: First, allow me to apologize in advance to the purists, Greenlanders, and
: anyone else that is offended by the very idea of electronics on a kayak. I
: promise you my interest is strictly academic.

Academic? Really? You mean that no matter how much good info we pass along you still aren't going to buy one?

: Can a handheld GPS eliminate the need for a compass? What are it`s
: shortcomings?

Others have weighed in on this already. Let me add a few points on GPS. Until a day last fall when my someone left the car unlocked I owned a Magellan GPS 315 for about 2 years. I never liked it in a boat, but I did like it in my car. A lot.

I got it for use at Scout Camp, where I was expecting to assist in teaching map and compass skills to the younger scouts in the troop. For giving me an idea of how much tromping around I was doing, it was great. I could turn it on, shove it in a pocket, and take a walk. Every once in a while I'd pull the thing out to see how fast I was going, and how far I had gone.

I did not take the GPS with when I went out on the trails on a mountain bike. I needed both hands to hold the handle bars.

When it came time for the "mile swim" I rowed the course (poorly -- I prefer to see where I'm going and to paddle) and checked the length. According to the GPS it was more like 3/4 mile, and the display of my track was pretty erratic, but I did not know that as I rowed, for I had no mount to set the GPS in.

In a boat you want your GPS mounted just like you would want your compass mounted: in front of you, aligned with the centerline of the boat, and plainly visible.

Build or buy a mount!

You asked about shortcomings, but let me tout advantages.

The GPS 315 has (as I recall) ten different screens that disply information you can use for navigation. You access them sequentially by pressing buttons on the face of the GPS. One of these screens is a simple, circular, compass face, with your heading indicated a bar through the center. i believe you can pick whether you want the ar to be steady ( in line with your boat) while the compass face rotates, or whether you want the compass oriented with North up and the bar to rotate. In either way, on the outside of the circle are symbols for the moon and sun, showing their positions in the heavens in relation to your course. These change constantly and slightly throughout the day. If the moon or sun is down, then no symbol shows. If the GPS shows the sun to e ahead of you and on the right, then align yourself so the real sun is ahead of you and on the right, and you'll paddle your course. If it says the sun should be behind you. then you can predict the direction your shadow should be when you see it laying on the deck -- and you paddle your course.

GPS really does some nice things through the marvels of mathematics, but in essence, all the tool does is tell you your location about once a second. It can calculate the distance between any two points by subtraction, and by knowing that each calculation was done in one second it can divide the change in distance by the time to give you your speed.

If you are going in pretty much a straight line at speeds of 30 mph or better it can give you some very accurate readings. I used to use mine to check the accuracy of my car and motorcycle speedometers. The odometers on the vehicles could not be so easily compared, as curves throw off the total distance on a GPS. It approximates them as a series of short straight lines -- and your speed determines how many points are measured while going through a curve.

The 315 was the cheapest unit available at the time that could be connected to a computer. while that allowed me to download information from the computer into the GPS -- like map data from a CD-Rom database of maps, it did not appear to allow me to save my trip data back onto my computer. A friend who owned the same model GPS and was into programming was going to try writing a program to do that, but I never heard if he succeeded.

One feature that was mentioned and which I wanted to try: supposedly you could scan in a map -- even a hand drawn one -- and if you knew the positions of two points on that map the software would scale the map to fit the GPS memory, and load it up. So, I could conceiveably scan in a topographic map and have that as a back ground on the GPS screen -- with my movements displayed on top of it. Or, i could scan in a free state roadmap, etc.

: What kind do you like?

Umm. in case i didn't mention it, I liked the magellan 315. i've been checking e-bay for a used one, and I might check the local pawn shops. who knows, I might just find one that has been hocked which has waypoints stored on it that look familiar to me.

: Any opinions on small, reliable, handheld VHF radios?

A VHF radio is useless on the inland waters I paddle: small lakes and rivers. A GPS is nice for identifying locations to return to -- good fishing spots, for example.

There are other radios, however. Between boats in a group I think using the small walkie talkies that are becoming rather cheap would be the way to go. I believe they are called FRS (family Radio System?) radios. Kinda like CB, but higher frequency and clearer transmission, though for only about a mile or two. Motorola Talkabouts are the big names in these things, but I bought two Cobra brand ones for $10 each and love them. I use them to talk between cars when traveling down the road with a friend in another vehicle. The older scouts use them to contact people at the waterfront, or the mess hall. On the road, it is far cheaper than a cell phone conversation -- although the cell phone is handy for when the other party in your mini-convoy gets too far ahead, or astern. Keeping up a conversation between drivers helps to avoid boredom, and the accidents that might follow. On the water, some people like the sound of the water and wind, and others like to be able to chat constantly. If you are dwaling with people who like yto chat you can at least paddle at your own speed, and not need to stay locked alongside them.

As for their use in safety, consider the case of the last boat in a group of 4 noticing that the front boat has taken the wrong turn. A mad dash to catch up to the leader -- which might be interpreted as a challenge to race -- is avoided.

hope this helped.

PGJ