# Are we too techno-evolved?



## remetau (Jan 27, 2009)

It is kind of scary thinking of boating without a chart plotter or even a GPS, but are we too techno-evolved for our own good? I admittedly could not navigate a long distance right now without a GPS, but I’m getting better at it and hope to be able to use a sextant before long. But wouldn’t some people consider the sextant a technological evolutionary instrument too? Sure we have all this fancy equipment, and I do, but at what cost? How many hours did we have to work for all this? How many people suffered to make what we needed? How many pollutants and chemicals did we put into some river to get us what we desired? Shouldn’t a sailing and cruising life be simpler?


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## TQA (Apr 4, 2009)

I have done a Transatlantic without GPS and using a plastic sextant but nowadays I love my Garmin 72.

I manage fine without a plotter and radar preferring to keep a running plot going on paper anytime I can not eyeball the next feature and maintain a good lookout. I suppose if I was in some foggy clime I might grow to love radar but in the Caribbean it is redundant.


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## tager (Nov 21, 2008)

I agree Remetau. I think that the extent of GPS should be to give you some coordinates to plot on a paper chart.

What's really interesting, though, is that a GPS is cheaper than a sextant!


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## remetau (Jan 27, 2009)

tager said:


> I agree Remetau. I think that the extent of GPS should be to give you some coordinates to plot on a paper chart.
> 
> What's really interesting, though, is that a GPS is cheaper than a sextant!


I know! For a good sextant, how crazy is that?


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## svHyLyte (Nov 13, 2008)

Do yourself a favor. Occassionally turn your electronics off, or cover the screens, and learn to make do with a hand bearing compass, your main compass and your charts. The experience will come in handy sooner or later.

FWIW...


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## Broomfondle (Apr 9, 2010)

Nah... embrace the technology. It’s not taking anything away, in fact it makes us what we are. Be enthralled by the design and sophistication of your hi-tech hull, the aerodynamics of the sail, the purr of the engine, whatever. Being at sea wasn’t always fun. In fact until quite recently it was a terrifying plunge into the unknown. I am sure you can’t tame the oceans but with contemporary technologies, some knowledge and a modicum of caution you can play in what used to be the domain of only the hardiest explorers. And it is fun...


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## eryka (Mar 16, 2006)

Hmmm, I just convinced a boating friend to get an iPod and rip all her CDs to mp3 files. Does tech also work the other way - is a flashdrive worth of jpg photos gentler on the environment than developing film and storing the prints in a set of albums on a shelf? And more to the point, if I can go sailing and take all my music and all my cookbooks and all my photos in my pocket, then its a lot more fun as Broom mentioned.

I found a decent Davis sextant in the dumpster a couple of years ago. It had obviously been used, with handwritten notes on the navigational stars taped to the outside of the box. I navigate, however, with 2 GPSs, paper charts, and binoculars with compass.


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## mceveritt (Mar 19, 2010)

I agree with both sides here.

Part of what makes us human is our ability to create and use tools. However there is always the concern of relying to much on certain tools and that can lead to disaster. 

My belief, like the answer to pretty much every other dilemma in this world, is always in moderation. Meaning, use as much tools/tech as you want as long as you balance that with knowledge of a more basic sort, and never forget where you came from and how you got there.


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## Architeuthis (Mar 3, 2008)

remetau said:


> Shouldn't a sailing and cruising life be simpler?


No.


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

*Use the technology you find suitable to you and your way of life...leave all the rest behind. * Some will want high-tech communications to keep in touch with loved ones, others will want high-tech entertainment, and others still the creature comforts of a modern life....some will want none of these things and sail on a smaller, simpler boat...


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## utchuckd (Apr 4, 2010)

By 'suffered' do you mean did an honest day's work for a fair wage to supply something there is a demand for? Or is sailing equipment made in sweatshops by little Asian kids?


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## RichH (Jul 10, 2000)

remetau said:


> It is kind of scary thinking of boating without a chart plotter or even a GPS, but are we too techno-evolved for our own good? I admittedly could not navigate a long distance right now without a GPS, but I'm getting better at it and hope to be able to use a sextant before long. But wouldn't some people consider the sextant a technological evolutionary instrument too? Sure we have all this fancy equipment, and I do, but at what cost? How many hours did we have to work for all this? How many people suffered to make what we needed? How many pollutants and chemicals did we put into some river to get us what we desired? Shouldn't a sailing and cruising life be simpler?


Probably asked by a Mediterranean Sea sailor about 300 AD: 
It is kind of scary thinking of boating without a backstaff or even an astrolabe, but are we too techno-evolved for our own good? I admittedly could not navigate a long distance right now without a backstaff or EVEN visually hugging the entire coast, but I'm getting better at it and hope to be able to use an astrolabe before long. But wouldn't some people consider drifting along in close sight of the coast on a log a technological evolutionary instrument too? Sure we have all this fancy equipment, and I do, but at what cost? How many hours did we have to work for all this? How many people suffered to make what we needed? How many pollutants and chemicals did we put into some river to get us what we desired? Shouldn't a sailing and cruising life be simpler? How many logs will it take to be cut down until someone learns to make these INSTRUMENTS that operate solely on LIGHTNING?????


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## davidpm (Oct 22, 2007)

The real technical challenge was the clock not the sextant or GPS.
The following is a very interesting read about the invention of the chronometer and the politics surrounding it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)

The short story is that Great Britain in 1714 was a navel power but while they could accurately determining the latitude they had no accurate way of finding the longitude. They lost many ships and had several disasters related to becoming lost at see, once losing an entire fleet which so shocked the nation they commenced on a national project to solve the problem and offered a great prize. George got his money eventually in 1773 but before that a phrase has seeped into the language that if you were trying to do something impossible you were "trying to solve the longitude problem."

In short in the late 1700's the clock was viewed with significant suspicion as it seemed unwise to trust navigation to such a fragile new system.

Todays' modern sextant navigation systems depend on an accurate time piece. Does anyone have a copy of the lunar tables? I don't trust clocks. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_distance_(navigation)

""The Discovery of the Longitude is of such Consequence to Great Britain for the safety of the Navy and Merchant Ships as well as for the improvement of Trade that for want thereof many Ships have been retarded in their voyages, and many lost..." and announced the Longitude Prize "for such person or persons as shall discover the Longitude.""


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## bljones (Oct 13, 2008)

Every day, I find i am one step closer to being the old fart who wears his sansabelt pants with the waist up around his nipples and the cuffs four inches above his velcro fastened orthopedic shoes, who yells at kids to get off his damn lawn, has more hair in his ears and nose and back than he ever had on his head, and mutters to anyone within hearing-aid range that damn young people today are stupider than ever. Every generation has been more tech-reliant than the generation before, but the pace is accelerating- we are the first generation that has successfully cut down on THINKING.
If you graduated from High school in the 90s, you were the first generation that did not know how to use a slide rule, and did not need to know how to calculate sines, cosines and tangents... yet you were also the generation that could come up with the answers faster than any generation that came before.
You were the first generation that had never seen a television or radio that required tubes, and a tuning mechanism that was a rube goldberg combination of elctrical contacts, electronic components and mechanical parts.
You were the first generation to miss the awesome sight of a competent checkout clerk processing $200 of groceries in less than 2 minutes without bar codes... or errors.
The Ipod generation misses the value of music, and the responsibilty of music ownership. you took care of your albums, not just because they were relatively fragile, but because they required a larger chunk of your income to purchase, and anybody serious about music judged others by the hisses and pops and skips on the turntable, or lack thereof.
When you walked into somebody's dorm room or bedroom and saw what wax they had in their purloined milk crates, and the quantity, you know exactly who you were dealing with. Today, Ipods all look the same, empty or full, Brahms, Berry, B-52s Buck Owens or Busta Rhyme.

This generation doesn't know album art- an artform that lasted less than 30 years. 

Have you ever tried texting with a rotary dial phone?

Animation- CGI has replaced the wonder of mattes and cels and modelmaking.

Accuracy and attention to detail have become unimportant, as the machines we use to transmit, store, interpret, manipulate and implement data can correct our errors. And speaking of errors in correspondence errors are less important anyway, because nobody cares. One used to care about punctuation and spelling and grammar because how you wrote reflected on you, and demonstrated your level of intelligence, or at least your level of interest in doing something right just because it was the right thing to do.
I'm afraid I find myself falling into the trap of not proof-reading and correcting my errors, and it makes me a little whistful and chagrined.



Where the hell was I?
Oh yeah...

I am a member of the transitional generation. The generation that learned how to do math before and during the rise of calculators and computers, who learned to read and write before the birth of spellcheck, and then adapted to it, the generation that learned the Library of Congress and Dewey decimal syastem, and then learned how to duke with URLs. We were the first generation to move from low tech to high tech, and we are wary, because we know that things didn't always work real well. Between LPs and MP3s there was 8 tracks, cassettes, CDs, with fragile and questionable technology in many cases... Remember RCA laser discs? Halfway through every damn movie you had to eject the disc and flip it over! We know stuff doesn't always work, so we saw the value of old-school thinking.
Thus the bittersweetness of the 21st century. Technology has improved to the point where most gadgets are reliable enough to create a cultural complacency- it works most of the time, so I don't have to worry about what to do if it doesn't work. 

Somebody once explained to me the difference between "smart' and "intelligent": an intelligent man knows what he knows. A smart man knows what he doesn't know.

As a whole we are much more intelligent than every before. But I don't think we are smarter.

We have more information than ever available faster than ever, and it is tempting to rely too closely on it. Radar has led to reduced watches on commercial vessels and accidents that may not have happened in days past are occuring now, like ferries ramming islands.


I like my chartplotter and my vhf, but i also take some pride and comfort in knowing how to plot a course and reckon my position. The day when charting skills are no longer taught replaced in stead by chartplotter programming, it will be a sad day.


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## gershel (Feb 4, 2001)

WOW!! That's great.
Thanks, Marc


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## imagine2frolic (Aug 7, 2008)

bljones,

That was worth several drinks if we ever meet . Somehow I missed the laser disc, but hey. I just know I don't know what some know, and think if I only knew!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!..... ....*i2f*


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## Maxboatspeed (Apr 11, 2010)

*Nice Bljones!*

We are what we are. GPS can fail.
Almost all of the ship wrecks shown on charts are from the days before modern equipment. The problem I see is that some of this equipment allows folks with absolutely no knowledge or ability to operate a boat where they aren't qualified to be.
Blogging via your computer and highspeed connection about a GPS being an example of the evils of modern technology? Nice!


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

Yes, the Brits had a lot of belly buttons or was it oranges??? 



davidpm said:


> The real technical challenge was the clock not the sextant or GPS.
> The following is a very interesting read about the invention of the chronometer and the politics surrounding it.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitude_(book)
> 
> The short story is that Great Britain in 1714 was a *navel* power but while they could accurately determining the latitude they had no accurate way of finding the longitude. They lost many ships and had several disasters related to becoming lost at see, once losing an entire fleet which so shocked the nation they commenced on a national project to solve the problem and offered a great prize. George got his money eventually in 1773 but before that a phrase has seeped into the language that if you were trying to do something impossible you were "trying to solve the longitude problem."


BLJ-

Nicely said...


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## kredit (Sep 4, 2008)

earth is flat and 6000 years old and I say a prayer when Im navigating thru gods bladder...also have room for some domesticaters


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## eryka (Mar 16, 2006)

@bljones - Yeah. What he said.

-eryka (navigating by GPS chartplotter, while doing DR on paper charts)


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## whroeder (Aug 20, 2007)

eryka said:


> Hmmm, I just convinced a boating friend to get an iPod and rip all her CDs to mp3 files.


And if the boat gets hit by lightning, even if not damaged itself, the EMP has wiped the electronics including that flash drive.


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## chrisncate (Jan 29, 2010)

...


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## FlyNavy (May 14, 2009)

By my screen name you can probably surmise that I fly over the open ocean for a living…at least I used to. Much of my experience has been oceanic crossings but early on, a lot was Dead Reckoning navigation launching from an aircraft carrier and returning to a significantly different place from where the launch occurred as the ship steamed onward…all prior to the advent of GPS, OMEGA and LORAN navigation aids. Flying over land at 40,000 feet isn’t much different except for the fact that there are a lot more airports available for diverts than over the open sea.
Every bit of technological improvement has been met with resistance from some but eventually embraced as significant safety improvements. That being said, nothing in aviation (or sailing) replaces situational awareness…knowing exactly where your are, how high, how fast, where the wind drift is acting on you, when you will arrive at the next significant point and how you are progressing against your plan. Errors have a nasty way of compounding at 10 plus miles covered per minute but they can be just a devastating on the water sailing at one mile every ten minutes.
GPS navigation works wonders and like everything else automated, is a tremendous work saver that allows you to remain clear headed. Still a paper plot…plan, route check prior to launch and progress… are essential for when the power goes down or the navigation points prove to have been entered in error. 
My recommendation is don’t allow technology to replace old fashioned headwork because sometime you just might be all alone out there with nothing else to rely on but yourself.


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## eryka (Mar 16, 2006)

whroeder said:


> And if the boat gets hit by lightning, even if not damaged itself, the EMP has wiped the electronics including that flash drive.


Which is why the iPod, cellphone, laptop, spare GPS handheld chartplotter, etc etc all move to the oven (a.k.a. Faraday cage) during lightning storms. Does anyone know of anyone who did this and were hit by lightning? Was it successful, or just another urban legend? Or, were they having far bigger problems than the loss of their music?

We backed everything up on a pair of spare harddrives, stored in 2 different places on land.


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## pdqaltair (Nov 14, 2008)

remetau said:


> It is kind of scary thinking of boating without a chart plotter or even a GPS, but are we too techno-evolved for our own good? I admittedly could not navigate a long distance right now without a GPS, but I'm getting better at it and hope to be able to use a sextant before long. But wouldn't some people consider the sextant a technological evolutionary instrument too? Sure we have all this fancy equipment, and I do, but at what cost? How many hours did we have to work for all this? How many people suffered to make what we needed? How many pollutants and chemicals did we put into some river to get us what we desired? Shouldn't a sailing and cruising life be simpler?


GPS is fun. That said...

If you believe sailing is scary without GPS, turn it off and work on piloting. My first 2 boats were without (it didn't exist at the time of the first) and I didn't miss it often. I have also had 2 GPS failures (water, lightening) neither or which caused any hardship. I do fear that some sailors put so much faith in GPS and depth sounders that they stop really looking at the water. It is no secret that I believe everyone should start with small boats.Sail Delmarva: The Merits of Learning to Sail on a Small Boat

The larger issues of technology? It is pointless to pretend we are not human, curious, and prone to change our environment. It is what we are. Yes, we need to limit our consumption and impact for the benefit of the next generation (our genes), but few of us can thrive being Amish.

There are still plenty of simple joys; I went rock climbing this morning, with just my climbing shoes and a chalk bag. I will go to a soccer game this afternoon. Pretty simple and low-impact.


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## Architeuthis (Mar 3, 2008)

chrisncate said:


> Great post! I am 37, I understand exactly what you mean.


LOL Good one, since I figure the OP is about 57 it is clear such issues are true for every generation and of course every generation is unique, just like all the rest.


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## nickmerc (Nov 2, 2008)

I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. I am in my early 30's so I am part of that generation that graduated HS in the 90's. I have heard this argument about engineering. When I learned to draft we used pencil an paper. Then we learned CAD. I still twist my pencil when I draw a line. Many of us were hesitant to use CAD as it took longer to make a print... until you had to change the print. Don't get me started on the math skills of new graduates.

I also heard this same discussion in the late 90's in general aviation. This is when GPS really got inexpensive, relatively, and chartplotters started popping up in small planes. When I got my license my instructor made me do my cross countries in a plane that only had a compass and stop watch. I used my E6B (pilots slide rule) to plant my route and calculate my ground speed and headings. Then I was allowed to use a plane that had VOR (a very sophisticated ADF). This was great! It actually told me if I was wandering from my course. I didn't use GPS or LORAN in a airplane until around 2000. The planes that had them were too expensive for a new college graduate so I kept dead reckoning. GPS has made flight safer and faster as it is very easy to go direct to your destination instead of connecting several radio stations. That said I do not know many pilots who cannot dead reckon. It has come in handy a few times for me.

I bought a chartplotter last year for my boat. Before that it was all compasses and charts. I find that I use the chartplotter more for speed over ground than for navigation.

The point of my ramble is to illustrate, as stated before, that every generation asks this question. It seems to me that I am running into more people recently that are working on their low tech nav skills than before. Part of it has to do with cost saving and I think it also has to do the current political climate in the US as the people I run into want to be more self sufficient.
________
Fellis


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## pdqaltair (Nov 14, 2008)

nickmerc said:


> I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread. I am in my early 30's so I am part of that generation that graduated HS in the 90's. I have heard this argument about engineering. When I learned to draft we used pencil an paper. Then we learned CAD. I still twist my pencil when I draw a line. Many of us were hesitant to use CAD as it took longer to make a print... until you had to change the print. Don't get me started on the math skills of new graduates.
> 
> I also heard this same discussion in the late 90's in general aviation. This is when GPS really got inexpensive, relatively, and chartplotters started popping up in small planes. When I got my license my instructor made me do my cross countries in a plane that only had a compass and stop watch. I used my E6B (pilots slide rule) to plant my route and calculate my ground speed and headings. Then I was allowed to use a plane that had VOR (a very sophisticated ADF). This was great! It actually told me if I was wandering from my course. I didn't use GPS or LORAN in a airplane until around 2000. The planes that had them were too expensive for a new college graduate so I kept dead reckoning. GPS has made flight safer and faster as it is very easy to go direct to your destination instead of connecting several radio stations. That said I do not know many pilots who cannot dead reckon. It has come in handy a few times for me.
> 
> ...


You are on the right track, but it's deeper than that: a student who does not understand basic math shouldn't be allowed skip that with a computer. They will never learn how math works, and so far, the schools are still with that. A person who doesn't learn chart navigation will never really understand charts and geometry. They will also believe the chart is right all of the time and perhaps not ever realize that some of the data is from the 70s.

On a different note, just 2 years ago there was a boat on the hard across from mine, repairing a big dent in the bow. It turns out he enter a waypoint into the chart plotter and autopilot AND the marker lined up with the mast, so he never saw it.


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## Stillraining (Jan 11, 2008)

bljones said:


> We were the first generation to move from low tech to high tech, and we are wary, because we know that things didn't always work real well.
> 
> Somebody once explained to me the difference between "smart' and "intelligent": an intelligent man knows what he knows. A smart man knows what he doesn't know.


My 99 year old Grand mother would have disagreed with you on the first part and told you to re-read again your second part to yourself out loud... 

She was 3 years old before the first gasoline powered automobile hit the street half way across the world and then saw a man walk on the Moon, on a TV tube she saw get invented and placed in every home.....Computers and cell phones were unimaginable devices in her mind...growing up with the telegraph, pony express and gold standard money.

I think Her generation takes the prize.

Im waiting for the day I can buy a laser powered earth disintegrator and cut a foundation hole to grade for a 3000 square foot residence in 30 seconds...:laugher

Will I miss doing it the old fashioned Hydraulically controlled laser guided excavator way.......Ummmmm....................nope


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## sailingdog (Mar 19, 2006)

it works. One of my friends does the same thing on her boat, but uses a pressure cooker, not the oven.


eryka said:


> Which is why the iPod, cellphone, laptop, spare GPS handheld chartplotter, etc etc all move to the oven (a.k.a. Faraday cage) during lightning storms. Does anyone know of anyone who did this and were hit by lightning? Was it successful, or just another urban legend? Or, were they having far bigger problems than the loss of their music?
> 
> We backed everything up on a pair of spare harddrives, stored in 2 different places on land.


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## bljones (Oct 13, 2008)

Architeuthis said:


> LOL Good one, since I figure the OP is about 57...


Bite your tongue.
I'm 43. I just feel 57 today.


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## patrickstickler (Dec 2, 2008)

I absolutely *love* my chartplotter and have several backup GPS receivers on board, but I also have a sextant, a slide rule with trig functions, and a laminated card with all of the essential sight reduction and nav equations to jog my memory.

I look at GPS, radar, etc. and even compasses, as conveniences akin to dishwashers, washing machines, calculators. They make life alot easier and give more time and energy to enjoying other things, but one should be able to manage without them, and always keep in mind that they can fail in various ways at inconvenient times.

I don't ever expect to *need* my sextant and slide rule. But better to have it and never need it, than to need it and not have it


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