My Mk I Mod 0 eyeball isn't quite what it used to be. Glasses help.While I may have some of the new tech on my boat (chartplotters, AIS), I still practice and enjoy the fine art of sailing. There's nothing wrong with the Mk 1 Mod 0 eyeball!
Set your watch back 20 years
- Thread starter Tiffany
- Start date
When I had cataract surgery I was given options, to have good near vision, good distance vision or one near and one distance. i opted for the distance vision. On a good day I can spot a small buoy over a mile away. On the other hand, I can't read small print or low contrast print worth a damn, cheater glasses help a lot.
Not quite ready for cataract surgery yet, but I know it's coming.
Also this:
6 Pilot Rules that Everyone Should Live By
The principle of “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” is a fundamental tenet in aviation. There have been numerous aviation studies conducted revealing that pilots can become so engrossed in troubleshooting a problem that they inadvertently neglect their primary task of flying the aircraft.
The sailor's equivalent is "keep your eyes outside of the cockpit." Remember also that COLREGS says in Rule 5 (Look-out) that "Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision."
Note the "as well as" phrase, which means that eyes and ears come first, before instruments.
6 Pilot Rules that Everyone Should Live By
The principle of “Aviate, Navigate, Communicate” is a fundamental tenet in aviation. There have been numerous aviation studies conducted revealing that pilots can become so engrossed in troubleshooting a problem that they inadvertently neglect their primary task of flying the aircraft.
The sailor's equivalent is "keep your eyes outside of the cockpit." Remember also that COLREGS says in Rule 5 (Look-out) that "Every vessel shall at all times maintain a proper look-out by sight and hearing as well as by all available means appropriate in the prevailing circumstances and conditions so as to make a full appraisal of the situation and of the risk of collision."
Note the "as well as" phrase, which means that eyes and ears come first, before instruments.
My father was a professional artist. Gradually, his paintings were becoming blurry and the color pallet drab. I talked him into cataract surgery, and a week or so later he was back to painting as he had many years before.
Maybe as a last choice, you could have opted for blue eyes ....................... one blew east and one blew west.
No need to opt in to blue eyes. They have been blue since the day I was born and probably before that.
I find the access to real time weather radar, GRIB charts, and Other weather data to be a huge positive. So much better than listening to NOAA weather on the radio and trying to figure out what the days weather will be.
Well, in the words of Yogi Berra, "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be".
Technology can free us from such bothersome things as learning how to use a sextant. It also makes us more dependant on it, and robs us, in a sense, of the romantic notion that we could sail the Ocean Blue with nothing more than our wits and a few good instruments.
I would say that the ancient Polynesians would like something more definitive than dead reckoning and reading the waves to find their way around the Pacific Ocean, but in certainty lurks boredom.
As a mid 30 something I see modern electronics as more of a safety measure. We love to sail by the tell tales! Even carry paper charts although the Great Lakes are well charged. There’s a sense of adventure in being able to use all of the mechanical instruments, sextant, parallel rule, etc etc. We do however opt for the cell phone calculator in place of the slide rule!
