Navigation Planning: Course Description

Steven Henkind, M.D., Ph.D.

April 11, 2017

 

Beginning navigators tend to focus on two questions: 1) Where am I? and 2) Where do I want to go? Expert navigators, on the other hand, generally focus on a third question: 3) How do I get from where I am, to where I want to go? There is far more to this seemingly simple question, than it might appear. Indeed, many lives have been lost by choosing the wrong route, or by not even being aware of the options.

 

In this course, we describe a set of navigational strategies which can be used to answer the third question. These strategies are in common use by professional mariners (e.g., the U.S. Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine) as well as by some highly proficient recreational boaters … but little known by the typical recreational boater. Topics to be covered include:

  • Breaking a voyage into logical segments
  • Identifying critical constraints
  • Sources of information
  • Common misconceptions
  • Building the segments
  • Combining the segments into an overall plan