Night navigation training exercise

Training exercise with both boats navigating to various coordinates issued by the SAR team operating out of the base. Five points were selected and fed to the team responsible for coordinating the rescue vessels. Key training points were:

• identify coordinate on paper chart at base
• cross reference it with TracPlus software on the computer
• task rescue vessels to go to the coordinate via a Lat/Lon reference or bearing + distance to travel
• vessels to report when arriving at destination
• SAR team to task vessel with gathering bearings and distances to key locations from their position
• SAR team to task vessels with next destination

Key skills required:

• radio communications - clear and concise
• chart work
• computer and software familiarisation for TracPlus software
• GPS chart plotter familiarisation - entering waypoints, etc
• etc