Submarine Navigation
Today’s talk was given to us by Captain Mark Cooper RN(Retired)
Our speaker today attended Dartmouth Naval College 1983-84 and went on to an illustrious career in submarines leading to his appointment in 2001 as the Comanding Officer in the submarine HMS Torbay.
After retirement from the Navy he became the Dart Harbour Master/Pilot.
Tony Taft (who also took today’s photo) writes:
Today’s talk by captain Mark Cooper was about his time in the navy as navigator on submarines.
Gone are the days like in the BBC comedy The Navy Lark when Leslie Phillips used to navigate with “left hand down a bit right hand down a bit OOPS”
Today’s navigator has to rely on up to date charts, sophisticated technology and a brain like a computer,
I found a lot of his explanations about latitude and longitude a bit hard for my brain to cope with, I’m afraid the hard drive in my brain turned to floppy disk many years ago ( it comes to us all ).
Some of our club members did understand what he was talking about and were exchanging stories and information with the speaker, so clearly we have some clever people in our midst.
Mark gave us plenty of visual information on the screen which helped greatly with the talk
It gives us some comfort knowing that people like Mark are instrumental in making this world a safer place.
Paignton Probus Club 