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The Dangers of GPS


Subdeacon Joe

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unmarked air strip? no tower yep must be a drug run

 

Student pilot huh where was the instructor?

 

Not clear but it looks like the instructor if there ever was one forgot to teach him how to put his landing gear down.

(Unless it collapsed.)

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Not clear but it looks like the instructor if there ever was one forgot to teach him how to put his landing gear down.

(Unless it collapsed.)

There are two different stories on that page: one about an emergency landing, and one about the lost guy. I was confused at first, too.

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Sailed from Bimini to Lake Worth (Palm Beach), Florida, in '97, just beating a thunderstorm to get the hook down. We were talking on the VHF with another sailboat, about 10 miles back throughout the passage. As we were approaching the inlet about sunset, he started making noises that I had passed the harbor entrance.

 

I went below, checked my chart, and checked the waypoints on my GPS, and we were fine. I asked the Latitude & Longitude of his waypoint - and it was six miles south of the entrance buoy. If we hadn't caught the error, he would have piled up on the beach in a very violent thunderstorm. As it was, it was hairy enough for him to run the entrance in the dark with all the city lights behind the channel markers, and find a place to anchor.

 

Lesson: never believe waypoints that you extract from a book. Do your own navigation. He was using numbers from a cruising guide to set the waypoint on his GPS.

 

Buena suerte,

eGG

(who, right now, is homesick for the cruising life)

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