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Old 04-10-2016, 12:04 PM   #27
Descant
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Join Date: Mar 2006
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Default Which side?

There are numerous examples around Winni where the Red SW and Black NE are subject to interpretation. On the south side of Welch Island, essentially where there are no other buoys to add to the confusion, you go South and West of FL47, a red top spar. Perfect. Not far away is black top FL76 where you want to be south and east, not north. Like many many buoys, the intent is simply to keep you offshore and to give a little guidance as to how far offshore you need to be to have consistently deep water. Sometimes, that means stay way off one landmass and close to another, e.g between Farm and Chase Islands (see separate thread).

Bottom line, NSEW is important, but ONLY if you're using both compass AND chart. And remember that north is not exactly at the top of the page; the lake presentation is rotated several degrees to better fit on a rectangular piece of paper. And most of us don't compensate our compasses, either.

Out riding on Ossipee with a friend a few years ago, we went to what I thought was the wrong side of a buoy. I asked and he said a lot of the buoys could be passed on either side, they were placed on top of the obstruction. Local knowledge. What you learn here may not apply elsewhere.
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