How to Use GPS on a Sailboat

I bought my first big boat about one year ago for $200,000. It’s a 54-foot Hobbie Cat that I spent an entire summer working on fixing up. I had her repainted and purchased a whole new mast for her. She also needed some work on the interior because some of the paint had worn away and the upholstery needed to be redone. By the end of the improvements, I had a vessel worth more money than my house – and certainly requiring more TLC.

Knowing that this baby had taken all of my time and money, I wanted to devote an inordinate amount of time taking care of her. To me, taking care of her meant getting her out of the port and into the ocean.

I had been to Tortola, a small island in the British Virgin Islands, many years ago with my girlfriend. The seas around the island were crystal clear and spotted with smaller islands to enjoy. Our maiden voyage was to return to the island for a two-month stay of relaxation. My girlfriend and I decided that we would set sail together, trapped in the cabins of our newest toy together. The whole trip sounded like pure bliss to me.

We left from Connecticut in the mid-spring of the following year. Together, we spent our days sailing and anchored down in the evening. We installed the GPS system on the boat ourselves and had purchased the maps of the route before we left so that we would know exactly where we were. We both also read up on celestial and coastal navigation. It’s not that we didn’t trust GPS, but neither of us were familiar with it enough to want to totally rely on the technology.

The first night on the boat was amazing. We floated under the stars and tried to use our celestial navigation skills to pinpoint our location. We compared our guestimate with the location that the GPS technology told us we were. We were right on with our guess, which made of feel like true sailors.

The next day, we sailed right along the shore of the East Coast. At times, we got so close that we could actually see figures on the shore, but for the most part, we stayed about 5 miles off. Again, we compared our coastal navigation skills to the GPS technology and were pleased to see that both yielded the same result.

The GPS system was helpful along the entire trip. It told us how much further we needed to travel and notified us when we needed to turn the boat significantly in one direction or the other. We could also flip through maps to see what else we were close to on those lonely ocean waters.

GPS was especially helpful when we hit the islands and had to find our way around them to our preferred port in Tortola. Despite our ability to navigate through the islands, it was still tough to decipher which island was which. The GPS map took us right there, without much thought or skill on our end. We love it and would never even think about setting sail without it again!