This bulletin board, hosted by the CDSOA, Inc., is the on-line meeting place for all Cape Dory owners and groups. We welcome everyone's questions, answers and comments about Cape Dory sailboat
John Stone wrote:Outstanding! Awesome compass with compensators too.
One thing I am glad not to have to deal with anymore is compensating a magnetic compass on a steel boat. What a headache! One problem with steel boats is that, if they are kept at a dock pointing in the same direction for a period of time, the earth's magnetic field induces a long-term magnetic field in the hull, which which screws with the compass compensation. Then when the boat is out underway or swinging at anchor for long periods of time the hull's magnetic field changes again. The US Navy used to have dedicated degaussing stations around the world for this reason (and for protection from magnetic submerged mines.) Look closely at the rectangular instrument below the 3 circular instruments--that's a dedicated flux gate compass that was installed to get around the magnetic compass problems. (Flux gate compasses are much more easily compensated than magnetic ones.) Just one of the many reasons I now sail a tiny plastic boat instead of a big steel one.
Smooth sailing,
Jim
That sounds like a real PITA. But, it's still a very cool compass. Those that came before us figured out solutions to problems with generally simple effective solutions. We seem to make so many things unnecessarily complicated.