The Tracker program, has a problem that it does not tell the operator about.

The reason I noticed the error is that I had the route in one of my GPS-12's and its path directed us to the north of the Bayfield Shoal buoy, H43, in Lake Ontario, but the plot being plotted on the computer went to the south.

Below is what appeared on the screen even though we passed to the north of H43. One of the hints of a problem is that the path is a perfectly straight line and I seldom sail perfectly straight lines. At WP20 we had rebooted the Think Pad and the plotting corrected itself. This type of error happened on three separate occasions. Another was right after crossing Albemarle Sound. When we did the dog leg toward Elizabeth City, NC; the tracking continued north in a very straight line right up on land.



Note: There really should have been an alarm issued periodically indicating that it was still in dead reckoning.  There should be some indicator that can not be turned off by the operator..


This page was last updated on: January 4, 2017
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