Why are compass bearings important?
If the GPS goes dead, you should plot bearings to find your position. NavPak is one of the very few ECS programs that plots compass bearings. Most programs will show a line from the boat to the cursor position, but what is needed is to plot bearings. You need to be able to click on a point, like a lighthouse or peak, enter the bearing and then the program draws a line across the chart, corrected for magnetic variation. Bearings can also be used to check the datum shift of a chart without a known position.
