# How much value in traditional navigation plotting skills? **URL:** \ **Category:** Professional Mariner Forum\ **Created:** [May 31, 2022, 11:58pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/how-much-value-in-traditional-navigation-plotting-skills/63236 "2022-05-31T23:58:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 66
**Author:** ![Kennebec\_Captain](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.gcaptain.com/kennebec_captain/32/13_2.png) [@Kennebec\_Captain](https://forum.gcaptain.com/u/Kennebec_Captain)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2022, 3:43pm UTC](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/how-much-value-in-traditional-navigation-plotting-skills/63236/66 "2022-06-08T15:43:15Z")
It’s an interesting subject. Hutchins’ describes the process the Navy uses to maintain a nav plot in his book, the analog-digital-analog metaphor that I posted about here: > [@One Knot (could have been) Equal about 1.5 Degrees](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/one-knot-could-have-been-equal-about-1-5-degrees/59911/6): > > Sure, that’s what analog-to-digital means in electronics, but what does it mean in cognitive science? IDK that answer but Hutchins makes it clear what he means in the book. Here’s link to the pdf version: An alt-F search for “analog” tells the story. Hutchins says an analog to digital conversion is made when something is measured. [Hutchins\_5] When mooring if the vessel speed looks too fast by eye that’s analog, if the Doppler log is used that’s digital. From the book here’s an exam… The first time I sailed in Alaska was on a CG Cutter, right after I got out of the Navy’s QM “A” school. The next time in Alaska was the first time as mate on an Aleutian freighter. The captain (Doug) was an ex-fisherman, He only used visual information, either off the radar or out the window. Took me a while to adjust, didn’t have the tools I was accustomed to using (had charts, only a heads-up radar with fixed range rings, had a gyro so could orient the ship’s heading to the chart ). It wasn’t until after the gyro compass stopped functioning properly that I learned to navigate the same as Captain Doug was doing it, not only without a plot but also no way to orient for direction to use the chart, only visual and radar. A few years later I did get federal pilotage for some SE Alaska ports and the routes between them. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.gcaptain.com/t/how-much-value-in-traditional-navigation-plotting-skills/63236)._