luber line???

RichBone · Jul 15, 2010

Lubber

n624ma · Jul 15, 2010

If it is a "Hockey Puck" type hand bearing compass you just put against your face under your eye and read the bearing under the object you are sighting on.

It does seem a little strange at first, but it is very repeatable and fast to use.

thereisabelle · Jul 15, 2010

arn't compass's funny? the more you use them the more fickle they become. the boy scout compass, in my mind, is the best thing since sliced bread. you picked a good name brand, that said, the readings are only as reliable as your surroundings. some binoculars have compass.but woody, arn't you itching for a sextant? curious.. jimbob

Joe · Jul 16, 2010

The reason your handheld doesn't have lubber lines is because it is for taking bearings of objects outside the boat, not steering a course. Lubber lines placed on fixed compasses are related to the boat's heading... the course it is steering. They help the driver quickly figure tacking, crossing and passing angles. They would be impractical on a handhelds. Instead they often have adjustable indicators or memory to help with tactics.

Bill Roosa · Jul 16, 2010

Using a compass with a paper chart

Hey Woody
I think you will find that the accuracy of just reading the hand compass is sufficient to do navigation by. I use the "straight hand over the steering compass" to good effect. Probably accurate to 5 degrees.
The important thing I learned is the wind does not care which way you want to go and will mess with you the whole way. So having a hand compass that reads to fractional (or even down to the individual) degrees is really a waste of time. I sight over the compass to an item of interest then use my hand to back azimuth from the item on the chart. If you do that twice on two items you have a pretty good (good enough) indication of your position. If you are in shallow water that is another piece of info to help zero in on position. In any case the wind will probably not let you capitalize on a really accurate position fix to any great extent. Knowing where I am to the nearest 0.5 NM is usually sufficient. When it is not (read in shoals) there are usually additional nav aids, structures, depth, information to put a finer edge on it.
The only time I think I do pinpoint (read less than 50 ft accuracy) is trying to get to the channel marker in the fog. A bearing compass is not very helpful in those situations and you just have to dead-recon yourself to the point and do a search. There are some interesting techniques that can make your search much easier but that is for another thread.

Don12364 · Jul 17, 2010

Lubber Lines are for landlubbers. i.e. people who are congenitally incapable of performing the simple tasks of navigating a ship at sea.
The handbearing compass is exactly that - a compass for taking bearings by hand.
Clever design of the display can make it appear as if the compass card is at infinity so the user's eye does not have to focus on the object at distance and the card close to at the same time.
This means that with both card and object at the same distance it doesn't matter how the compass is held as the object will always be in line with the same part of the compass card so the bearing as read will be correct and the lubber line is unnecessary.
Only snag with puck type compasses is that they need to be held dead level because, if not held level, one has no indication that the card is touching the housing and the bearing is wrong. One needs to turn to look at other objects to see if the card swings freely.
Beware also steel framed spectacles when holding the puck to the eye!

luber line???

woodster

.

RichBone

.

n624ma

.

woodster

.

thereisabelle

.

woodster

.

Joe

.

woodster

.

Bill Roosa

.

woodster

.

Don12364

.