After all, the Navy's last sail-powered ship, the Severn, was towed away in 1909. Machines are useful, but fallible. Sailors of small boats develop a keen eye and acute feel for the power of wind and water that translates into a knack for handling big ships. Seasoned sailors can feel the current begin to twist a ship in a narrow channel, can foresee the collision course of an oncoming vessel, can sense how the wind will affect a tricky high-seas maneuver. Machines often can tell you where you are.
Sailors know where they're headed.
That only comes with experience. And some say that today's young naval officers don't get enough of it. There's not enough money, not enough time to teach sailing, and the temptation is to rely on technology. Warren Mazanec, a submarine officer who teaches math and sailing at the academy. If people spent more time looking and understanding what they are seeing, there'd probably be fewer incidents out there in the fleet.