Your Survival Guy got caught up in some fog Saturday afternoon halfway through our trip from Newport to Mattapoisett. All was clear while preparing to leave the dock, but I heard the fog horn faintly in the distance. We were cruising right along, and then, on the horizon, we could see the dark fog cloud rolling in. I turned on the radar which overlays the chart plotter map, and had a few minutes to get my bearings just using the electronics.
One of my biggest fears in fog is other boaters. Sometimes all the technology in the world isn’t enough. I relate it to SUVs with four-wheel drive flying through the snow on the highway. At those speeds, it doesn’t matter, rubber will slip on snow, preventing any vehicle from stopping on a dime. When you’re boating, and you can barely see in the fog, you have to use all your senses, and the more eyes you have on board looking in all directions, the better.
One of my navigation rules in the fog is to make my marks with a visual confirmation. I’ve been fishing before on a clear blue bird day and know chart plotters can be off by a surprisingly large distance. In the fog, everything needs to slow down, and I start confirming positioning with my own eyes if I can. I’ve seen too many boats hung up the rocks, and when the fog clears, their captains are wondering how did that happen? It does.
Action Line: When you’re investing, you want a captain doing the visual confirmations. Robo-advisers could put you on the rocks. Let’s talk.
Originally posted on Your Survival Guy.
