Patent ID: 8543268

Claim:
A method for determining a cumulative lateral slide of a vessel, comprising: A. providing a first and a second positional sensor disposed at either end of the vessel, each of said positional sensors comprising a navigational radio receiver to receive navigational data, said positioning sensor adapted for using the navigational data to perform sub-steps of: i. periodically determining a terrestrial location of the positional sensor, ii. determining a terrestrial velocity of the positional sensor, and iii. transmitting the terrestrial location and the terrestrial velocity as formatted data; B. providing a computer having a processing unit and memory, the memory having embedded thereon instructions to repeat sub-steps of: i. inputting the formatted data from the first and second positional sensors, ii. determining a heading of the vessel, iii. determining a lateral velocity component of each of the velocities of the first and second positional sensors relative to the heading of the vessel, iv. determining a cumulative sum of absolute differences between the lateral components of the velocities of the first and second positional sensors, and v. outputting the cumulative sum.