[Celticwarrior]

There is room for everyone at the campfire. Not everyone gets into this for the same reasons, and not everyone will need all the information posted here. If you never use a gun or a knife those posts are completely useless to you, and if you never hunt or fish, then those posts don't work for ya either. In that vein, the navigation in open oceans with minimal supplies might never come up in your foreseeable lifetime. What happens if it does though? Cruise ship goes down? Plane crashes? You win the lottery and decide to round the world in a sailboat and wind up with cheap electronics? Whatever! The point of having a site like this isn't necessarily what are we ALL going to face one day, but what if's. The "what-if" scenario is the hallmark of the survivalist mindset. For some people, preparedness is putting away some canned goods, water, flashlight, and a radio for the next tornado warning or earthquake. For others, it can have a lot of different implications and might span a lot of scenarios that the average person might NEVER think to prepare for. There are some things that we take for granted as never needing to worry about here in America, like Plague, or swarms of vermin, or guerrilas coming in to massacre everyone in your town, that if you travel to other parts of the world aren't just a hypothetical exercise but are real life survival situations. Places like this site are great ways to play those "what if" games, and certainly some of these recent posts go in that catagory.

Years ago, I was in a leadership course, and they gave us a list of items, and told us our situation: we were on the moon. We were in spacesuits and we were in trouble. Take these items and put them in order of most useful to least useful for your survival. They ranged from a pistol to a pouch of water to a book of matches. It was interesting, because the things that are important here are useless there. A pouch of water or matches mean nothing. They won't help in the moon's airless environment. The pistol, which most people took as useless to help you on the moon was actually useful, if you shoot it in the opposite direction of where you want to go, the equal and opposite reaction of the muzzle blast would push you in the near zero-g environment. Great if you were drifting off into space. The point of the exercise was to get you to think outside of your normal space, and put yourself fully into the new environment with all of its specific needs. Only that way can you truly begin to deal with your situation, rather than dwelling on what you WANT to be true.

While you may never need to navigate the ocean, or worry about things you might need in a BOB on the moon, you can benefit from the exercise. The idea that you can think your way out of a situation that seems hopeless, the idea that you have the ability to make a difference in your circumstances by some odd and otherwise useless piece of trivia, the idea that you don't have to be a victim.

I think that Warvet's mental exercise shows us that we can do a lot of things, if we use the brain we all have. It is what makes us separate from the other primates. Knowing star constellations, knowing how to read a map, knowing a little something about open water navigation, are all things that our ancestors took for granted. Not so for us here in the modern world. We rely on the technology of the day to do all the "hard work" for us. There are no guarantees for the future, and it might come to a day that what you ALREADY KNOW how to do is all you will have from that day forward to get you through the dangerous and uncertain days ahead. Knowing as much as you can, about as many THINGS as you can may save you and your loved ones when that happens.

If you don't believe that will be the case, then there are many other items here to read that will prepare you in other ways, certainly. As I say, there is room for everyone at the campfire here.

[carolina168181]

I figured it out,very interesting-thanks

[Ashlar]

In relation to the original post...

Prevention is better than cure. Always ensure you know your position at all times by using GPS and plotting on a map. Make sure your boat is in excellent, seaworthy condition, your batteries are good, your engines are maintained, and your communications equipment is maintained. If you only have one radio and are going a significant distance from land, perhaps buy a second unit. Have an EPIRB on board and test it with the test button only (don't actually activate it). Ensure your flares are not expired, and make sure you have a heliograph (signalling mirror) and what we call a "V Sheet" (a big orange fluorescent sheet with a V on it here, but other parts of the world use an orange sheet with a ball and square on it) - it helps aircraft and other boats see you. Have N and C code flags (flying N over C means you are in distress, at least in our part of the world). Make sure your anchor and rope is good (and very long). Ensure you pay out enough anchor rope - many people don't - you can need 7 times the depth of the water you are in and more, depending on the sea state. Also have a drogue/sea anchor, and know how to use it to slow down drift and even steer your boat if the steering fails.

If you do get lost, if close to land or other features, you can triangulate your position on the map by drawing a line along your compass heading through the feature (channel marker of some kind, rock, island, etc), and then drawing another line through another feature or true north (haven't tried the latter). Make sure you convert compass headings to true north for use on your map.

Failing that, if the weather is closing in like the original post said and you don't think you can survive it, prepare your boat for the weather as best as you can, prepare the kit you take overboard with you in case you need it, prepare your bailing bucket, and consider activating your EPIRB.


Besides that, the most important things:

- A sharp knife. Always have one on your body.
- A life jacket. Have one on at all times. Make sure it is the correct type.
- One hand for the boat, one hand for you. Don't go overboard. Ever.

And finally, if you abandon ship, make a final mayday call (and know beforehand how to make one!), drink some water from your ship's water bottles so that some air is in the neck and it will float when thrown overboard).

ANyway, I went a bit off track, but it's important :-)