Pilotage, Or An Old Argument Anew

Sailors who remember the days before GPS chart plotters, coincident with dinosaurs roaming the earth, worshipped their magnetic compasses. The compass, a delicate precision instrument, was often encased in a finely crafted mahogany box. It was cleaned and polished with every sail. In short, it was the sailors' lifeline home.

The syllabi of the generally excellent safe boating courses offered by the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary and the U.S. Power Squadron included long treatises on the care, correction and piloting by the magnetic compass. The Mnemonic universally taught was: Can Dead Men Vote Twice where:

C = Compass bearing
D = Deviation (difference between compass bearing and actual magnetic
bearing
M = Magnetic bearing
V = Variation (difference between magnetic north and true, geographic
north
T = True (geographic) north

I would argue for another form of compass error beyond Deviation and Variation. I will call it, for sake of argument, Argumentation.

Argumentation is the difference between my compass course and the course over ground (COG) reported by my GPS chart plotter. If, after all the careful calibration and correction applied to my compass reading there is still a variance between my calculated course and what the GPS reports, I am prone to argument.

Those who know me will agree that I can argue, loudly and vehemently, on almost any subject. My expertise in said subject is relevant only in that, the less I know the louder I become.

One advantage of being a singlehanded sailor is that I can argue, loudly and vehemently, with my compass, my GPS and all other navigational tools at my disposal and nobody, absolutely nobody, gives a damn.

Which brings me to a story: At my Dad's funeral, one of the attending ministers decided to tell Harold stories. He started off with "With Harold ya pretty much always knew where ya stood!" It went downhill from there.

Apparently, during discussion of a particularly contentious issue within the church, and elderly parishioner had said "I've been talking to God and He is very worried about this." Apparently Dad's reply was something to the effect of "Well, I've been talkin' to God too and He don't give a damn!"

Yep, that sounds like Dad.

Sadly, like father like son.