Navigation Voyage Tips and guide

Mankind's eternal questions Where am I? Where am I going? How do I get there? can, at least in a strictly literal sense, be answered by navigation. The art of navigation developed with boat travel (navis is Latin for "boat"), but independent travelers also need navigation skills for hiking, driving, air travel or space travel.

Maps are often tailored for specific activities and modes of transportation. The prime design choice is to balance the amount of information to include against how easy it is to grasp; a cluttered map is difficult to use. Somebody who is to drive along highways needs to easily discern major cities and road numbers, which are clearly signposted on the road, and other features can be added to the extent they don't interfere with this. A biker needs a map that tells about cycleways, usable highway shoulders, usable minor roads, and topography. A traveller with a tent or caravan needs to know about campsites, of little importance to others.

Symbology can vary considerably between map types and scales, regions, and publishers. Any decent paper map will include a legend with a key to explain the meanings of the used colors and symbols. General-purpose online maps and navigation apps like Google Maps, on the other hand, tend to let users guess the meaning of their vastly simplified color schemes and icon sets.

Orienteering is navigation across terrain using a map and, when needed, a compass.

Satellite navigation, or using GPS, finds your position with the help of a device that can receive signals from navigational satellites. The devices integrate with maps to show you where you are and calculate a route to your destination. GPS navigation is often straightforward and easy, but there are some major pitfalls, so take time to understand your device and be prepared when it does not give you correct coordinates.

Driving a boat in open waters in good weather seems trivial. And in fog and more complicated environments we have the GPS, haven't we? With good luck advanced navigation skills may be unnecessary most of the time, but the GPS will eventually fail, you will have erroneous GPS maps or you will get lost or stranded for other reasons.

By learning to navigate you will be able to handle navigation without much equipment, and also learn techniques to evaluate the output and advice of any tools, get the practice to use those techniques unconsciously or otherwise automatically and get a better understanding of your environment. Knowing the old ways and to get everything out of modern tools is also fun – and having a certificate on seamanship skills is often necessary to get to charter a boat without paying for a crew.

For the more seasoned boater, there may still be some surprises in foreign waters, such as tidal currents for those used to inland waters.

For any navigation out of familiar waters you need charts. For the ocean there are charts for most of the world from a few sources, while for coastal and inland waters you will mostly need local charts. There has been very much effort in standardization, but charts still differ, both in appearance and quality.

Relying on just electronic charts has become common. While they may be regularly updated without need for manual intervention (if your subscriptions and internet connections are in order), this is not without risks. The obvious one is that your devices, or your electric system in general, may fail. Another problem is that few recreational boaters have screens as large as paper charts. To get the whole picture you may need to zoom out to a point where some critical information is lost. This is especially true in archipelagos such as those of the Nordic countries.

On any ocean coast there are tidal currents, which have to be taken into account by applying tables in sometimes complicated ways. The currents in rivers are self-evident, but there are also other kinds of currents, caused e.g. by wind and air pressure systems, like tidal currents much more pronounced in certain narrow or shallow passages.

GPS navigation and autopilots have become very common, so understanding their limitations is very important. In addition to the risk of total failure (sea water, even as found in cabin air, is bad for electronics, for one), there are many ways in which the tools work in a way not intuitive without much practice. You need to be able to get by without the tools in any circumstances.

In times of conflict the GPS signal may be jammed, leaving the device to give up or just guess you position – the latter probably the default mode of many devices. Even worse: GPS spoofing, where the device is lured into reporting wrong positions, has become commonplace in some regions in the 2020s. Everything may seem to be OK until your boat actually deviates from the fairway – make sure you notice that happening before you run aground. Boaters on the Baltic Sea have been warned for jamming events, and they are possible anywhere where someone with a suitable sender wants to cause trouble.

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