Going round in circles

[j.sabourn]

#4 That would have stumped many Ivan, no where to put the oil. How about the mercury rings. ? It was hard to beleive when the Armour Brown came out which was a small unit standing sometimes and on the chartroom table , as it was a sealed unit and required no maintainance. Was all science fiction coming true, only thing lacking was Dan Dare. JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Mate of my, ex Blue Star navigation officer, now does magnetic compass adjustments for a number of shipping companies.
He has told me on an umber of occasions that he is convinced the poles are moving or that there is some interference of some sort for some of the compasses to be so far out of alignment.
I have little concept of how the modern day ones work, did compass class at the Vindi and that is about it, but it could well be there ae some out there with ulterior motives.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#9 That would probably have been an 'Arkas' system Chris, Danish if I remember rightly can't think of anyone else who did magnetic compass auto pilots.

John, I think boxing-the-compass at Vindi may have been a little bit different to what a navigator was expected to know, gave many people nightmares and was a failing subject

[j.sabourn]

I would listen to what a lot of what he says John. If he has specialised in magnetic compass adjustments he could probably teach all of us a few things or two. As far as the gyro compass went it was for the second mate to solve for himself . I was lucky as on getting my second mates certificate the company sent me on a weeks course at Watford Junction in 1957, at the Browns factory where their compasses were constructed . Although I was third mate and not my job they were looking to the future when things looked a lot brighter. To show the difference in shipping there was a blue Flu electrician who I knew on the same course , and my continuous crib to the owners was why can’t the electrician do this maintainance he knows a damn sight more about electronics than I ever will. Anyhow all those shipowners and their followers with stars in their eyes are a long time gone, and today we have whizz kids pushing buttons. Cheers JS

For those who know absolutely nothing about the Gyro Compass. If I can’t remember correctly and if not someone else will correct. The principle is that if you have a fast spinning wheel then it’s axle will point to and maintain pointing at a fixed point in space. I may have the wrong way round but spinning a coin the Browns spun at 2000 revs. And the Sperrys at 600 revs . It took a number of hours for the axle to settle down , but could be done much quicker by precessing the compass with a pencil , the blunt end , by slight pressure on various parts , to 15 degrees off the meridian, it settled down within the hour this way much faster, that is of course if you had put the bits back correctly. If not you were back to the old faithful the standard or magnetic compass , and probably a man back on the wheel, so you were not the flavour of the month. Funny how people take umbrage so easily. Cheers JS

Ps as regards your mate the compass corrector John his voice will be like a voice in the wilderness , today unless you are part of a hysterical mob of fanatical assholes intent on mayhem , no one takes any notice. Cheers HS

[Chris Allman]

Hi Ivan just looked up some of my notes and it was in fact a Sperry Marine one - biggest load of S**t I was ever priviledged to work with. I have to say the addition of an Iron Mike to our company ships was a big improvement when they were on the gyro compass, thankfully the magnetic version was considered a failure and replaced with a gyro one.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#15 They were fine in fine weather Chris, but as soon as you hit bad weather with the vessel yawing backwards and forwards and the compass rose swinging in its alcohol the auto pilot started to chase it and never caught up, it was better to revert to helmsman. Only sailed with them on old steam powered Empire vessels with steam steering gear, engineers hated the auto pilot in bad weather as never stopped working. Trying to keep a straight course on an 8knot vessel in good weather was a challenge, never mind inclement weather. Even the dolphins never came near us, as no excitement for them crossing our bow!

[John Arton]

Here is the regs regarding navigational equipment on board.
As regards auto pilot driven by magnetic compass, i have sailed on a number of ships where the back up means of heading information for the auto pilot was from a transmitting magnetic compass device fitted to the standard magnetic compass on the monkey island. It worked quite well and did away with the requirements to have twin gyros to comply with SOLAS. Nowadays A.I.S. also can be used for heading information.
Rgds
J.A.
Solas Chapter V - Regulation 19 - Carriage requirements for shipborne navigational systems and equipment

[happy daze john in oz]

#9 That would probably have been an 'Arkas' system Chris, Danish if I remember rightly can't think of anyone else who did magnetic compass auto pilots.

John, I think boxing-the-compass at Vindi may have been a little bit different to what a navigator was expected to know, gave many people nightmares and was a failing subject

Ivan, ,I was catering but we still had to do the compass.
I was hauled up in front of on e of the officers who thought I was cheating as I was able to give readings..
Not the case, the info just stuck in my mind.