mariners to set and follow a course across the trackless expanse of the sea and arrive at their landfall safely.
I carry a small sundial to the beach to tell time. It started as simple way to avoid carrying a watch. When someone stops and asks if I know what the time is, I pull out the sundial, orient it to north with a small compass, stand a nail on the dial as the gnomon and read the time. When I say, “It’s two-fifteen,” almost invariably the person then asks, “How do you know it works?” I think this is an interesting question, because had I looked at a watch and said the same thing, no one would ask “How do you know it works?” and yet my sundial is much less complex and provides a much more direct measurement of time than any watch which must be adjusted, energized and synchronized with an outside reference.
When we see the compass in the binnacle we see what generations of mariners have seen. When we look at the numerous electronic displays on the bridge which give us our GPS position and course and speed over ground, the time to our next waypoint, our real-time position on our electronic chart-plotter as well as automatically calculating and displaying the bearing and range to any object with in the range of our radars, we seldom ask, “How do we know it works?” We know because the magnetic compass, floating alone and silent in the binnacle tells us our course. The rest we can figure out ourselves the old fashioned way if we have to, but that compass provides the fundamental reference, the check on everything else. We love our modern equipment, but no mariner worth his salt would leave port without his magnetic compass. Because he knows it works.
We have been sailing four days now north into the tropics of the South Atlantic Ocean. Time at sea like this puts us in mind of the traditions of the seafaring people of the world. Our beautiful binnacle riding above the bridge of Endeavour on “monkey island” as this small deck is called, houses our magnetic compass. The binnacle is surrounded by all the electronic wiring and antennas which allow modern ships to sail as we have, four days out of sight of land, and arrive, as we expect to tomorrow, at the tiny island of St. Helena, a speck of land in the vast South Atlantic Ocean. The magnetic compass has been used at sea for centuries, first in China and for the past 1000 years in the west, and until recently was the only aid to navigation which, entirely on its own, with no human manipulation or adjustment, allowed mariners to set and follow a course across the trackless expanse of the sea and arrive at their landfall safely.
I carry a small sundial to the beach to tell time. It started as simple way to avoid carrying a watch. When someone stops and asks if I know what the time is, I pull out the sundial, orient it to north with a small compass, stand a nail on the dial as the gnomon and read the time. When I say, “It’s two-fifteen,” almost invariably the person then asks, “How do you know it works?” I think this is an interesting question, because had I looked at a watch and said the same thing, no one would ask “How do you know it works?” and yet my sundial is much less complex and provides a much more direct measurement of time than any watch which must be adjusted, energized and synchronized with an outside reference.
When we see the compass in the binnacle we see what generations of mariners have seen. When we look at the numerous electronic displays on the bridge which give us our GPS position and course and speed over ground, the time to our next waypoint, our real-time position on our electronic chart-plotter as well as automatically calculating and displaying the bearing and range to any object with in the range of our radars, we seldom ask, “How do we know it works?” We know because the magnetic compass, floating alone and silent in the binnacle tells us our course. The rest we can figure out ourselves the old fashioned way if we have to, but that compass provides the fundamental reference, the check on everything else. We love our modern equipment, but no mariner worth his salt would leave port without his magnetic compass. Because he knows it works.
