We were practising quick courses to steer and working up our estimated positions in the west Solent a few weeks ago.

I always have two sets of charts for these exercises. You can have one navigator planning where to go on one chart with a second using the basic data of start point, course steered, speed, leeway, tidal set and drift working out where we are going to end up.

It is vital in the course to steer exercise that the navigator, having drawn in the line on the chart of the course he wishes to make good, then checks that there are no dangers anywhere close to that line.

It is no use just checking for charted depths, all dangers must be searched for and this includes, in particular, those hard metal objects which in strong tides can attract a boat like a magnet to a hunk of iron.

I was down below reminding a Yachtmaster Coastal of the procedure he needed to follow and happened to glance out of the window to see something like the view in the picture.

There were two others on deck. It was raining a bit, but not much. The helm, in his keenness to steer the course ordered was, with dogged determination, gripping the tiller and concentrating on the bulkhead mounted compass to the exclusion of everything else.

The fourth crew member was sheltering from the rain under the spray hood. So a proper lookout was not being maintained.

We were lucky. We cleared the buoy by a couple of feet. There was no hurt to the boat but an excellent lesson was learnt.

My maxim when well out to sea is that a complete scan of the horizon is made every 15 minutes. I say this because modern commercial vessels travel at about 25 – 30 knots. They will therefore cover the distance from being mast down on the horizon to where you are in 18 minutes or so.

It is a very rough rule of thumb but if you have two on watch and they make their checks alternatively, there is a good chance that a vessel will be seen in good time.

In waters close to home it is a totally different kettle of fish. Bearing in mind that all tidal predictions are very much approximations and you can be taken into shallows or close to a navigational mark by tide too easily, you must exercise extra care.

There will be many more vessels around particularly in the more popular sailing areas and so my rule on a busy day is that a permanent lookout is maintained especially on the leeward side where hazards can be hidden from the helmsman’s view.

Liferaft position

I have been helping a friend kit out a new boat he has just bought.

We have been discussing the various places he can keep his liferaft, an eight man canister.

His crew are not the sort who pump iron each morning and therefore the raft must be positioned so that it can be easily manhandled into the sea.

The sugar scoop looks a good starter but space is not generous. It could be attached to the pushpit, but I have my doubts about its strength. There could be quite a strain in a heavy sea.

Wherever you are going to store your liferaft it is essential that you check with the manufacturer that it can be stored on its side, and if it can be, which part should be upper most.

I remember reading some time ago of a yacht which lost its keel. The liferaft was transom mounted, but once the boat was inverted, the liferaft was not easily accessible.

There was no HRU (hydrostatic release unit). If a yacht sinks, the water pressure should, within four metres, activate a sharp knife which cuts a rope and the liferaft will float free. As the yacht sinks, the liferaft painter line will be stretched and the raft starts to inflate. A weak link breaks and the liferaft can then be boarded.

Tap the glass

The barometer is one of the most important items in a boat’s inventory.

On long passages, it is one of those checks made every hour and if there has been a major change in pressure the watch is told to wake me.

Brief your crew to tap the barometer before each reading because it overcomes static friction.

My brief to my crew is to indicate with arrows up or down by the pressure reading in the log to show what is happening.

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