Your vessel is underway on a course of 323.5°T at a speed of 16 knots. At 1945 a light bears 350°T. At 2010 the light bears 008.5°T. What will be your distance off when abeam of the light?
• Running fix using bearings of a single object • Using course and speed to convert time run into distance run • Determining distance off abeam from changing true bearings
• How can you sketch your ship’s track as a straight line and plot the two bearings from the same fixed light to form a running fix? • What distance does the vessel travel between 1945 and 2010 at 16 knots, and how does that distance relate to the geometry between the two bearings? • When you are exactly abeam of the light, what is the relative bearing from your ship to the light, and how can you use that to find the perpendicular distance from your track to the light?
• Convert the time interval (1945–2010) to hours and then to distance run at 16 knots before doing any plotting or calculations. • Carefully note whether the bearings given are true bearings from the ship to the light, not from the light to the ship, and keep them consistent on your plot. • After plotting, verify that the distance you read off as distance abeam is a perpendicular distance from your track to the light, not the slant range along a bearing.
No comments yet
Be the first to share your thoughts!