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Random Quote: Manatee..... Its what for dinner!!!!
Interesting... I just put the following waypoint in my garmin PC map program: N25 55.000 W79 22.430
If I transpose the last 3 digits to "340" instead of "430" - it moves the waypoint 600 feet to the east...that's enuf to pull you out of the channel and onto a shoal....I think the two biggest mistakes you can make is not carrying a hand-held back up with good batteries and inputting bad waypoint data....
I seem to remember a story in SC Charleston Inlet, whereas it was at night a boat was manuvering to enter the inlet following the chart plotter. Unfortunatley the chartplotter did not mark the end of the jetty at low tide, the boat came to rest on the rocks! Hence the reason to use charts in conjunction with the chartplotter.
If someone hits the rock jetties in Charleston Harbor they obviously are not paying attention to the numerous navigational aids to guide mariners. There is no reason a captain should get that close to the end of the rocks with a chart plotter. Low tide extends the rocks by 50' but there is no reason to cut it close as there is plenty of water on the offshore side to enter the shipping channel.
Seems he had other limitations. I suspect that the captain was lazy and it is not the plotters fault
My story also involves night navigation. During a night striper tournament on Lake Murray, SC a couple of years ago one of the consestants ran high and dry aground on an exposed hump (the Lake was drawn down 15 feet for repairs on the dam). The boat was completely out of the water. Luckily nothing injured but his pride. The story was that he was following his previous track in reverse. Just got off course a little. Truth is A) he was going too fast at night to see what was in front of him. B) If that had been another boat instead of dirt someone would have been hurt. GPS is some powerful stuff BUT IT AIN"T RADAR !!!!
June 10, 1994 the Royal Majesty, a 568-foot cruise ship with state-of-the-art navigation equipment, was on the last leg of its cruise from Boston to Bermuda and back.
It was shortly after 10 p.m. The weather was clear and calm. The captain left the bridge at about 10:10 p.m. A few minutes later, a lookout on the port bow reported to the bridge he sighted "blue and white water, dead ahead," according to the National Transportation Safety Board report after the accident.
The message was acknowledged, but no action was taken. At about 10:20 p.m., the ship unexpectedly veered to port and then to starboard. Before anyone could do anything, the ship ran hard aground on the Rose and Crown shoal, 10 miles east of Nantucket. The shoal is clearly marked on charts.
Because of sea conditions, the 1,509 passengers and crew could not be taken off the liner, but had to wait for tugs to pull the vessel off. There were no injuries.
Investigators found the cruise ship was some 17 miles west, or closer to Nantucket, than was called for in its proper course. The ship struck bottom in just 11 feet of water on the shoal. Damage was estimated to be $7 million.
The mishap occurred because crew on board were unaware a key navigation system was malfunctioning, federal investigators determined.
When the ship left Bermuda for the trip to Boston, the ship's electronic global positioning system receiver antenna cable connection had separated. Undetected by the crew, the mishap meant the device was operating in a "dead reckoning" mode. Rather than telling the crew exactly where the vessel was at any given time, the GPS only reflected an approximate location, one that did not compensate for influences of tide, currents or winds.
The National Transportation Safety Board found that "over-reliance" on automated navigation equipment by the crew was a contributing factor in the grounding.
One perplexed mariner observed, "They gotta look out the window. Complacency don't cut it."
Never had a personal horror story but I overheard this in a Boater's World...Customer calls store and talks to salesman (a friend of mine) who he bought the GPS from, apparently he was in the middle of the Ches Bay, fog setting in and could not see the shore line....after he got "lost" he then turned on the GPS to find his way home, to much of his surprise the GPS would not tell where his port was, the boat operator had no charts, compass or VHF (just the electronic compass on GPS) Store clerk suggests to boat operator to head west tell he saw land....cell phone battery died......apparently no power point to run phone charger on the boat......he finally saw his GPS customer several days later buying a VHF, Paper Charts, Compass and two power points to add to his boat......apparently he eventually found his way home.
I guess you can have all the tech stuff in the world, but if you do not understand how it works or use it properly then its useless....
__________________ 1967 Boston Whaler 13'
"The Cox'N"
Hull # 20940
Here's my GPS horror story. Early this season we were out boating on the Potomac up near Gunston Hall. The Potomac is pretty twisty up near D.C. but there are several narrow channels that allow one to leave the channel and cut a half mile or so off the trip. I was in one of these channels( 20 feet wide) with a friend when he had an emergency requirement to return back to his home. I called out for some assistance explaining the problem on the VHF, and a fellow boater in a huge 55 footer volunteered to pick my friend up and return him. He spotted us quickly and came along side. A transfer was made and my friend dissappeared over the horizon. As my son and I watch him leave, we slipped the outdrive into gear and noticed that the GPS was not updating. Frantically, I searched for the paper chart. I had made the run through this particular channel many times, but never paid that much attention since the GPS bread crumb trail is so incrediblly accurate. We go through the shortcut and back into the marked channel, and I vowed to keep one of the little handhelds on board from that point on. As to why the GPS stopped working. Well, I was one of the first to purchase the Lowrance 337c DF. When I called them early Monday morning, and related the above story to the Customer service lady, she asked two questions. First, "Did that big boat have his RADAR going when he pulled alongside?" I answered, "I think so." Second question, would you like us to ship the new GPS receiver overnight or will surface shipping be OK?"
Turns out early models did not have good EMI protection from adjacent RADARs, something that was corrected in later models. They provided a mailer, for me to return the unit so it could be updated, and sent me a new one in time for the very next weekend and I learned three valuable lessons. Have paper charts stored where you can get them quickly. Pay attention to shoreline observables with relation to your compass, and have a backup.
please teach your class and avoid passing on second-hand information obtained from mostly anonomous sources. out of the scores of replies thusfar, I read one true tragedy that was attributed to to an antenna cable not hooked up properly. when you pass on second-hand info that may or may not be true, you just promote "urban legend" half-truths and encourage your students to do the same. the truth is, gps is incredibly accurate for our purposes...i do agree with all here who have stated do not rely on them without a backup. an off-shore mariner who cannot use a chart, compass, and manuevering board does not deserve to be piloting a vessel off-shore and is a hazard to all on the water.
I have a Garmin 3006c and a Garmin handheld on my boat.
I also have charts and a compass, parallel rule and dividers. If I was going offshore and could only take one or the other I would leave the GPS and take the charts & compass.
Not a horror story but . . . last year right off Montauk Point a fog rolled in that was totally blinding. Lots of large vessels cruising in and out of the area, a rolling sea, and of course the rocky Montauk point that was no longer in sight. Like Murphy's law, that was when I lost my GPS (due to an antenna issue).
Luckily, I just signalled my horn regularly and slowly headed in the compass direct that I knew would eventually put me where I needed to be. Let's say horror story avoided.
Some years ago, at the start of an military exercise call "Desert Storm" (you can look up the date about most anywhere) the magellan GPS I was using on a boat somewhere out in the Gulf of Mexico kept shutting itself "on" and "off". When "on" sometimes the data would "roll itself over" very rapidly and shut "off" again. It was worthless for navigation purposes. We went about our business using the mag compass and DR.
Upon return I complained bitterly to the Magellan people about their six month old GPS. The emailed back that their receivers were only as accurate as the data received. Obviously, Uncle Sam was the only one who wanted to receive "accurate" satellite positioning data at that particular point of time worldwide! They had "scrambled" the transmissions during the invasion proceedings! Some people, like airlines, had the code....I didn't.
A repeat of that occurred just a few years ago to a garmin 76 of mine that was shutting itself "on" and "off". It settled down after a couple of hours. I did call the Garmin tech line and was told that a "auditing signal" containing a software error had incorrectly ordered the satellites to "shut down and reboot" certain receivers.
These things can happen any time. Can also happen to any mag compass whose "deviation" influences change without going noticed!
Whenever I enter waypoints into my chartplotter, I do them from home on my PC Planner. This way I can look at both paper charts and the electronic chart. It takes a little more time, but at least I'm 99% sure of what's out there. I also carry a Garmin 76C as backup.
Try losing your GPS or "PLUGER" as they are called in the military;in the Desert. That is one place everything looks the same. It is the only way to navigate unless you use a sextant. BTW, anyone on here know how to use one of those?
not a horror story...but...have an icom with no chip...only the generic chart...works great running from waypoint to waypoint.....this one time i was running from montauk back to springs....about 15 miles in fairly dense fog...this is the one time i was ever in a hurry in fog...figured it would be faster to run the beach than do the right thing and go way point to waypoint.....asked my good friend from louisiana to go below and tell me where we were ....his answer......."ON LAND"....sure enough the cursor was runnin right down montauk highway....never count on the generic chart
kingair - 7/28/2005 6:52 PM Try losing your GPS or "PLUGER" as they are called in the military;in the Desert. That is one place everything looks the same. It is the only way to navigate unless you use a sextant. BTW, anyone on here know how to use one of those?
Yes.* I used a plastic Davis sextant and a Radio Shack TimeCube to navigate a Bristol 27 from Corpus Christi to Vera Cruz, and return.* Ten days ands two storms going down, seven days and one storm coming back.
So what happens if GPS malfunctions or signal is interrupted in a GPS guided weapon once it's launched? Does the smart weapon become dumb? Is there a backup mechanism for guidance? That would seem to be a potential GPS horror story.
__________________ Carpe Diem
01 Tiara 2900 Coronet
Re: GPS Failure Horror Stories 
