[warvet]

Morning all,
Lets just say for the heck of it you are stuck out in the Atlantic Ocean blown off course by a large storm.You dont have the slightest remotest clue where you are. Your Radios out, GPS is out al useful equipment all you have is a 500 nm map an you know your on it somewhere.All you see in 4 directions is water, what to do:

Ok lets use night for example to better illustrate my point,
If you havent got a protractor then first we have to make one. Draw a Full circle by usinga bowl or something round as a template then cut he circle in 1/2 horizontally with a line. Now fold the paper your only gonna use the top half but the folded paper is extra weigh so makes it sturdier. Now Draw a vertical line cutting your Diameter 1/2 Circle in 1/2 againbut this time the other way bottom to top. Now where the line joins the bottom of the page go up 1/4 of inch and make a small + . This will be your Base line of 0- 180 degrees.Ok now divide the 1/2 circle exactly in 1/2 again on the Right and left side of the vertical line. On the left side mark 135 and on right side mark 45 continue evenly bisecting lines till you have 0 to 90 on Right 90 being the Vertical center line and continue on till you reach 180. Therefore 0 should be first horizontal line bottom of paper on the Right and 180 on the left. I have included a photo of what it should look like.

Take your Hand and point it like a gun with your thumb up and pointing finger straight horizontal so it aligns perfectly with the distant horizon might be abit tricky as the boat bobs, but do your best. Now take your thumb and point it directly at Polaris (North Star)
Now hold your hand continually steady and put the + of your new protractor on the exact point where your thumb and finger meet. The angle this forms is read by looking at the number lined up with using the thumb.
This number is your latitude.

Now look at the map and find that Latitude line and draw a soft line from one side of page to the other E to W. But remember it runs E to W but measures N to S.
Now you look along that line till you find any land your interested in islands etc. Now draw a Vertical N S line from top of map to bottom so it runs right through middle of those islands. Knowing the Latitude line your on Plot a Course South of those islands so majority of islands on map are North of your directional line.

Now you must determine your speed, there are different ways of doing this one way is chip log. The chip Log method requires a piece of wood about 1 1/2 ft long rougly 18" or so and a rope tied to one end through a hole inthe wood, it is important to form it in a wedge shape so it cuts the water without resistance. Next every 47ft.3" tie a visible knot in the rope or if your rope is not that long divide that in 2 or 4 and just multiply later.You then take the Chip wedge and throw it over the stern of the boat or rear so it will be training behind you it very important that the rope be free of friction so it will be accurate. As you let the rope out on a spool etc count 30 seconds and count exact amount of knots that passed over the stern. This will tell you exactly how fast your going or close to, heres why: 47 ft 3" The length was based on converting one nautical mile/hr to ft/sec (fps), then multiplying (fps) X 30 seconds .The result of this was the length in feet at where to tie the knots for a 30 second time count of the chip log. Hopefully I havent lost you yet lol
You see the number of knots counted in a 30 second period of time is equal to the speed in nautical miles/hr so 8 knots would have been 8 nautical miles/hr etc.

Another simple method:
Now take a 10ft piece of rope measured mark it so you know where the 10ft line begins to be accurate this portion of rope must be in water and exactly where you put the object to float. Put something that floats into the water at where that rope mark begins.Time the item how long it take to travel the 10ft rope. Now X this by 607.6ft because 6076 ft in a Nautical mile/10 ft of rope = Y so for example if it took the object 3 seconds to travel the 10ft
So heres the math 3 sec to travel 10 ft
therefore it takes 3x20 sec =min 10x20 = 200ft in a minute x 60 min/hr =
60x200 = 12000 Ft/hr / 6076 ft in a Nautical mile =1.9 Kts/ Hr your traveling.

Now with his information calculate using map scale from the Latitude line to the islands approx how long itll take you to arrive and then ration and lan accordingly. hope this helps.




Tim

[warvet]

Heres the Protractor example I promised

[Celticwarrior]

We forget with all the modern equipment, not only in today's Navy, but with boaters in general, how much the ancient sailors were able to accomplish with some really simple tools. The Mutiny on the Bounty story, for example. When the crew let Bligh and his loyal crew off the ship in a small boat, they were hell and GONE from any sort of port or even land. Yet Bligh knew his stuff. He and one of his mates (the ship's master) had no charts or compass, only a sextant and pocket watch, and somehow they managed to travel first to Tofua, (30 nautical miles away) to get some provisions off the island despite the hostile natives, and then made their way to Timor in the East Indies, over 3600 nautical miles in all, in 41 days from an open 23 foot ship's launch (Rowboat with small sail mast). The only man lost during the voyage was a mate who was stoned to death by natives during the Tofua landing.

With know-how and simple equipment, we can do the near-impossible. It isn't some fantasy, it's reality, but we simply want to believe that without technology things are just too hard. Warvet's example shows that with a piece of paper and a pen, you can get yourself out of a jam in one of the most inhospitable places on Earth. All it takes is a little knowledge, and the will to survive. Remember that as you go out into the back of beyond, to places where technology might fail, and leave you with only your wits to get through it all.

[warvet]

Dayam CW,
Im honestly considering discussing a partnership in my Wilderness Survival training program Nicely put and thanks for the backup.

Tim

[cowgirlup]

I'm pretty sure I'm dead in that scenario.

Note to self...avoid open water.

[warvet]

Cowgirl dont say that how can we help so you understand what to do better, thats the whole idea of this forum.

Tim

[cowgirlup]

I think I heard a few brain cells die a slow and painful death right about here...

What I will probably have to do is sit here and make it.

Originally Posted by warvet

Now fold the paper your only gonna use the top half but the folded paper is extra weigh so makes it sturdier. Now Draw a vertical line cutting your Diameter 1/2 Circle in 1/2 againbut this time the other way bottom to top. Now where the line joins the bottom of the page go up 1/4 of inch and make a small + . This will be your Base line of 0- 180 degrees.Ok now divide the 1/2 circle exactly in 1/2 again on the Right and left side of the vertical line. On the left side mark 135 and on right side mark 45 continue evenly bisecting lines till you have 0 to 90 on Right 90 being the Vertical center line and continue on till you reach 180. Therefore 0 should be first horizontal line bottom of paper on the Right and 180 on the left. I have included a photo of what it should look like.

Tim

[Celticwarrior]

Or just look at a picture (or the real thing) of a protractor, and compare it to the image he posted of the finished thing. It's just bisecting the arc over and over. Like cutting a pie in half, then quarters, then eighths, etc. Each of those first cuts represent major degree lines. Cutting it in half makes the first vertical line, which is 90 degrees. Cut the right hand wedge in half, and that line is 45 degrees. If you do it to the left hand wedge, that is 135 degrees. Etc. etc. You are creating that same protractor you used in school for basic geometry, that's all.

Hope that makes it sound more simple and do-able.

[cowgirlup]

little better...

Not a math person to begin with aside from the very basics.

I will play around with it until I feel I understand it a bit beter because navigation is a weak point for me. I've never been lost so I never sepnt much time on it.

Question tho, In the first part of the post there was no land in sight. Then after you make the paper navigational thing there is land off in the distance so it helps plot your course. Would this have any value if there was still no land in sight?

I'm asking because of a question I found on a survival quiz. I had absolutely no clue. It was something like "You fell asleep on your beach raft and have floated out to sea. There is no land you can see and you have no idea which direction the shore lies.

Do you:
1. Make a sail to catch the breeze

2. start paddling

3. pray

4. (forgot option 4)

I think I chose pray for that one. I was considering the make a sail to catch the breeze since it seems it usually comes off the water when you're on the beach.

Raelly still have no clue.

[Celticwarrior]

The use for the protractor thing is to get your latitude in degrees. It is the first step to knowing where you are. Based on the map he says you have, you can determine whether you need to paddle north or south of your current position toward the islands shown there. It doesn't help you knowing how far east or west of the island chain you might be though, or even if you ARE east or west. You have to have some knowledge of where you are relative to some point of reference when you go adrift. By using his information, at least you can figure out your latitude, and your speed. This is where most people were in the middle ages. They couldn't figure out longitude, which would have told them where they were East to West. That is what held up sea travel for a long time. The Arabic sailors had learned this a long time ago, and the Romans and even Egyptians had figured it out, but all that was lost in the Dark ages.

To figure out longitude, you need to have a fixed point of reference, and then an accurate clock. If you can sail straight east or west, know your speed, and can tell time, you can figure out where you ARE relative to where you WERE. It's why we have Greenwich Mean Time (the ancestor of Zulu time or UTC for military and scientific types). It allowed sailors to fix a specific time, and starting location. From there, any sailing covered distance and time, thus you could figure out where you were on the globe.

If you knew what your longitude was when you went adrift, and you had a way to keep accurate time, you could figure out your rough ongoing longitude as well as the latitude and speed of drift in Warvet's example. That would help you reach those islands on the map.


When all else fails, cheat and read a book! Hehehe! You might want to pick up something like http://www.landfallnavigation.com/bh020.html if you plan on heading out to sea and getting lost with no equipment. I promise I won't tell Warvet. LOL