Sailing with Attitude - Highs and Lows
Pemandia
Peter Fabricius
Mon 6 May 2024 02:34
Last year we replaced all the electronic instruments on the boat - GPS, wind vane, log, radar and chart plotter etc. The new ‘black boxes’ are as you’d expect vastly cleverer than the 15 year old previous kit, and can help decision making so much more. I was exploring the capabilities and came across a data output called Attitude. What on earth? Had Big Brother arrived, reading my mind to check I was feeling jolly and enjoying it all. I clicked on the selection to see if the number would help me see what it meant. My attitude was 1.3 so I was none the wiser. I re-checked, this time with reading glasses. ATTitude was actually ALTitude! So it isn’t about sailing with attitude, it is about the highs and lows. 1.3 metres is the height above water of the GPS sensor!!! But why have that as a data choice? For when I sail up Mount Everest? Or perhaps to measure at the top and bottom of the waves? I really don’t know what altitude and the highs are about.
The low of course was needing reading glasses at almost 71 yrs old!!!!
Hey Ho, It is 3;30 AM, so excuse the outbreak of madness. Incidentally we have lost the wind and been motoring for a couple of hours.
Peter
Peter Fabricius
Yacht Pemandia