Bob Davis's Boating Resume

Home Phone: (603) 778-0781
Office Phone: (603) 926-9696
Email address: bob@bobsbit.net

I started sailing in 1962 with my uncle in long island sound. He had a 30 foot yawl and we sailed from essex ct. to long island and surrounding areas. I sailed in 1972 with the same uncle when I was in the virgin islands. We sailed in the area of St.John. His boat was moored in Great Cruz Bay and we sailed pillsbury sound and the north and south shore. I was always the crew and he was the skipper. From the start I found navigation the most interesting and I was constantly "playing" with the navigation tools. In those days that meant rdf and parallel rules and dead reckoning. I then purchased a boat in 1983 while living in the Florida keys. It was a 24' snapdragon which is a twin keel boat. It sleeps five and is sloop rigged. I sailed in the Florida keys but my company moved me north and I brought my boat with me. I then moored my boat at dover point on the salmons fall river near to portsmouth nh. I sailed for 4 years in the portsmouth area. I had 3 kids and had to give up sailing for a while and I didnt sail until 2002 when I rented a boat in southwest harbor. Premiss an internation 600 37' bright hull wooden boat. Bright hull means that the whole hull is varnished and very beautifull. I skippered and sailed for 7 days and got a lot of experience with navigating in fog which was new for me since I was mostly a southern or day sailer. On at least 2 of the passages I used gps and radar for navigation and collision avoidance. I always bring my own chart kit and I also have my own gps and ipaq loaded with the maptech charts of the area. I find this actually better than the gps's I have seen on board most boats because the ipaq shows the full color charts the same as the paper charts. With the gps connected to the ipaq the display is updated continually. I always have my dividers and parallel line overlay handy just in case everything else fails. In 2003 I sailed for 1 week in penobscott bay. We had 1 day of fog and gps sailing. The boat had no navigation gear. I used my handheld gps and ipaq with nav charts to go from merchant row to rockland harbor.

Considerable experience with gps navigation. Both with the "old" gps without the mapping capability which meant you had to transfer the coordinates to the map. I have a garmin map 76cs which is loaded with all of the charts for the Maine coast. I have a number of harbor entrances on gps alone.Strangley enough they have all been in Maine while sailing rental boats.

Plenty of old fashioned dead reckoning. I forced the crew on our last trip to navigate by chart. We had been over relying on the gps for navigation and on the last day of our trip we were going north to buck harbor. The route I selected was through the channel between Great Spruce Head Island and Butter Island. We had the gps for backup but I showed how it was possible to miss the rocks by using sight lines from the shore. In other words we should be halfway between these two points of land. It is always good to have backup knowledge of how to navigate if all the electronics were to fail.

I have taken sights from the shore 30 years ago in the Florida Keys. I reduced them successfully to a 3 mile accuracy. I have not kept up this skill and would have to relearn this. I never tried to take a sight from a the deck of a rolling boat.