Boot Key Harbor
"Marathon- the Heart of the Florida Keys"

An On-Line Cruising Guide for the Florida Keys & Cuba
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Boating Safety – GPS

Most people think of GPS as a navigational tool, not a safety consideration. Of course it’s purpose is navigation, but integrating it’s use into your day to day boating practices is a definite enhancement to safety. One of the weak spots I’ve noticed in the USPS boating courses (otherwise excellent), is the lack of integration of GPS or even LORAN into other procedures. Although you do have to know how to operate your own unit, and each unit is different, it’s also useful to think about WHEN you use the various functions of your GPS. I just finished teaching the segment of the boating course that teaches Man OverBoard (MOB) procedures. Do you realize that not one mention of the use of the MOB buttons on GPS is made in the written materials? When you review your MOB procedures with your friends & family (you do review this don’t you?), then don’t forget to incorporate pushing the MOB button just as you come back on the throttles. This could be critically important if you can’t find your missing person in a couple minutes or less. How about going under close tolerance bridges? Many GPS units have a tide database in them. Though you should always take the accuracy with a grain of salt and check them out, it’s extremely useful to push the button and check on tide height before you go under the bridge – so much easier than scrambling for tide tables and doing extrapolations. How about Anchor Watch alarms? Concerned about dragging during the night? Of course you should ensure the anchor is properly set and checked against a range, but using this alarm on your GPS is added insurance, and since the SA has been turned off you don’t get so many false alarms. Even when we cross to Cuba I don’t routinely do hourly DR’s and plot a classic course on paper. I use the GPS – but don’t stop there. I write down the GPS lat/lon every hour in the log and keep the paper chart handy. It’s not a question of whether GPS will fail – just when, and having 3 GPS’s won’t help you if it’s the system itself that goes down. And most importantly for safety – use GPS to advantage, but don’t stick your neck out by relying on it if you can’t properly navigate without it on a moment’s notice.

Gregory Absten, Commander