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Kayak spray decks make lousy chart tables. They are small, wet
and flexible. Let go of a tool or chart and it's overboard;
roll and everything is soaked. Most tools, like parallel rulers
and dividers, are designed for warm, dry navigation stations.
Fortunately, there are tools that work well with a spray-deck
navigation station, but you won't find them mentioned in the
average navigation book or at your local navigation course.
Tools
that work aboard a kayak have to be small, durable, and at least
water resistant, if not waterproof. You may want to make some
yourself, and even those available commercially may need or
benefit from modification. These tools are the ones that we
show students in courses on the Maine coast, where fog, big
tides and rocks make navigation especially interesting. Trips
start with charts. Government charts are printed on paper and,
when they get wet-which they will-they have to be dried carefully
or they become costly mush. Waterproofing them goes a long way
toward helping them survive immersion and mildew. The old waterproofing
mixes were pretty volatile, and they needed ventilation or you
lost brain cells, but the new waterproofing mixes are water-based
and easy to use. All you need is sponge brushes and a piece
of clean plywood to spread the charts out on. Charts need to
be folded to be usable on deck. When you fold them, the section
that you are using may lack important things like the compass
rose and the scale. So, before you waterproof your chart, it's
a good idea to look at it carefully and see where you might
want to add another compass rose.
You
can get a bunch of self-adhesive compass roses in a package.
Some care is needed to make sure that you line up the rose so
that north is in line with magnetic north, and so you don't
obscure key navigational information. I usually trim the roses
to get rid of extraneous printing that would obscure things
on the chart that I need to see. The numbers are pretty small
for aging eyes, so I mark the cardinal points with a green waterproof
fine-tipped marker. I favor green, as it will show up if I'm
using a red light at night to preserve my night vision. Before
waterproofing, you may want to consider whether you would like
to write any useful notes on the chart. And you might want to
add a scale or two. While all this can be done after the chart
has been treated, items you affix to the map will stick better
before the application of waterproofing. Let the waterproof
marker dry well before treating the chart, and don't rub any
of the marks before the waterproofing dries. You could also,
of course, use a pencil or a ballpoint pen, but they may not
be as legible as a waterproof marker against the chart's printing.
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