HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: dbk@phx.mcd.mot.com (Dave Kinzer)
Subject: Re: Celestial Navigation Question
Summary: Accuracy?
Keywords: Celestial
Reply-To: teroach!dbk@phx.mcd.mot.com (Dave Kinzer)
Organization: Motorola Analog Integrated Circuits Division
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 21:57:50 GMT

   I read the post about getting sites to about 0.2 to 0.1 minute accuracy,
but I'm not sure how this translates into actual accuracy of a fix.  For
example, by my admittedly un-expert calculations, any fix you could make
will be traveling due west (or east depending on how you think about it)
at better than 11 nautical miles a minute (This assumes a 45 degree or
less latitude, in other words most waters in which we recreationally go
boating.)

  I recall several months ago of one poster being thrilled to get a fix   
less than a mile from his actual position.  Note: A fix.  This doesn't
mean average, root mean squared, three sigma accuracy, or any meaningful
measure of how well this kind of navigation would keep you off a reef in
the Bahamas.  

   Anyone care to venture the average error of their last 20 fixes as
compared to their GPS or LORAN location at the same time?

   Don't worry, no one will be able to judge your errors absolutely by this,
since everyone who reads this newsgroup KNOWS how crummy GPS and LORAN
positions are.  8^)

-Dave
From: shr@transpac.esd.sgi.com (Sanford H Russell)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: GPS articles in Sailing World Jan 93
Date: 30 Dec 92 21:45:35 GMT
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

If you're in the market for more GPS information their is a new article in Sailing
World, January 1993  on Hand-held GPS's. Mainly an overview with some editorial
comments. 

Also notes a GPS bulliten board the USCG runs.

(703) 866-3890  2400-baud
(703) 866-3894  9600-baud
N-8-1-F for settings



-- 

Sanford H. Russell Jr.

Silicon Graphics Computer Systems


shr@sgi.com
From: nguyen@hss3.smcm.edu (Ho Nguyen)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: info on beneteau first 8 meter (26 footer)
Date: 23 Dec 92 15:09:37 GMT
Reply-To: nguyen@oyster.smcm.edu

I am considering a 1986 Beneteau First 8.  Any info on price, performance  
(pointing ability, downwind, upwind, racing etc.), things to look  
for....will be much appreciated.  Any French sailor out there with  
knowledge on this Beneteau model?  Merci beaucoup!

Ho Nguyen
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: mjc@cblpf.att.com (45264-Mike Canfield(CB0051)164)
Subject: Captain position wanted
Organization: Amdahl Corporation
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 12:50:17 GMT
Keywords: sail crew 

My brother is getting ready to give up the easy life of a harbor master
and is looking for a position as captain on a sailboat.  He has extensive
sailing experiece in ocean racing, charter captaining, yacht maintenance,
sailing instruction, and sail making.  He currently holds a 100 ton 
license and will be testing for his 200 ton license in early 1993.  
He is a certified sailing instructor and scuba diver.

If you or anyone you know is looking for someone who will take great care
of their boat and is in need of a captain, please let me know.  I will
forward all information to him since he doesn't have net access.

Mike Canfield
att!cblpf!mjc
(614) 868-3820
From: jeffh@nonsuch.EBay.Sun.COM (Jeff Huntington)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: Re: Coast Guard user fee repealed!
Date: 21 Dec 1992 23:24:49 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: jeffh@nonsuch.EBay.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: nonsuch.ebay.sun.com

In article 1250@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu, whoward@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu (Will Howard) writes:
> 
> It's a matter of calling a general tax a tax, and a user fee a user fee, and
> not put users fees into the general govt funds, or use tax money to pay for
> things that should be paid for by the interested users "as they go." Sounds
> good, but...  The catch is it's not so easy to draw a clear line between
> services that benefit the general public, and thus should be paid for by taxes
> (in principle), and services that benefit a smaller set of "users" like
> recreational boaters. If the Coast Guard were able to estimate that it spends a
> certain amount of effort, worth X million dollars, on services that directly
> relate to recreational boating, then it would be reasonable, I think, to divide
> that up in some equitable way among all recreational boaters and impose users
> fee (for example the  per-foot charge as one admittedly imperfect scheme) that
> then go directly to the CG. But that's not so simple - services like
> navigational aids (buoys, LORAN, lighthouses, Notice to Mariners, etc.) and
> search&rescue,  benefit rec. and commercial interests. Pollution enforcement
> benefits many interests as well: commercial fishermen, beach-goers,
> water-skiers, etc. But it's worth considering that every you go boating you ARE
> using  government services - the CG is on call in case you get into mortal
> danger, they're maintaining nav. aids, etc.
> 
> Will "But hey, what do I know?" Howard


The only reason this tax is called a "Use Fee" is that the politicians thought it
would be an easier pill to swallow (no one likes to increase taxes) than calling
it a tax.  I can see no way that it resembles as use fee.  For instance, I would
like to see the data that shows that boast in the various length categories use
Coast Guard services in the relative proportion to the fees.  No, this is just 
another case (there are many such cases) where the politicians look around for
some small, poorly organized, group to tax when they need money.  Most of these
taxes are slipped into other legislation, and are calculated to have such a 
small impact on each individual concerned that there will be no orgainzed 
protest.  Then, when they find a group that does not protest, they have found
a group to hit again and again.  Why they are unable to find a fair, equitable,
and up-front way of levying taxes is beyond me.

BTW, did any of you notice which group got hit when they repealed the User Fee 
"tax"?

Due to the stupid political games that are being played, we still have not
gotten rid of the oppressive and ill-conceived Luxury Tax.  But that is another 
issue.

Jeff Huntington
From: ercn72@festival.ed.ac.uk (R.J.Hare)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: Re: Coast Guard user fee repealed!
Date: 23 Dec 92 10:05:15 GMT

To clarify a point made about the RNLI in the UK which was made a few posts
back, in the context of the discussion about the US Coastguard.

In the UK, there are several organisations who seem to provide some of the
functions provided by the US Coastguard (which seemes to be more of an
umbrella organisation than any of those in the UK).

1) The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is a body composed of
   volunteers (they may employ fulltime administrators at their HQ, but I
   believe *all* crew are volunteers). The main function is to provide rescue
   services at sea. I think I am right in saying that the RNLI is funded
   entirely by contributions from individuals, and receives no governmemnt
   funding, though I am happy to be corrected on that. Purely by chance, there
   was a 30 minute interview with the cox of the mumble mumble lifeboat on the
   radio last night. If this man is anything to go by, I think it *highly*
   unlikely that any crew member of the RNLI would attempt to profit out of
   his status within the RNLI.

2) HM Coastguard is a statutory body. They also provide rescue services,
   sometimes co-ordinating rescues. They work in close conjunction with the
   RNLI and the Air-Sea Rescue Services when complex rescue operations are in
   hand. The Coastguard also provide radio services for merchant shipping, and
   happily answer all sorts of daft questions from yachtsmen like myself.

3) HM Customs and Excise is a statutory body. These are the folks who track
   down the smugglers. They operate at airports and ports of course, but they
   also have fast patrol boats, blac k rubber dinghies and can and do stop
   boats and 'rummage' them. This has happened to me twice, once at 0300 in
   the English Channel which was not funny, as I was akip, and once in the
   Sound of Islay when we invited them to stop for a cup of coffee. These guys
   get involved in some of the heavier operations, like boarding armed ocean
   going tugs stuffed to the gunnels wih drugs. In such cases, they would
   liaise with the Royal Navy I think, because they are not armed.

I think thats a fairly accurate (if brief) summary of the organisations in the
UK who fulfil the roles of the US Coastguard.

RH.
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: EPLUS17@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (Richard Engelbrecht-Wiggans)
Subject: Re: Celestial vs. GPS (was Re: Bermuda Trip - 7/'93)
Organization: C.C.S.O.
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 20:44:29 GMT

In article <29093@oasys.dt.navy.mil>
hanners@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Robert Hanners) writes:
 
>In rec.boats, roy@mchip00.med.nyu.edu (Roy Smith) writes:
>>bartley@spss.com (Dennis Bartley) writes:
>>
>>        I think part of the problem is that most people don't understand the
>>difference between precision and accuracy, and assume that just because a
>>Loran shows you your position to 1/10th (or even 1/100th) of a minute it
>>must be correct.
>
>
>My question is this: Why isn't it reasonable for the unit to calculate and
>display a measure of this potential error, as individual values (for
>the discerning user :-) ) or as a total?  Or is this in fact a feature
>of some makes?  The error itself could be a statistical measure such
>as 50%, standard deviation, 2 x sd, or whatever.  Preferrably such
>weighting would be user selectable.
>
At best, the unit could display an estimate of KNOWN error sources.
All too often in my experience, we overlook important sources of
error.  So, having the unit display an estimate of error would tend
to further confuse precision with accuracy.
 
An example:  A friend--engineer by profession--reported that his new
car got 19.328 miles per gallon, plus or minus 0.002.  How did he
calculate this?  He filled up his tank three times, keeping track
of the distance he had driven and divided that by the amount of
gas purchased.
 
But he only knew his total miles (about 1000) to plus or minus
about 0.1 miles; an error of about 1 in 10,000.  The fuel pump
reports the amount of gas delivered to the nearest 0.001 gallons;
for a 16 gallon tankful, this gives an error of about 1 in 16,000
for each tankful.  Since some of the errors might offset each other,
he figured a total "typical" error of about 1 in 10,000, or 0.002
out of about 20.
 
Then I come along and ask "how do you know that your gas tank had
exactly (to 0.001 gallons) the same amount in it at the beginning
and end of the experiment?"  Answer: he always uses the same pump
and lets it shut itself off.  Well, the next two fillups, I went
along.  After the pump shut itself off, we carefully topped the
tank to the top of the fill tube, noting how much extra gas was
delivered in the process (and siphoned some off before driving off).
On the two fillups, the amount of gas needed to top of the tank after
the pump had shut off differed by just over one gallon!  In fact,
he only knew that he had used about 45 plus or minus one gallons of
fuel, and his mpg estimate was at best accurate to plus or minus
one half mpg.  He had overlooked an error source that completely
swamped the errors that he had considered.
 
How many boaters do you really think would remember that the error
estimate is only an estimate and might be orders of magnitude off?
I suspect that most would deceive themselves into thinking that
they knew things more accurately than they really did.
 
..Richard E+17
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: marc@watson.ibm.com (Marc Auslander)
Subject: Re: Celestial vs. GPS (was Re: Bermuda Trip - 7/'93)
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 13:53:41 GMT
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
	<C01Dpo.4p3@spss.com>
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, New York

The discussion has so far ignored the dominant failure mode of
Celestial Navigation - namely foul weather.  If you can't see the sky
or the horizon, celestial is down!  And, in the midst of the storm,
its awefully nice to know where the hard stuff is!
--


Marc Auslander       (IBM)<marc@marc.watson.ibm.com>      914 784-6699
                     (Internet)<marc@watson.ibm.com>
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: heon@cbnewsg.cb.att.com (garry.j.heon)
Subject: Re: Coast Guard user fee repealed!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 17:20:21 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.225416.6970@phx.mcd.mot.com>, dbk@phx.mcd.mot.com (Dave Kinzer) writes:
> In article <1992Dec28.150046.14779@progress.com> gerard@progress.COM (Gerard Bras) writes:
> >...regarding who pays for SAR
> 
> >                                              The analogy to funding of the
> >ski patrol is right on the money.  
> 
> I disagree.  The proper analogy to public ski-patrol funding would be asking
> the Coast Guard to patrol your privately owned lake (or publicly owned but
> exclusively leased to you lake for which you charged others admission.)
> That clearly is not the case we are talking about here.
> 
>   A more correct analogy for Coast Guard funding would be who should pay
> for Highway Patrol funding.  Yes, you argue that people use the highway
> for trucking.  So are the seas.  Yes, you argue that the highways are
> used for commuting.  So are the seas.  Yes, you argue the seas are used
> for recreational use.  So are the highways (as I do when driving to the
> ski areas.)
> 

I thought the topic was the Coast Guard User fee which I thought
goes into Uncle Sams general fund.  Is this still true or did I miss
something along the line?  If the user fee did in fact go to the CG I
would gladly pay my $50 a year.
I do have one question, the tax I pay on boat fuel goes where?  Into
one of the highway funds or back into boating, CG, safety classes ect?

******************************************
* MY OPINIONS.............AT&T's NETWORK *
* Garry Heon                     AT&T    *
* heon@cbnewsg.att.com       Holmdel, NJ *
******************************************
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: dwl@watson.ibm.com (David W. Levine)
Subject: Re: GPS fix quality (was: Celestial vs. GPS )
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 21:05:29 GMT
Reply-To: dwl@watson.ibm.com 
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

In article <DUDLEY.92Dec30133733@birch12.cray.com>,
dudley@birch12.cray.com (Dudley Knappe) writes:
|> 
|> |>kverruyt@nl.oracle.com (Kees Verruyt) writes:
|> |>|> hanners@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Robert Hanners) writes:
|> |>|> Also there's the direct ability to calculate potential error due to
|> |>|> nearly parallel intercepts and of course the unit can get a direct read
|> |>|> on signal strength.
|> |>|> 
|> |>|> My question is this: Why isn't it reasonable for the unit to
calculate and
|> |>|> display a measure of this potential error, as individual values (for
|> |>|> the discerning user :-) ) or as a total?  Or is this in fact a feature
|> |>|> of some makes?  The error itself could be a statistical measure such
|> |>|> as 50%, standard deviation, 2 x sd, or whatever.  Preferrably such
|> |>|> weighting would be user selectable.
|> |>
|> |> You're quite right -- and so think some of the GPS manufacturers since I
|> |>remember that at least one brand has the ability to display such an
|> |>error-value.  Don't remember which one though. I probably saw it at the
|> |>Paris (France) Boat Show, where I must have seen at least 20 different
|> |>brands of GPS equipment.
|> 
|> 	I worked with Stu Bell's Magellan 5000 GPS while crossing the Gulf of
|> Mexico.  There was a diagnostic mode that you could bring up that displayed
|> the quality (strength, signal/noise ratio) of the satellite signal on
a scale
|> of 0-10, 0 being the worst, 10 the best; and the quality of the fix
from that
|> satellite (again, 0-10).  Once I understood what it was trying to
tell me, it
|> was much easier to discern whether a fix was trustworthy or not, or even how
|> bad it might be.
|> 
|> --
|> Dudley Knappe, Software Development Division            Cray Research, Inc.
|> Phone: (612) 683-5529                                   655F Lone Oak Drive
|> E-mail: dudley@cray.com or uunet!cray!dudley            Eagan, MN 55121

For what it's worth, that's one of the things I do poke at with most lorans,
if the box lets me check it. Most boxes include this and it's worth learning
how to call it up and what it means. For example, on one boat I race on,
the Loran's generally cranky while charging heavily. On my folks boat, we had
to re-cable the VHF run into the Nav station to keep the VHF from killing the
Loran when trasnmitting. Understanding what your unit can tell you about itself
is useful. 


David W. Levine --  dwl@watson.ibm.com  -- IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
                   -- My Opinions, IBM's hardware. -- 
"Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your
aim" - George Santayana  
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com (Dillon Pyron)
Subject: Re: Coast Guard user fee repealed!
Reply-To: pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com
Organization: TI/DSEG VAX Support
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 15:22:41 GMT


In article <1h43h1INN2ge@leela.CS.ORST.EDU>, youngqd@atlantis.CS.ORST.EDU (Dean Youngquist) writes:
>Wasn't the US Coast Guard funded for years by tax dollars from the general
>fund?  This was paid mostly by non-boaters.  As a boater I'm happy that
>the tax is no more but I can't say its unfair to me that I pay money
>into a general fund, even if it doesn't increase the Guards' allocation.
>Wouldn't it take quite a few years of taxing us boaters to repay Uncle
>Sam for Coast Guard service of the last 40 years or so?  Then the Govm't
>also does a lot of sea charts, at a loss I might add.
>
>Dean
>
You missed a very important point.  The USCG operates for "the greater good" of
the United States and its citizens.  Only a portion of the CG budget is
dedicated to "boating services".  They also license, inspect, enforce (ie.
potty patrol), interdict (ie. the boarding thing), provide navigation aides and
chase submarines (no smileies).

I would be willing to pay a fee which directly supported the USCG (even if I
don't always), but to fatten up the budget so that more can be over spent is
beyond my will ...
--
Dillon Pyron                      | The opinions expressed are those of the
TI/DSEG Lewisville VAX Support    | sender unless otherwise stated.
(214)462-3556 (when I'm here)     |
(214)492-4656 (when I'm home)     |"Pacts with the devil are not legally
pyron@skndiv.dseg.ti.com          |binding!"
PADI DM-54909                     |-Friar Tuck   _Robin Hood:The Hooded Man_

Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: stefan@leland.Stanford.EDU (Stefan Michalowski)
Subject: Re: Price for 1986 J-24
Organization: DSG, Stanford University, CA 94305, USA
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 20:52:47 GMT

Fritz Zaucker writes:
>
>Hi,
>
>is 15k a reasonable price for a 1986 J-24, supposedly in good shape,
>but with worn out sails (including trailer)?
>

I would say that the price is much too high, almost by a factor of 2.

Stefan


From: dick@hpscit.sc.hp.com (Dick Lucas)
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 17:01:33 GMT
Subject: Re: inverter and battery use
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Santa Clara, CA
Newsgroups: rec.boats

You are confusing Amp-hours with power...  The microwave consumes 600 watts,
and with a 50% efficiency inverter, you need 1200 watts input from the 
batteries.  A 12 volt battery must deliver 100 amps to deliver 1200 watts to
the inverter (12 volts X 100 A = 1200 watts)  At 100 amps, the 450 A-hr 
batteries will last only 4.5 hours.  However, at this current level, they
might have sufficient internal impedance that the voltage might drop and the
real output might be well below the stated A-hr capacity.

Dick Lucas
From: francis@oas.stanford.edu (Francis Muir)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: Re: Coyote spotted, now safety at sea
Date: 27 Dec 1992 23:09:42 GMT
Organization: Stanford Exploration Project
NNTP-Posting-Host: oas.stanford.edu

RFLOOD writes:

	Has anyone else been struck by how casual Slocum was about 
	sailing single handed around  the world - at least, in his 
	own writings. His attitude seems to have been, get in the 
	boat and go. A few lbs of food, some water, and a sextant 
	and alarm clock with one hand......quite enough. Was the 
	"Spray" exceptionally seaworthy,  and did he rely on his good 
	fortune and experience more than a modern sailor would ?

	Any other Joshua Slocum fans care to expand on this theme ?

To me, the quote that sums up Josh Slocum is the following:

	"And suddenly I remembered that I could not swim."

							Cap'n Fido
From: kaygee@hardy.u.washington.edu (Kevin Giansante)
Newsgroups: rec.boats
Subject: Re: Coast Guard Boating Tax, NOT!
Date: 25 Dec 92 00:41:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Dec25.004155.21747
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

carl@Cayman.COM (Carl Heinzl),In-reply-to: pavlov@niktow.canisius.edu's
message of 21 Dec 92 09:24:17 GMT, says:


>Except that the border patrol can only check you out when you're
>crossing the border not when you're just approaching it.  

>So, unless you leave US Coastal Waters, they (the Coast Guard) should
>not be able to board you unless they have reasonable probable cause
>(e.g. they see you picking up packages that have been dropped from an
>airplance) that you have drugs/whatever aboard.

>-Carl-

and I say:

Not true, Carl.  The Border Patrol can go just about anywhere they wish
at any time, and they can even operate outside of the normal legal
constraints that we expect from our police agencies.  They have more
enforcement power than any other agency, except maybe the Secret
Service.

I agree that "probable cause" should be used as a guideline, but 
probable cause is not restricted to seeing people picking up
packages out of the water.  Sometimes just being seen somewhere
SEEMS to constitute probable cause.  It's a judgment call.
Newsgroups: rec.boats
From: dudley@birch12.cray.com (Dudley Knappe)
Subject: GPS fix quality (was: Celestial vs. GPS )
Reply-To: dudley@birch.cray.com
In-reply-to: kverruyt@nl.oracle.com's message of 30 Dec 92 13:51:36 GMT
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 30 Dec 92 13:37:35 CST


|>kverruyt@nl.oracle.com (Kees Verruyt) writes:
|>|> hanners@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Robert Hanners) writes:
|>|> Also there's the direct ability to calculate potential error due to
|>|> nearly parallel intercepts and of course the unit can get a direct read
|>|> on signal strength.
|>|> 
|>|> My question is this: Why isn't it reasonable for the unit to calculate and
|>|> display a measure of this potential error, as individual values (for
|>|> the discerning user :-) ) or as a total?  Or is this in fact a feature
|>|> of some makes?  The error itself could be a statistical measure such
|>|> as 50%, standard deviation, 2 x sd, or whatever.  Preferrably such
|>|> weighting would be user selectable.
|>
|> You're quite right -- and so think some of the GPS manufacturers since I
|>remember that at least one brand has the ability to display such an
|>error-value.  Don't remember which one though. I probably saw it at the
|>Paris (France) Boat Show, where I must have seen at least 20 different
|>brands of GPS equipment.

	I worked with Stu Bell's Magellan 5000 GPS while crossing the Gulf of
Mexico.  There was a diagnostic mode that you could bring up that displayed
the quality (strength, signal/noise ratio) of the satellite signal on a scale
of 0-10, 0 being the worst, 10 the best; and the quality of the fix from that
satellite (again, 0-10).  Once I understood what it was trying to tell me, it
was much easier to discern whether a fix was trustworthy or not, or even how
bad it might be.

--
Dudley Knappe, Software Development Division            Cray Research, Inc.
Phone: (612) 683-5529                                   655F Lone Oak Drive
E-mail: dudley@cray.com or uunet!cray!dudley            Eagan, MN 55121
Newsgroups: rec.boats