Useful calculators

[Slayer]

This may be old news, but I just came across this link and thought it pretty cool:

Course to Steer Calculator


Not just this one calculator, but all of them.

[AdamLein]

On a related topic, I have a Dalton E6-B Flight Computer (looks like http://www.vandeenensupport.com/projects/rs/index.html). Came with the boat. Any thoughts on using for accounting for leeway and/or drift, or computing true wind from apparent, etc?

[hellosailor]

The "EB6" calculator from any pilot shop. That's a mechanical calculator, i.e. paper or plastic wheels on a card, that can give you a fast graphic solution, no power or internet access needed.

If there were no instructions with it, you can find them online. Weems & Plath sell a gen-you-whine nautical version, but they work the same way.

[Omatako]

I used the calculator to calculate the CTS using 1.5 knots of current from 135 degrees Magnetic and a boat speed of 6 knots and it replied with a CTS of 10.78 degrees towards the current.

WTF!

Firstly there isn't a helmsman that ever lived that could steer to 2 decimals of a degree and secondly, if you're going to offer to calculate a CTS then why not answer with a CTS and not with the angle you need to subtract from the widget and divide by the length of you whatsit to get to where your heading should be.

I never even bothered looking at the second calculator.

Sorry, not picking on anybody but geez . . . . .

[AdamLein]

Am I right in thinking that it thinks in term of the direction the current is coming from, rather than the direction the current is flowing to (i.e. the conventional way)?

[Melrna]

What these calculators don't account for is the polars of a boat's velocity. Now that would be a great calculator in determining how to get from point A to B.

[Boasun]

With my book "Formulae for the Mariner." I use a Casio fx-300ms caculator.
this is a wonderful book has just about all of your useful formulae in it. And note pages for other formulae you may want to add.
IMO, I find that it works better than any on line caculator.

[AdamLein]

Melrna: that would be great, but how would you input the polars? It's not like you could easily type them into a little box on the web page. As it is, the calculators don't take wind into account at all. But it sounds like an interesting challenge nonetheless.