DavidDavid

I am new here, so don't really want to upset folk here too much but being generous I would guess that Toerag made a few assumptions about your level of experiance when replying and perhaps could have phrased things a bit better - but probably had good intentions - as I am sure you are aware it can be easy for folk to get themselves into trouble on the water. For certain I will be asking lots of "dumb" help questions in the future, as having had a trawl through only part of this website I can see that my knowledge of the fishing side of things does pale somewhat compared to other folk here - even if in this thread I have a bit to contribute from just general "messing about in boats" for a few years (or so ) Sorry that I am too far away to help with the GPS in person.

Actually it's only Latitude that always equals 1 nautical mile.

Predator1 Bearing in mind the helpful I advise I got from my first post I guess it's only fair to chip in here. BTW my background is mainly on sailing boats, but also a fair bit on displacement speed MotorBoats. My advice is not to be put off by a GPS being "complicated". I can only use 10% of the functions on my mobile phone and never learned to programme a Video, but still have no problems using a GPS. I mainly use a Garmin 128, which is a fixed set (But I also have a handheld Garmin 12 - which operates basically with the same functions / system - I think thet go for about £100 - extra I think if you want to be able to plug it in to the boat) and I probably only use a fraction of it's capabilities (and they are not one of the more advanced models - been around for years and keep selling), but once the Way Points are in, it's very easy to use - I set most of mine by actually going to the places - it was easy enough to do and IMHO eliminates the risk of input error with the Lat and Longtitude(for me anyway!). I used to use it as a back up to the traditional way of navigating, but nowadays it is the other way around - the most useful function for me is the Compass Bearing and Speed over Ground - but this is because at 4 knots seeing you are picking up an extra Knot or so is a bit of a boost! But I still always know which direction I am meant to be heading before I set off and also keep an eye on the compass and a chart - especially in unfamilar places - and often plot a course to follow the "old fashioned" way. As already suggested making your Way Point off a Navigation Mark is not a bad idea, as nowadays the accuracy has gone up and to avoid hitting it or other boats heading for exactly the same Way point. I also figure that I know where to look to spot the buoy as often their is no real reason to have to go right up to it. As you can evidently navigate "the old fashioned way" IMHO you are 90% of the way their already, as you already know the concept of what the GPS is trying to do. Maybe the next time you are out and about with your Boat, try and approach someone for a chat and a quick lesson on their GPS (or your handheld)- at least to see what it is meant to do, so when you plod through the handbook you know what you are trying to do! IME most folk with boats are helpful enough to each other (and IME the smaller the boat the more helpful folk are). A Mate of mine (with a Channel Island 22) recently splashed out on a chart plotter (he likes buttons and flashing lights!)- first time I had ever used one for real - it wasn't top of the range (about £400 - and I can't remember the make), quite strange using it as we tried it out entering and leaving a Bay I had been in a million times before and I found we spent a lot of time trying to follow the course it had set, rather than looking out the window and using the MK1 eyeball and common sense. In fact as it could not allow for a strong tidal stream (it was "crabbing") we ended up having to alter course as I was not entirely comfortable with how close we were coming to the headland. It's easy to get sucked into thinking the machine is always right (IME it is right 99.99% of the time but not always in the way you assume - especially when tired). I remember years ago when sailing down to Spain and being appointed navigator having an argument with the Skipper who insisted that the GPS course that we were told to follow was correct to get us to La Coruna. He was right, except that the GPS was a basic model (Like my Garmin 128) and if we had followed the course we would have tried to cut straight accross a headland. The GPS of course did not have a map and was just plotting a straight line between two points. We were all very tired. Hope this helps a bit. [ 01. July 2005, 12:10 AM: Message edited by: DavidDavid ]

Thanks Folks "Sitting straight" is a good idea - and something I would hopefully see anyway, but (IME) always useful to point out the obvious! The speed thing is somethiing I had not thought about. Thanks a lot. HOPEFULLY!!! I would also be able to see if the boat struggled to get on a plane..............or fail altogether. The one I am sort of looking at has a 70 hp Suxuki 4 stroke - the seller says apparently good for cruising at approx 20 knots (without flogging it's n#t's out) with a top end of around 25ish - not being a motorboat man this sounds well "in the ball park" for a 17 foot dory. and also not far off the mark for the advice I have got here. The engine has a recent service history (from a firm I dealt with a few years ago - which gives me a great deal of comfort) - which I figure is where most of the value of this boat is..... just don't want to buy something with an immediate large bill - or which will "help" me learn to swim........ a couple of miles offshore! Thanks a lot = advice much appreciated.

sam-cox As this is my first post here I thought I would bang in some details about me and what I am doing before tapping your experiances. Most of my fishing in recent years has been done from sailing boats, which does restrict my "range" a bit from the purely fishing angle - I was thinking about getting another boat mainly for fishing, partly to keep the smell of fish away from the Sailing Boat (to make the missus a bit happier!) but also to open up my options a bit with something a lot faster (and give me the "excuse" to dissapear on a fishing trip without the missus wanting to come sailing) - for me 20 knots cruising would give me the range and time I would need to justify this. Unsurprisingly my budget is somewhat restricted - to the fairly low £000's. I was thinking that a Dory would do the job for me at the right price and assumed that Dell Quay was a fairly good brand (have seen them around for years) but was surprised to read about your problem with the foam core - but thinking about it a bit more, having already had an unfortunate experiance with a Yak dinghy and a harbour I guess I should not be surprised that double skinned boats where the insides are "out of sight out of mind" give trouble! My question (eventually!) is how did you know that the Foam was saturated? I saw Nogger's post about just walking around on Deck and checking for the deck flexing - Was this basically it? and was it VERY noticebale? or were their any other signs you found? The reason I ask is that a 17 foot Dell Quay has turned up locally - which I would have probably already gone for - if I had not seen your post. Replacing the foam sounds like a beggar of a job (to put it mildly!). Having a "heads up" before I start jumping up and down on the guys deck and then trying to work out if any slight movement is important would be helpful...... Having been around boats of various kinds since I was a kid, I kinda feel like I should know the answer to this - but as they say:- "the only dumb question is the one you don't ask!" Cheers and thanks a lot for any help. David