LETTERS

I am now fully retired and sail only as a leisure activity, but even after over 20 years of service as a seagoing Royal Navy officer, followed by a further 20 plus as a Yachtmaster instructor sailing. I endorse everything he says. I too, to my surprise, have come across those who place all their faith in chart plotters, GPS and AIS and who either carry no charts at all or who rarely look at them. Like him, I believe these instruments are a tremendous boon when ‘everything in the garden is rosy’, but they are not immune to failure. AIS in an approaching vessel can be switched off, and GPS has been subject to jamming by unfriendly powers and people of malicious intent.